TomT
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Part 1 Current situation
America is in distress. Our social media addiction has resulted in an America that has become a Tower of Babel. Babel is not a story about tribalism. It’s a story about the fragmentation of everything.
America is living James Madison’s nightmare. Social Media has driven the explosive spread of anger that James Madison had tried to protect us from as he was drafting the U.S. Constitution. The Framers of the Constitution knew that democracy had an Achilles’ heel because it depended on the collective judgment of the people, and democratic communities are subject to “the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions.” The key to designing a sustainable republic, therefore, was to build in mechanisms to slow things down, cool passions, require compromise, and give leaders some insulation from the mania of the moment while still holding them accountable to the people periodically, on Election Day. Today the opposite is true.
The current information environment makes it easy to spread misinformation, disinformation, and outright propaganda that distorts voter representation and leadership accountability. Algorithms disseminate false information widely to millions of people and convince them to cast ballots in ways that run contrary to their self-interest or further internal political divisions. Leadership accountability requires voters have access to reliable information, but the prevalence of fake news and false information undermines democratic elections and endangers the system as a whole. These risks not just with elections, but anti law enforcement animas against all levels of government. All of these flaws in our information ecosystem harm democracy and weaken popular sovereignty. However, it has led to the steady growth of the Flat Earth Society.
CQ Roll Call asked every member of Congress whether they had received a death threat since 2020. Of the 147 who responded, 110 — or about 75 percent — said yes. While more Democrats replied to their inquiry than Republicans, 95 to 52, death threats were pervasive among both parties: 74 percent of Democrats said they had received one, compared with 77 percent of GOP respondents.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, with 45,979 deaths in 2020. This is about one death every 11 minutes. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2020, an estimated 12.2 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.2 million attempted suicide.
Almost 21 million Americans have at least 1 addiction, yet only 10% of them receive treatment. Drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990. Alcohol and drug addiction cost the US economy over $600 billion every year. 138.543 million or 50.0% of people aged 12 and over have illicitly used drugs in their lifetime.
A growing number have lost faith in organized religion. For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, according to a new report from Gallup.
New APA Poll shows sustained anxiety among Americans. More than half of parents are concerned about the mental well-being of their children.
Disagreements about who is truly American are part of a broader cleavage in American culture. 70% of Republicans believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1950s, while 63% of Democrats believe that they have changed for the better. Strong majorities of Republicans agree that “Things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own county,” that “Today, America is in danger of losing its culture and identity,” and that “the American way of life needs to be protected for foreign influences.” Majorities of Democrats reject these propositions.
Support for political violence is significant. In February 2021, 39% of Republicans, 31% of Independents, and 17% of Democrats agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” In November, 30% of Republicans, 17% of Independents, and 11% of Democrats agreed that they might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
Recently, millions of Americans have come to believe that elections workers, systems, equipment and election audits are corrupt. Judges at all level are corrupt. The Department of Justice and the FBI are corrupt. Most media are corrupt. The IRS is corrupt. The opposition party is corrupt. All of which is fueled by self-serving social media algorithms crafted by billionaires to keep us all “informed.”
https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-democracy-failing-and-putting-our-economic-system-at-risk/
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/
https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom...about-the-mental-well-being-of-their-children
https://www.americamagazine.org/fai...hAcLHgdslW40S7UbdcMTOQdX_goXqqGwaAqSzEALw_wcB
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/i...s a serious public,one death every 11 minutes.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaig...e-left-or-the-right-its-a-dangerous-question/
America is in distress. Our social media addiction has resulted in an America that has become a Tower of Babel. Babel is not a story about tribalism. It’s a story about the fragmentation of everything.
America is living James Madison’s nightmare. Social Media has driven the explosive spread of anger that James Madison had tried to protect us from as he was drafting the U.S. Constitution. The Framers of the Constitution knew that democracy had an Achilles’ heel because it depended on the collective judgment of the people, and democratic communities are subject to “the turbulency and weakness of unruly passions.” The key to designing a sustainable republic, therefore, was to build in mechanisms to slow things down, cool passions, require compromise, and give leaders some insulation from the mania of the moment while still holding them accountable to the people periodically, on Election Day. Today the opposite is true.
The current information environment makes it easy to spread misinformation, disinformation, and outright propaganda that distorts voter representation and leadership accountability. Algorithms disseminate false information widely to millions of people and convince them to cast ballots in ways that run contrary to their self-interest or further internal political divisions. Leadership accountability requires voters have access to reliable information, but the prevalence of fake news and false information undermines democratic elections and endangers the system as a whole. These risks not just with elections, but anti law enforcement animas against all levels of government. All of these flaws in our information ecosystem harm democracy and weaken popular sovereignty. However, it has led to the steady growth of the Flat Earth Society.
CQ Roll Call asked every member of Congress whether they had received a death threat since 2020. Of the 147 who responded, 110 — or about 75 percent — said yes. While more Democrats replied to their inquiry than Republicans, 95 to 52, death threats were pervasive among both parties: 74 percent of Democrats said they had received one, compared with 77 percent of GOP respondents.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States, with 45,979 deaths in 2020. This is about one death every 11 minutes. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2020, an estimated 12.2 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.2 million attempted suicide.
Almost 21 million Americans have at least 1 addiction, yet only 10% of them receive treatment. Drug overdose deaths have more than tripled since 1990. Alcohol and drug addiction cost the US economy over $600 billion every year. 138.543 million or 50.0% of people aged 12 and over have illicitly used drugs in their lifetime.
A growing number have lost faith in organized religion. For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, according to a new report from Gallup.
New APA Poll shows sustained anxiety among Americans. More than half of parents are concerned about the mental well-being of their children.
Disagreements about who is truly American are part of a broader cleavage in American culture. 70% of Republicans believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1950s, while 63% of Democrats believe that they have changed for the better. Strong majorities of Republicans agree that “Things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own county,” that “Today, America is in danger of losing its culture and identity,” and that “the American way of life needs to be protected for foreign influences.” Majorities of Democrats reject these propositions.
Support for political violence is significant. In February 2021, 39% of Republicans, 31% of Independents, and 17% of Democrats agreed that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions.” In November, 30% of Republicans, 17% of Independents, and 11% of Democrats agreed that they might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
Recently, millions of Americans have come to believe that elections workers, systems, equipment and election audits are corrupt. Judges at all level are corrupt. The Department of Justice and the FBI are corrupt. Most media are corrupt. The IRS is corrupt. The opposition party is corrupt. All of which is fueled by self-serving social media algorithms crafted by billionaires to keep us all “informed.”
https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-democracy-failing-and-putting-our-economic-system-at-risk/
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/
https://www.psychiatry.org/newsroom...about-the-mental-well-being-of-their-children
https://www.americamagazine.org/fai...hAcLHgdslW40S7UbdcMTOQdX_goXqqGwaAqSzEALw_wcB
https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/i...s a serious public,one death every 11 minutes.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaig...e-left-or-the-right-its-a-dangerous-question/
