Culture

Hate Makes More Money Than Love… and Moves Faster

That's why hate is winning in America, where money and speed matter so much.
By
Hate online, hatred online, hate on Facebook, online social media, Facebook, news on Facebook, online trolling, tech news, latest news, William Softky

© asiandelight

July 17, 2020 15:47 EDT
Print

Everyone in business knows that as a general principle, the fastest-spreading, most revenue-positive ventures and messages wind up having the most influence. That’s true not just for individual people, but for businesses, business models, technologies, communications protocols, you name it. Fast replication and copious resources have always been the keys to evolutionary advantage in any ecosystem.

Presumably, that same obviousness applies to love vs. hate, both as principles and as messages. Hate seems to be rising everywhere, much of it transmitted through profit-making media. Could speed and money be part of that rise?


Is This Column a Coherent Perspective?

READ MORE


First, let’s take speed. Love grows slowly over countless micro-interactions, so it takes days and years of physical proximity for real love to evolve and grow — deeply-connected love, the kind rooted in the continuous-time nervous system, the parasympathetic (“rest/digest”) nervous system. That reciprocity could not possibly accumulate through a one-way medium, whether broadcast or narrowcast.

Fear, on the other hand, can travel quickly. (See here for an example of a gazelle’s white tail flashing alarm to the herd.) Alarms, like fear, travel just fine through one-way media because they are one-way messages aimed at the exception-handling nervous system — the sympathetic system (“fight/flight/freeze”). And they travel fast.

Now, take money and why love makes less of it. Love is subtle and becomes more so over time. After a while, love isn’t “news” or even still exciting. What mostly grabs attention and money are (again) surprise and alarm, which tilt toward fear, anger and hate. Alarming and divisive messages, being sudden, trigger the sympathetic system and with it our attention, engagement and resources.

Of course, we pay attention to sudden bad news and become anxious or fearful because that’s how the system evolved. But it evolved in the natural world where the only news came from fellow creatures nearby.  Our paleo ancestors didn’t have the internet.

“User Engagement”

Today, such paying attention is called “user engagement,” and that’s how firms such as Facebook make money. User engagement pays the bills. So, it’s no surprise that Facebook and similar tech companies try their best to make us pay attention, mostly by selecting and rearranging what we see to make us more interested. The algorithms which do that — which optimize user-engagement metrics and thereby boost profitable messages — also boost divisive messages.

In fact, as you might expect, they also boost actual divisiveness among the people who see those messages, which in large enough numbers have boosted actual attacks and killings in parts of the world. In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman documented that Facebook has known for years that user-engagement revenue was blood money but kept chasing it anyway.

Unfortunately, what’s good for Facebook revenue is bad for human beings. Our alarm-detecting sympathetic nervous systems evolved to be used sparingly on rare occasions, not all day, every day. Humans evolved to play, cuddle and forage without interruptions, rules or deadlines. We evolved for a world with familiar people nearby and without news from afar. And without video recordings. Innocent paleo humans weren’t meant to know all the horrible events anywhere in the world all at once. And we certainly weren’t meant to see them in graphic detail.

In sum, hate in America is growing so fast because modern communications and monetization systems — in combination — are exploiting and saturating the alarm-producing parts of our nervous systems and starving the love-producing parts. This endgame is the engine of capitalism vs. human sensitivity.

If our brains evolved to mostly love but technology transmits mostly hate, which will win in the long run? Meanwhile, what will happen to the budding nervous systems of babies and children who grow up never knowing peace of mind?

*[The articles in this column present a set of permanent scientific truths that interlock like jigsaw piecesThey span physics, technology, economics, media, neuroscience, bodies, brains and minds, as quantified by the mathematics of information flow through space and time. Together, they promote the neurosafe agenda: That human interactions with technology do not harm either the nervous system’s function, nor its interests, as measured by neuromechanical trust.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Support Fair Observer

We rely on your support for our independence, diversity and quality.

For more than 10 years, Fair Observer has been free, fair and independent. No billionaire owns us, no advertisers control us. We are a reader-supported nonprofit. Unlike many other publications, we keep our content free for readers regardless of where they live or whether they can afford to pay. We have no paywalls and no ads.

In the post-truth era of fake news, echo chambers and filter bubbles, we publish a plurality of perspectives from around the world. Anyone can publish with us, but everyone goes through a rigorous editorial process. So, you get fact-checked, well-reasoned content instead of noise.

We publish 2,500+ voices from 90+ countries. We also conduct education and training programs on subjects ranging from digital media and journalism to writing and critical thinking. This doesn’t come cheap. Servers, editors, trainers and web developers cost money.
Please consider supporting us on a regular basis as a recurring donor or a sustaining member.

Will you support FO’s journalism?

We rely on your support for our independence, diversity and quality.

Donation Cycle

Donation Amount

The IRS recognizes Fair Observer as a section 501(c)(3) registered public charity (EIN: 46-4070943), enabling you to claim a tax deduction.

Make Sense of the World

Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

Support Fair Observer

Support Fair Observer by becoming a sustaining member

Become a Member