Despite not subscribing to political communities and having a large number of content filters based on keywords, my feed here is still for a large part all negative articles and ragebait. Elon Musk this and Israel that. Microsoft ruining windows, AI ruining internet, right wingers and capitalism ruining the world, police being racist and shooting innocent people, companies demanding workers into offices, privacy being under constant attack from all sides… And all this despite the effort I go thru to block that from my view. I can only imagine what the unfiltered feed is like.
I get that this is all important stuff but holy shit it’s depressing when that’s all I read here every day. Sure, some of it is legitimately news worthy but lets be real here; much of it isn’t. It’s just to get you riled up and engaging with the post. It’s the exact same thing all major social media recommendation algorithms are doing; feeding you content that causes outrage to keep you on the platform for as long as possible. Do we really need to know about every stupid thing Elon says or every police shooting where the victim is black?
It’s no wonder so many people, especially younger ones feel absolutely miserable from day to day. It can’t be healthy to live like this. I feel like this kind of media diet is pretty much equivalent to eating fast food every single day.
Politics are dumb but very, very important. I’m exhausted, but I can’t let that stop me.
I know that saying well.
And I agree. You are not learning to understand politics because you think you’re going to run for office and change the world, you learn so you understand what’s actually going on and so you can help educate others.
Seriously, everyone out there who rather just block out anything to do with politics and society and are overwhelmed by the idea of finding the path to least harm, you are only going to make your insecurity and anxiety around politics worse by ignoring it or condemning it when you see it. Forming strong values around your axioms is politics, and when you find a confident stance like “Do good things, don’t do bad things” and learn what consequences are of different attitudes and actions, you become a LOT more complete and confident and less likely to be absolutely railroaded by the very real forces out there who will exploit your apathy. It doesn’t mean you have to preach or lecture anyone, just know how things work.
Sitting it out, ignoring it, hiding from it… that feels like you’re escaping, but you are just playing into the plans of those who need you to be apathetic. You don’t get out of taking a side here, so start learning.
What is consuming everything actually doing for you? Like, how is it benefiting? What positive actions does it inspire that lead you to creating a better world?
If you aren’t informed, your choices are more likely to cause harm
Personal insecurity comes from lack of understanding of systems that impact you.
Everyone has different needs and wants out of their society, but we all have the same axioms. Learning how to connect your axioms to your political identity is a very strong way to feel more connected to your community and the people you care about. Learning how the world works can help guide choices and support others who may also be struggling. Understanding how politics and sociology work gives you a window into how people are motivated and you will make better decisions.
And more than anything, the MOST important part of learning how the world functions and how science, politics, religion, emotion and relationships are all tied to each other, is that it defends you against bullshit and lies.
You and I are very vulnerable to the way others can trigger emotional responses and then use those feelings to explain an agenda. People do this all day long, every day, on every side of the political spectrum, and it’s VERY easy to get pulled into these clubs and communities, most of which are either scams or grifts trying to sell you something or trying to get you to become a walking advertisement for what they’re selling.
The problem with politics on lemmy is that it isn’t a discussion at all, but a one-sided circle jerk. Almost every post is some flavor of Right Wing Bad, and any attempt at nuance or calling out hypocrisy results in a sea of downvotes and what appears to be shadow bans. There are no dissenting opinions allowed. If you spend your time consuming heavily moderated and filters content, it’s going to produce anxiety. But more importantly, it isn’t even reality.