Thread by @whstancil

A lot of my political views come out of a stretch about 5-6 years ago where I spent a lot of time on the subreddit "r/tumblrinaction," dedicated to making fun of absurd social justice tumblrs.

And the thing is, those social justice tumblrs were actually absurd! BUT

Eventually you noticed that something else was going on. The subreddit was absolute catnip for a certain kind of red-pilled reddit dudes. It was an OBSESSION for these guys.

And after a while you began to realize that they were in an emotional Skinner box: attacking these silly tumblrs was like pressing a button that gave them a little thrill. They wanted to take shots at these particular targets, all the time, in a frame of plausible deniability.

This was a particularly unsubtle example, but I think you can see a similar dynamic in a lot of politics and society. People have resentments and prejudices looking for a way out. And they're looking for plausibly deniable ways to express those resentments and prejudices.

Anyway, our brains are very good at inventing ways for us to say logical-sounding things that just so happen to target people and groups that bother us for less-logical reasons. There's a massive audience for rationalized resentment and huge economic incentives to engage in it.

And so when there's an explosion of obsessive coverage of some relatively picayune cultural thing, like silly DEI trainings or overwoke college kids or too-radical BLM marchers, I feel like you always have to wonder whether that coverage is supplying someone's Skinner box.

Guys, you really can’t understand this without understanding that they’re junkies taking a hit. Someone gave them words that let them say things they’ve always wanted to say but couldn’t and now they can’t stop pressing that lever

https://twitter.com/ngrossman81/status/1458414625435815937

Skinner box, I’m telling you

https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1458478826183438343