I mean, in situations that are generating outrage because of having influence on an outcome you do in fact care about, how do you select the information that you need in order to have what influence on that outcome is possible for you, without that overwhelming you with emotional bypass of your reasoning or breaking your ability to estimate how much influence is possible to have? To put this another way—is there a possible outrage-avoiding behavior vaguely like this one, but where if everyone took on the behavior, it would make things better instead of making one into a rock with “I cooperate and forfeit this challenge” written on it?
In other words—all of the above, I guess? but always through the lens of treating outrage as information for more integrative processes, likely information to be transformed into a form that doesn’t get integrated as “self” necessarily, rather than letting outrage be the mental leader and override your own perspectives. Because if you care about the thing the outrage is about, even if you agree with it, you probably especially don’t want to accept the outrage at face value, since it will degrade your response to the situation. Short-term strategic thinking about how to influence a big world pattern usually allows you to have a pretty large positive impact, especially if “you” is a copyable, self-cooperating behavior. Outrage cascades are a copyable, partially-self-cooperating behavior, but typically collapse complexity of thought. When something’s urgent I wouldn’t want push a social context towards dismissing it, but I’d want to push the social context towards calm, constructive, positive responses to the urgency.
You gave the example of someone getting a bunch of power and folks being concerned about this, but ending up manipulated by the outrage cascades. Your suggestions seem to lean towards simply avoiding circles which are highly charged with opinion about who or what has power; I’m most interested in versions of this advice the highly charged circles could adopt to be healthier and have more constructive responses. It does seem like your suggestions aren’t too far from this, hence why it seems at all productive to ask.
Idk, those are some words. Low coherent on quite what it is I’m asking for, but you seem on a good track with this, I guess? maybe we come up with something interesting as a result of this question.
In general, though, I think the info content of the outrage is low. For most people, it mainly means “I read this thing online, and it resonated somehow”. I see most outrage group discussions as extensions of newsfeeds, best to be ignored.
For solid discussions, find the people capable of deep analysis, and read their work.
Is there a way to do this that stays alert and active, but avoids outrage?
Do you mean “alert and active” as in:
Dealing with group-outrage situations without zoning out?
Staying up to date with politics and having an influence?
Shifting your social contexts to become less outrage-oriented?
Other?
I mean, in situations that are generating outrage because of having influence on an outcome you do in fact care about, how do you select the information that you need in order to have what influence on that outcome is possible for you, without that overwhelming you with emotional bypass of your reasoning or breaking your ability to estimate how much influence is possible to have? To put this another way—is there a possible outrage-avoiding behavior vaguely like this one, but where if everyone took on the behavior, it would make things better instead of making one into a rock with “I cooperate and forfeit this challenge” written on it?
In other words—all of the above, I guess? but always through the lens of treating outrage as information for more integrative processes, likely information to be transformed into a form that doesn’t get integrated as “self” necessarily, rather than letting outrage be the mental leader and override your own perspectives. Because if you care about the thing the outrage is about, even if you agree with it, you probably especially don’t want to accept the outrage at face value, since it will degrade your response to the situation. Short-term strategic thinking about how to influence a big world pattern usually allows you to have a pretty large positive impact, especially if “you” is a copyable, self-cooperating behavior. Outrage cascades are a copyable, partially-self-cooperating behavior, but typically collapse complexity of thought. When something’s urgent I wouldn’t want push a social context towards dismissing it, but I’d want to push the social context towards calm, constructive, positive responses to the urgency.
You gave the example of someone getting a bunch of power and folks being concerned about this, but ending up manipulated by the outrage cascades. Your suggestions seem to lean towards simply avoiding circles which are highly charged with opinion about who or what has power; I’m most interested in versions of this advice the highly charged circles could adopt to be healthier and have more constructive responses. It does seem like your suggestions aren’t too far from this, hence why it seems at all productive to ask.
Idk, those are some words. Low coherent on quite what it is I’m asking for, but you seem on a good track with this, I guess? maybe we come up with something interesting as a result of this question.
re: cloud react—yeah fair
If we want to shift group dynamics, I see these things as important shifts:
conflict theory → mistake theory
general complaints → specific solutions
overconfidence → humility
One way to go about this, inspired by Scott Alexander, is to ask for more concreteness: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/details-that-you-should-include-in
In general, though, I think the info content of the outrage is low. For most people, it mainly means “I read this thing online, and it resonated somehow”. I see most outrage group discussions as extensions of newsfeeds, best to be ignored.
For solid discussions, find the people capable of deep analysis, and read their work.