« Amazingly, the media collectively exerted such tremendous power, in nearly perfect coordination, without deliberate intention (conspiracies are generally much less necessary than believed). » is something very important, but very hard to explain to people, I found out.
Some people will believe in conspiracy, and most people will label you “crazy conspiracy theorist” as soon as you point to something like that. It’s very hard to make people understand that a set of people having a generally common mindset (they know each other, they went to the same schools, …) and the same purpose (attract the highest number possible of viewers/readers) will tend to do the same selection of whom/what to give focus to, without requiring any coordination or conspiracy.
There is a wonderfully evocative term, Stand Alone Complex, from the anime series of the same name, which refers to actions taken by people behaving as though they were part of a conspiracy even though no actual conspiracy is present. It’s pretty much tailor-made for this case.
Mencius Moldbug calls this instance the Cathedral, in an insightful series of articles indexed here.
« Amazingly, the media collectively exerted such tremendous power, in nearly perfect coordination, without deliberate intention (conspiracies are generally much less necessary than believed). » is something very important, but very hard to explain to people, I found out.
Some people will believe in conspiracy, and most people will label you “crazy conspiracy theorist” as soon as you point to something like that. It’s very hard to make people understand that a set of people having a generally common mindset (they know each other, they went to the same schools, …) and the same purpose (attract the highest number possible of viewers/readers) will tend to do the same selection of whom/what to give focus to, without requiring any coordination or conspiracy.
There is a wonderfully evocative term, Stand Alone Complex, from the anime series of the same name, which refers to actions taken by people behaving as though they were part of a conspiracy even though no actual conspiracy is present. It’s pretty much tailor-made for this case.
Mencius Moldbug calls this instance the Cathedral, in an insightful series of articles indexed here.