The problem with accelerating is that you can accelerate to a disaster. There are always options to be made, and paths available that should be refused. Pausing to think about it is a good idea. Propaganda is an old, old game. People get used to it, and built up immunity to it. People as a society also. But that takes time.
Developing that "immunity" comes with the danger of cynicism and detachment, sure. But ultimately people will be forced to participate in politics because they need to. So let them have their time. Let them be manipulated fools. Let them be cynics. And let them get over it. I believe that one great benefit of the modern inversion of the population pyramid is that people in that later stages of life where they think over issues, and are willing (again) to participate and rather immune to being fooled, has gained weight.
Thump's "support" is more of a f-you than real support for what is supposed to be his ideas. Many of those who voted for him knew they were electing a con man, it was just that there were no credible alternatives. I'm more worried about the effect of "fake news" in countries like Brazil than in places such as the US or Europe.
just to clarify: I am all for societal acceleration, but industrial and technological deceleration. I think that much is obvious from my posts, with how much I focus on the environment and my fear of technology and so forth. I do agree with you, in fact I will go farther: acceleration neccessarily leads to disaster. in this case a social disaster. Baudrillard has identified the "death of the social" (easy to misunderstand, hard to understand concept) in the 80s, but I think it's only now becoming more and more obvious with Twitter activism, capitalist-funded identity politics, lack of participation in politics and grassroots movements and so forth. So in a way I think we are saying similiar things. Quoting you: "ultimately people will be forced to participate [...] because they need to". Fully agreed. It's just that I think the societal apocalypse has long happened, we just didn't notice it. The crucial moment was not the death of the social or the erosion of truth, it will be our awakening, our resistance against precisely those phenomena. I also do agree that people build up a sort of sixth sense for propaganda. But in that regard we also have to acknowledge that "propaganda" itself is evolving at a rapid pace, which means we might not even be able to keep up with it. Psychological mechanisms of control have become so effective in that they have become voluntary:
we voluntarily use the services of facebook, google and amazon. we are the authors of being controlled: we let corporations know where we are at all times, what is on our mind, what are our desires, who we talk to and for how long, what websites we visit, what questions we ask ourselves, what products we like and dislike, and, through our patterns, many, many more things can be deduced.
even those people that try to flee the society of control are hopeless. the golden state killer was caught because of DNA, but he had never ever submitted his. what happened? well, a few of his distant relatives sent a DNA sample to 23andme. that's literally all it took. two or three stupid relatives of yours want to know about their """ancestry""" and suddenly the police can identify your DNA everywhere. passengers now routinely have their face scanned at airports without even being asked to consent. there are millions of other examples, but I think I drove home my point.
I also agree with your point on Trump, I think a lot of people willingly voted for a con-man, because they saw it as a big middle finger to the opposite team. I, however, heavily disagree with your point about the "inversion of the population pyramid". It is only very, very few older folks like you and Hrothbern who are actively interested in politics and who haven't already decided their opinion decades ago. I don't think people think more about those issues in later stages of their life, they think less about them. I don't think they're more willing to participate, I think they're more likely to, and have a vested interest in, not changing a damn thing
orange man good!
