Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> One day you have kente cloths and taking the knee everywhere,

Voluntary actions including a protest against police brutality ..

> and before you know it, right-winger bloggers are running the law enforcement.

.. versus the pro-brutality side of the argument. Social media has made it more acute, but the same line runs through e.g. the pre-social-media Rodney King riots. I think people mistook a suppressed problem for stability.

Of course, suppressing problems works quite well for stability. We can see in Hong Kong how having several tower blocks burn down might be destabilizing. There were calls for accountability. Accountability would be destabilizing to the political and real estate elite, so that can't happen and now everyone is quietly agreeing that it was just a tragic accident, no need to investigate further.



There is no society without suppressed problems, but that does not rule out the social media contagion either.

Every real problem can be made worse by putting histrionic personalities in charge, and the current digital environment promotes and rewards hysteria.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: