It’s not only that.
I have the feeling that US mainstream media style is replicated in the comments, aimed at maximizing polarized drama instead of having balanced and grounded discussions.
I can’t stand that type of talk.
This. I was watching the BBC Archive the other day, where it interviewed people’s thoughts on the mutual disarm movement back in the 80s, and you had two people sitting down at a table expressing their views, but not getting more than a little riled up or resorting to character attacks.
I wish TV was still like this. The most vocal guy in the room is putting forward the view that UK paid for the nukes, and so it should keep them, and ultimately make ourselves more independent of the US and not subservient to them. He’s also a chauvinist pig, but it is only one aspect of his personality and the others seem to understand that and keep the discussion grounded.
One thing I have noticed from watching these old videos is that people ultimately haven’t changed: the exact same gripes (cost of living, buying houses), and the exact same fears (russian interference, loss of jobs to china). They just smoke and drank more.
That last sentence might sound like a joke, but I do think there really is something to having a beer and sharing a cigarette with someone you’re violently in disagreement with. It normalizes the air somehow. Reminds me of the “slightly less than two drinks” rule from Mitchell&Web.
So many resources are deployed with the aim of making Americans afraid of each other and the world. This polarizes people, who get very heated and expend huge amounts of energy spitting vitriol at each other to no effect, which has the very intentional side effect of making politics so uncomfortable (and seemingly unproductive) to think or talk about that many people who can afford to do so just tune it out, which allows politicians to get away with even more heinous shit because it’s what’s expected of politicians anyway. It’s a pretty elegant, if dismal, system :/
And that “we” (honestly don’t know if it applies to you specifically) are in their support of influence, so any big enough US news has significant impact on half of the globe.
With on one hand the polarization of discourse and on the other the decay of democratic standards in the US, it is normal to have higher levels of interest across communities that are not US centered but only US influenced.
It’s not their fault they’re taught that they are the centre of the whole world.
It’s also their problem defining what is important and what not. Posting everything that Trump says, is not news, it’s a spam.
Their behaviour is not their fault, but it’s still their responsibility.
American geography teacher preparing for class:
And yet we still can’t identify half our own states on a map. To be fair, there are a lot of rectangles.
It’s not only that.
I have the feeling that US mainstream media style is replicated in the comments, aimed at maximizing polarized drama instead of having balanced and grounded discussions.
I can’t stand that type of talk.
This. I was watching the BBC Archive the other day, where it interviewed people’s thoughts on the mutual disarm movement back in the 80s, and you had two people sitting down at a table expressing their views, but not getting more than a little riled up or resorting to character attacks.
https://youtu.be/6yfE9Ihr8F0?t=661
I wish TV was still like this. The most vocal guy in the room is putting forward the view that UK paid for the nukes, and so it should keep them, and ultimately make ourselves more independent of the US and not subservient to them. He’s also a chauvinist pig, but it is only one aspect of his personality and the others seem to understand that and keep the discussion grounded.
One thing I have noticed from watching these old videos is that people ultimately haven’t changed: the exact same gripes (cost of living, buying houses), and the exact same fears (russian interference, loss of jobs to china). They just smoke and drank more.
That last sentence might sound like a joke, but I do think there really is something to having a beer and sharing a cigarette with someone you’re violently in disagreement with. It normalizes the air somehow. Reminds me of the “slightly less than two drinks” rule from Mitchell&Web.
1983 , I was in the army then , almost WW III, Stanislav Petrov saved the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
Yes he did. Sometimes it just takes one adult in the room
So many resources are deployed with the aim of making Americans afraid of each other and the world. This polarizes people, who get very heated and expend huge amounts of energy spitting vitriol at each other to no effect, which has the very intentional side effect of making politics so uncomfortable (and seemingly unproductive) to think or talk about that many people who can afford to do so just tune it out, which allows politicians to get away with even more heinous shit because it’s what’s expected of politicians anyway. It’s a pretty elegant, if dismal, system :/
And that “we” (honestly don’t know if it applies to you specifically) are in their support of influence, so any big enough US news has significant impact on half of the globe.
With on one hand the polarization of discourse and on the other the decay of democratic standards in the US, it is normal to have higher levels of interest across communities that are not US centered but only US influenced.