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Comment by ADeerAppeared

2 years ago

Besides the things other comments mentioned: There is a longstanding sentiment that "It can't happen here".

The wider public in America more or less blocks out the risks involved. "They're not actually going to blow up the power grid."

Hell, just look at the tech industry. Endless whining about not needing to be regulated, and what have they done? Built an enormous surveilance machine, lead by executives who preemptively kowtow to any authoritarian leader. Europe's attempt to regulate this is still angrily opposed by heaps, even on this very site.

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ADeerAppeared

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toss1  2 years ago

Yup

Normalcy bias — it's an absolute killer. The same cognitive failure that has people in a fire thinking it's "just part of the show", or "just something in the kitchen", until it is too late, and panic overtakes everyone. I've never seen a story of a fire where someone in the situation said "I wasn't sure what was going on, but it didn't seem good so I left early, I'm alive because I did!".

Normalcy bias can kill us all if we aren't careful.

refulgentis  2 years ago

Thanks for writing this: things are quite askew right now for various reasons, and it was unexpectedly affirming to hear someone say it loud.

Until now I would have said this is an extreme minority view, even though it's quite obvious and aligns with the core values I've seen on this site over the last 15 years, and thus presumed were tech in general's view.

Maybe I just need to get off X, the Everything App™, 90% of my news consumption and commentary is through there.

  • linuxhansl  2 years ago

    I dropped of Twitter, and Facebook in 2014 (or around that time); and I have not missed a single important event since then.

    People think they need Facebook, X, whatever to stay up to date. Not so. I have a few online newspapers/sites I scan a few times a week, and that's it.

    IMHO (and it's really just MO), Twitter, Facebook and alike are a 100% useless waste of time. (Maybe Facebook had some use in the beginning for staying in contact with more "friends" than I could have by other means.)

    I feel better for it. And as I said, I will guarantee you that won't miss anything important going on.

    • lgbrandon  2 years ago

      This people would be 100% better off. Not consuming the garbage. I tried to just follow tech peeps on X. Now it is nonstop propaganda even just following a niche.

      2 replies →

  • rcruzeiro  2 years ago

    Come to Bluesky. It’s not perfect, but neither was twitter 10 year ago. Bluesky feels a bit like that.

    • jajko  2 years ago

      As somebody who successfully avoided twitter stuff my whole life - whats the lure of this? Following some folks reading some random brainfarts is not how I imagine spending my time, and that's all I can see on this. Maybe I have just different type of personality than target audience.

      Or is it so addictive like social networks seem to be?

      2 replies →