reddit – My Mental Model

Making Sense of the Noise

As someone who has had an excess of free time on their hands over the last two years, I’ve put a fair bit of effort into keeping track of what’s happening in American and global politics. It started back in 2016 during Trump’s campaign. Before that, I made a point of avoiding politics and the news. During the election, my two primary news feeds were the Google app and Facebook. It was really interesting to see Facebook get as political and dis-informational as it did. I managed to get into a variety of debates before I chalked it up as a lost cause. Even the Google feed wasn’t great. I had to find a better way of staying informed.

I guess you could say I took an interdisciplinary approach to figuring out what was going on. I read philosophy books to get a better understanding for the fundamental concepts of things like democracy and morality. I read an astrophysics book to try and connect the small to the big. I read psychology books to better understand why people do what they do. I even read a neuroscience book to understand how and why people think the way that they think. And all the while, I was consuming about 10-20 news articles a day. That was probably on top of another 10-20 search queries a day, just on random things I wanted to know.

It was a lot of information, and it didn’t happen quickly, but I eventually started to piece it all together. There are certainly gaps in my understanding of what’s happening as I’m missing key pieces of information. But for what’s on the public record, I got a pretty good handle as to what’s going on. My friends have actually started to tease me for it but they also use me for updates so I think my efforts are appreciated.

One of my friends asked me the other day what my process is for making sense of all this noise. She wanted to know what sources she could trust, or where she should be looking, or anything to help make things a bit more clear. I’ve given that some thought and I’ve tried to isolate the algorithm that my brain uses to go from data to information to knowledge.

Step 1: Find a platform that effectively aggregates news sources and stories according to your preferences. Personally, I’ve found Reddit to be most effective. It’s open platform means that voices of all shapes and sizes are on there. I can check in on what the far right thinks about a major event, and then just as easy, check in on what the far left are saying. I’ve found that these communities, when not censored, provide some great insight into what people are thinking and feeling. While far from perfect, there’s also a degree of accountability within the community and that makes for some solid fact checking. After I curated my home feed, I was able to receive an effectively unlimited feed of interesting data. It’s extremely easy to navigate as well since it just shows up as a scrolling feed of headlines, pictures, and videos.

Step 2: Scan the headlines. I’ve found that most news reports these days contain one new relevant data point, surrounded by filler. The filler is usually a summary of previous reports leading up to the the current report, and it’s often filled with biased commentary. And for each new data point being reported on, dozens of publications will write a story on it. Being able to scan headlines for key info not only keeps you from reading redundant material, it also helps you stay focused on the facts.

Step 3: Does the article provide a question or an answer? I’ve found that a common approach to filling in the news cycle is asking the question that we’re all thinking, and trying to answer it with no new information. Something to the effect of, “Robert Mueller Probe to End Soon?”. We’d all like to know the answer to that question and your headline would suggest that you know something we don’t. But you never do. The reality is that if any reporter or news outlet had factual information that indicated when the Mueller probe would end, it would be a story in itself and breaking news. I tend to filter out the questions, unless it’s one I haven’t asked myself before. What I’m really looking for while scanning these headlines is answers.

Step 4: Verifying new information. The first thing I look for is who’s reporting on it. If the same event is being reported on by all major outlets, there’s a good chance that it happened. Next step is jumping into one of the articles and looking for the quoted material and who it’s sourced from. Almost every article will be referencing the same quote so you don’t really have to worry about the bias of the reporter unless you start reading their commentary. Once you know what was said and who said it, you see how that fits into your larger understanding of the situation. If it fits in neatly, in it goes and your understanding of what’s happening has grown. If it doesn’t fit in neatly, it’s time to figure out why.

Step 5: Analysis. When a headline or quote fits neatly into what I already know about what’s going on, it’s like adding a collectible to your collection. In most cases, I knew what I was looking for, I was already looking for it, and I knew exactly where it would go once I found it. But now and then, a new piece of information doesn’t fit neatly into what I already know and I now have to figure out why. Sometimes the information is incorrect, sometimes my understanding of the situation is incorrect, and sometimes it’s somewhere in between. Regardless, the process is always the same, to dig in until I understand what’s going on. More often than one might expect, it leads me down some rather deep rabbit holes. These journeys can take me through a variety of sources, including news articles, Wikipedia articles, scientific studies, historical texts, and plain old books. Until I understand it, it doesn’t get added to my understanding. I’d like to think that one of my most valuable skills in this process is being okay with leaving things in the maybe pile and not jumping to conclusions.

Step 5: Adoption. Once a new data point is verified and it clicks into place, I move on. I don’t mind having to go back and undo some of that work because something isn’t what I thought it was. I’ve found that the conspiracy theory crowd have a hard time seeing the bigger picture because they get stuck on the validity of key details. It’s like the scientific consensus, you don’t need to be 100% certain to move on, just 99%. If someone presents new evidence that doesn’t align with what you previously thought? Sweet. Time to go figure out why and learn something new.

It would seem as though the filtering process that I’m applying to my data feed is an elaborate IF statement. If the new data passed my verification process, I add it to my programming. If it doesn’t, I analyze further. If it’s because the data is corrupt, I identify it as such and set it aside. If the data proves to be valid, I perform a self-diagnostic to understand why it conflicts with my existing programming. More often than not, it’s my existing programming which needs to be updated to accommodate for the new data. Sometimes the self-diagnostic can’t find anything wrong with the data or the programming, in which case it’s identified as such as set aside for further review. Every once in a while, I’ll get an update which helps me make sense of something that was set aside for further review. Then, even that piece of information gets tucked away neatly where it belongs. Maybe a bit methodical, but I gotta say.. seems like a good way to go about things.

A Belated International Men’s Rights Day

This entry was originally inspired by me being banned from Reddit’s r/feminism community. It made me sad. It’s a community I had followed for some time and while I didn’t agree with some of what was being said, I was there to learn. When I completed the entry, I left it in the draft pile instead of posting it. I didn’t like the tone. I don’t mind discussing things that I think are negative, but I prefer to connect them to something brighter. There’s nothing wrong with a little darkness when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Without the light, I’m much less interested in painting the darkness.

Yesterday was international men’s day and besides it not being a statutory holiday, I suspect that this is one of the more controversial holidays of our time. I saw it show up in two places in my news feed: on The_Donald and I think on Jordan Peterson’s sub-reddit. The_Donald, a sub -Reddit for Trump fans and Russian bots, seem to be trolls first and foremost. Their celebration of men’s rights likely have as much to do with antagonizing feminists as supporting men who are struggling. They’re not the most compassionate crowd. But the feminists aren’t shy to give them ammunition either so perhaps there’s a natural dynamic of ‘accountability’ here. The Jordan Peterson community is certainly more supportive and compassionate in their stance, looking to actually recognize the challenges that men are up against. I found some of the stats rather surprising. This is from a graphic which was shared:

76% of suicides are men

85% of homeless are men

70% of homicide victims are men

40% of domestic abuse victims are men

Men are the majority of victims of violent crimes

Men on average serve more than 64% longer in prison

Men are 340% more likely than a women to be imprisoned for the same crime

Just like with any set of stats, they need to be understood within context. But even with context, it’s hard to deny that men have their own challenges. But is there room in today’s world to support both men’s rights and women’s rights? The logic in me says yes. In fact, this is the premise for real equality and from my perspective, the only real way forward. My personal experiences seem to suggest otherwise though.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a rise in feminist rhetoric. It didn’t concern me much as I had established myself as a feminist back in university. I was teasing a friend for taking a women’s studies class after being egged on by his girlfriend. He teased me right back and said, “you know you’re a feminist right?”. I scoffed at him and said, that’s highly unlikely. He asked if I thought that men and women were equal. I said sure. He pointed out that made me a feminist. Really? What’s all this I hear about burning bras and a general hate towards men? He told me that was just a misconception. Perhaps those individuals thought of themselves as feminists, but that wasn’t feminism. Hmm… well alright then, I can definitely get on board with equality.

Fast forward to the present day, and perhaps we’ve lost sight of what feminism was supposed to be. In it’s evolution, I think we’ve uncovered a rather destructive dynamic. Classic feminists saw that there was a need for equality when it came to voting rights. And equal opportunities for education. And equal opportunities for employment. And etc. And etc. They fought hard for their seat at the table and they’ve made tremendous contributions to our society as a result. Modern feminists seem to have taken a different approach.

The current conversation seems to be one of power and oppression. The argument has been made that all of society is dominated by a patriarchy which systematically oppresses women. As a result of that power imbalance, women are at a disadvantage and the only way to remedy the situation is for women to become more powerful. Generally speaking, we refer to the empowerment of women to be a positive thing. But here’s the trick, power seems to be a zero-sum game. Assuming that men are more powerful than women, in the interest of equality, it would seem sensible that we should make men less powerful and make women more powerful. Yet throughout history, we’ve seen this dynamic play over and over again. Power corrupts. Power becomes a means to an end. At that point, it’s no longer about equality.

I don’t deny that there are powerful men. But I also am quick to suggest that women are powerful too. I think history would suggest that they have always been powerful in their own way. If nothing else, the entire evolutionary course of humanity has been determined by their power to choose a mate. In most cases, it’s rather easy to trace the actions of men back to the pursuit of approval from women. But what if men no longer held on to the power than they leverage in their domains? What if women did the same? I think that’s the world we’re looking for.. but it’s not the world we’re pursuing today.

Earlier this year I was criticized for using Tinder by a woman in her 50s. She told me that technology was destroying our ability to connect and that I should look to meet women in the real world. I told her that in the age of #metoo, it’s hard to know when women in public want to be approached. She suggested things like being in line at a coffee shop, or at a book store, etc. Then one of her younger employees (20s) piped up and said something to the effect of “I don’t want men to approach me when I’m at <insert location> because when I’m there, I’m not looking to get hit on, I’m just looking to do <insert activity>. It seemed like men were being criticized for not approaching women in a more traditional manner, while also being criticized for approaching women in a traditional manner. As is often the case, there was this expectation that the man would just ‘know’, and if he didn’t, he was to blame.

The same woman who thought I should be approaching women in public also reprimanded me for calling a few young women girls. It was something to the effect of I’ll see you girls at the conference tomorrow. I was told that using this language was belittling, demeaning, oppressive, and etc. Something about making them seem younger than they were. On one side, I understood what she was saying but on the other, I was so confused. I told her that I thought I was using it as a term of endearment, in the same manner a woman would refer to a group of men as boys. And wasn’t girl-power a hall-mark of feminism? There didn’t seem to be any logical basis for why she was upset with me, but I was made to feel like I had done something wrong regardless.

I was hanging out with my sisters earlier this year and talking about dating in the #metoo era and how I was generally trying to steer clear of it all. At one point, we discussed how many decent men were being painted with the same brush as those who genuinely needed to adjust how they were treating women. They both gave me the same analogy: If you have a bowl of skittles, and you know that just a few of them are poison, you don’t eat the skittles. I didn’t say anything at the time because I was listening and trying to understand their perspectives, but it registered as a ‘does not compute’. I thought about it more later and realized it was sexism 101. Judging all men based on the actions of a few didn’t seem fair at all. The first parallel that came to mind was demonizing all Muslims because a few are terrorists. If we can recognize the flaw in that, why not here?

As I understood it, the bigger problem wasn’t going to be empowered women. It was going to be what comes next. I was talking to an older feminist and told her that as much as I appreciate equality and that side of feminism, I’m less appreciative of neo-feminism or radical-feminism. She didn’t understand and took the stance that all feminism was good. I asked her if there were any examples of feminism which she didn’t agree with, or at least thought was counter-productive. She flatly said no. I can’t help but think that if you’ve lost the ability to hold your tribe accountable for anything, you’ve lost site of virtues like equality and have been consumed by the pursuit of power. I told her that I was concerned. Not so much by the prospect of powerful women, but by what comes next.

There’s a pendulum dynamic that has operated throughout history. We mobilize ourselves in one direction and once we’ve realized the extent of that direction, we tend to try the opposite. This can be seen in things like fashion, politics, the stock market, and of course, major social movements. So in the age of empowering women, where does the pendulum swing next?

I maintain that if this movement was about understanding and promoting equality between the sexes, the pendulum effect wouldn’t exist in the same way. Instead, it seems to be about making women more powerful. All that momentum and all that power that women are enjoying now, will swing back to men. Not because they deserve it, but because that’s how the pendulum works. The harder you swing it to one side, the more potential energy you’ve stored for it to swing in the opposite direction.

It seems as though things have begun to swing the other way. It’s not pretty either. Feminism grew in part because of how many women felt hurt and angry at the world for a raw deal. Well it seems as though men are starting to arrive there as well. It’s showing up in the communities of incels and men’s rights activists… and because it’s mostly people who are hurt and lashing out, they’re being dismissed by feminists. Or worse, they’re being demonized for providing resistance to the feminist movement. And this is where we have to take a hard look at ourselves and ask, if equality is really the mission here. Does it matter that 76% of suicides are men? Because if so, we could use some of that support we hear so much about.

And this seems to be where we stand now. With feminism approaching terminal velocity, it’s time to prepare for what’s next. Is masculism next? Must we send the pendulum back out in that direction to find what we should both recognize is in the middle? I’m happy to say that I’m not the only one who thinks that the path forward isn’t about feminism or masculism, but rather about humanism.

The video that got me banned from r/feminism was a TED Talk from a female, award-winning, documentary film maker. She had been a staunch feminist who was filming a documentary looking to expose men’s rights activists and their wicked ways. After listening to these men and studying their answers, she started to realize just how much prejudice she was carrying against them. Rather than listening to what the men were actually saying, she would look for reasons to be offended and use that emotional state to dismiss any valid point the man was making. When she fact checked some of their concerns, like higher rates of suicide, or higher rates of death on the job, or higher rates of incarceration, she realized that civil rights and equality wasn’t just a woman’s issue. She went on to say that she no longer identifies as a feminist, but with a clear conditions.: She is compassionate towards the struggles of both men and women, and supports the civil rights of each.

She was met with a standing ovation and had I been there, I would’ve been one of them. Thank you for helping to lead the way Cassie Jaye.

Reddit Might’ve Just Saved Net Neutrality

Reddit is one of my primary information feeds. Perhaps needless to say, I’m a fan. Over the last week or so, I’ve observed something rather significant.

First, the gaming community mobilized against EA and their release of Star Wars: Battlefront 2. EA’s new progression system meant that most of the game’s best content had to be earned. Doesn’t sound too bad at first, until you find out that to unlock all the game’s content, it would take over 4500 hours, or $2,100. To put that in perspective, if you were to play for 3 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would take you just over 4 years to unlock all the content. To put that in perspective, the next generation of consoles is expected out before then. And that $2100 that they’re hoping you’ll spend? That’s above and beyond the $80 price tag for the game itself. Short-sighted greediness for sure, but something was different this time.

Someone on Reddit had a rant, and EA replied with a classic, corporate speak, disingenuous answer. I won’t bother repeating the entire reply as the opening sentence says it all:

“The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.”

I’m tempted to pick it apart, but I’d just be pointing out the obvious. The response though, was something special. That reply, became the most down-voted comment in the history of Reddit, earning over 600,000 demerits within just a few days. Not only did this make the news across several major outlets and cause the execs at Disney to check in on EA, but EA also froze the in-game payment system until further notice. A win? Maybe, but the gaming community isn’t buying it (literally) as they suspect EA will just unfreeze the payment system once enough gamers have caved in. Well fortunately for the gamers, sales are down significantly compared to the game’s first installment and that’s starting to weigh on EA’s stock price. Effectively, the gaming community found a way to mobilize on Reddit to deny EA the opportunity to make a really dumb decision. All within a few days. All with a few clicks. Very interesting.

Among all the gaming hoopla, I saw a post that said something to the effect of, ‘If we cared half as much about Battlefront 2 as we did about net neutrality, we wouldn’t have to worry about net neutrality’. Well, Reddit responded. Earlier this week, for about 48 hours straight, Reddit’s entire front page was entirely dedicated to the mobilization for net neutrality. This wasn’t a banner, or an ad, or front page image, it was what seemed to be thousands of posts, across thousands of sub-reddits, all being up-voted by the masses. I was almost a little annoyed that for 2 days, I didn’t have normal access to one of my news feeds, but I couldn’t help but be in awe of what I was seeing.

I don’t know if the effort by Reddit or any of the other tech majors will be enough to stop this repeal. Senators don’t pay nearly as much attention to internet chatter as they do to phone calls to their office. Assuming an average call takes 10 minutes, an office could theoretically take 144 calls over a 24 hour period, or 1008 calls over the course of a week. There are 100 senators, meaning a little over 100,000 calls would completely occupy the senate’s phone lines for a week. If that happened, it would probably be the documented as one of the greatest public protests of all time.

At this point, I don’t have a clue how many up votes were cast across how many posts. If I had guess, somewhere between 2-5 million, suggesting that the support is somewhere between 20-50 times what it should probably take to get the government to reconsider their position.

There are a few problems here. First, why is it that in a democratic framework, where the people have not asked to repeal net neutrality, is the Chairman of the FCC introducing measures to repeal net neutrality? The second problem is that internet community, arguably the constituents of this decision, are protesting this decision more fiercely than anything they’ve ever done – and it might be ignored. Finally, and perhaps the worst problem is that we’re encouraged to think that calls into our senators’ offices are what will make the difference here but at this point, we know that’s bullshit. They listen when they have to, and they use public backlash as a measure of what they can get away with while still being able to get re-elected. In all likelihood, there are only two calls that would make a difference here: If Ajit Pai received a call from the president, or if received a call from the chairman of Verizon. Unfortunately for us, both have vested financial interests in restricting how the general population accesses information… so I don’t see it happening.

Doom and gloom, I know. But there’s a bright side. An awesome bright side. Government needs tech, desperately. I’ve been mulling over the idea of a app that would let governments better connect and engage with their people. The current lines of communication between politicians and their constituents minimize inbound traffic which increases the disconnect. Without a live connection to your people, it becomes a lot easier to pay attention to the lobbyist that just took you out for a nice steak dinner. The people need a platform that lets them engage in real time with the people making these kinds of decisions, one that’s easy to use, that people would want to use, and one which decision makers would be held accountable to. The way that EA and Disney reacted to the Star Wars: Battlefront 2 issue was the first time that any modern platform, let alone Reddit, ticked all those boxes. If we manage to stop the repeal of net neutrality, I might even say proof of concept.

While Reddit might be the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of a platform like this, Reddit wasn’t designed to bridge the gap between a government and its people. To do that, it might have to be a little less rough around the edges and frankly, that’s just not Reddit. But that’s ok, because I have a hard time thinking that I’m the only one that’s been inspired here. I suspect there are a lot of smart people out there who are seeing what I’m seeing. We need to revolutionize the way that a government listens to its people and I think the public is figuring that out in a hurry.

One of the greatest counter-productive efforts throughout history has been the ruling class putting a greater emphasis on maintaining their power than helping their people. A lot of us assumed that kind of behavior died off with the monarchies but somehow it’s more obvious today than ever. I think we have the internet to thank for that. The internet revolutionized how we access information which means the government is having a harder and harder time controlling the conversation. They’re still trying, and it’s confusing the hell out of a lot of people, but the truth keeps finding a way.

The best thing about this for me is that when I keep pulling at that thread and try to visual where this takes us, I start to see something pretty special. If we could create a public that’s actively engaged with the governance issues that they’re interested in, able to control the public discourse, and aware of what one another is thinking in real-time, we have a highly capable voter base that’s capable of decentralizing a government’s power. If we can connect that voter base to governing officials who are accountable to public discourse and the ongoing engagement of their constituents, we may just be able to put everyone back on the same team and point them in the same direction. Wouldn’t that be neat.