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> moderate personal behaviors to tune macro results between social harmony and everyone being a low level sociopath.

I guess I'm not sure what you mean by that. examples maybe?




At the lowest levels, balancing selfishness, vanity, the need for self-actualization, and the expression of empathy and compassion.

On one extreme, you have the Dalai Lama, the latest Pope, and Bernie Sanders. The other: the Kardashians, Kanye West, and Martin Shkreli.


I guess that I've seen less moderation of personal behaviors via these mechanisms in our current society over my lifetime, and I'm not sure that's a big problem. I'd argue that most of the peer pressure and social moors society (especially local society) pushes are typically a net negative, and as we grow globally, we're realizing that they don't usually make sense.

NOTE: I'm mostly talking out of my ass here as I've never really thought much about this subject before. I'd gladly welcome new ways of seeing this issue and facts that counter my view.


> I'd argue that most of the peer pressure and social moors society (especially local society) pushes are typically a net negative, and as we grow globally, we're realizing that they don't usually make sense.

It seems to me that Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are causing extreme narcissism to embed itself in younger cohorts, along with workers being more mobile causing family units to fall apart. The shitty parts of human behavior are being exploited by tech companies for obscene profits with no governance of their actions.

Data shows that loneliness kills, but we shun extended family living arrangements in the US (you still live with your parens/grandparents?). Data shows that social media networks trigger the same parts of your brain as cocaine, and are just as addictive.

Just my two cents.

Social media narcissism: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+media+narcissism

Health risks with loneliness: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...


I'd agree that the changes you describe are taking place, but I'm not convinced it's all a bad thing.

There absolutely are negative aspects to these changes, but I think there's also a lot of good aspects to them as well. Instead of viewing these changes as good or bad, I guess I generally see them as "just different". Additionally, I think a lot of the bad sides to these issues seem to be ones that already existed to one degree or another, and hopefully this will increase our ability to fix them.

> The shitty parts of human behavior are being exploited by tech companies for obscene profits with no governance of their actions.

I absolutely agree with this though, and think that we should be doing a much better job here.


along with workers being more mobile causing family units to fall apart.

"Millennials are moving significantly less than earlier generations of young adults."

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/13/americans-ar...





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