Tribalisim in our cup of tea: How technology makes world hate.
How Digital media and politics are creating a bigger divide and polarized World than ever.
Poor, inefficient and uncivilised is what most people would attribute to tribalism when you ask them. However these words are not only merely exclusive to an eccentric idea such as tribalism, politics initsef that has grown increasingly polarized.
For such a diverse planet and emphasis on progressive policies, our world is as confined and tribal as ever. Interestingly tribalism is not groomed by our lack of innovation as one may think but instead it is groomed by our backwards reaction to that of innovation.
Human life on earth, has always maintained an emphasis and key to tribal or group behaviour. During the early days of humanity tribalism was not a way of life moreover it was a survival mechanism, because no matter what we foreaged in groups, hunted in groups and slept in groups while the scapegoats who refuse to form groups soon died off, hence tribal bhevaior soon was a product of Darwins natural selection. It explains why we feel depressed or sad when left out or why we have a natural attachment to a certain group.
Tribaliism was so essential during times of foraging for inducing self intentionality, a common matrix of thoughts and ideals, or something that bonded the group morals together as one. Either through collective suffering, that eventually creates or generate stronger tribal affiliations. Bonding through the art of pain has always been common in human society, why war mates have such a close relationship even after the war. But tribalism was the first to put pain or perceived suffering on a significant scale.
The distinct ideals and “moral matrixes” that one group shares, becomes increasingly more extreme when you dwell on such ideals for centuries or for decades as a whole. The social learning phenomenon in short basically explains “that the environment plays a large part in learning. We model the behaviour of the people around us, especially if we find these models similar to ourselves or if we want to emulate them.”
Therefore to some extent, a tribe is largely intertwined and connected through the idea of the social learning phenomenon. Creating one tunnelled vision group that sees no other perspective, simply because they have not been exposed to it and been told from young to old that thinking otherwise to our beliefs is pure stupidity. When groups perceive themselves as different, this often sets the stage for conflict and competition. This after all is a key reason why sports teams wear different uniforms. As this subconscious categorisation of people into their opinions causes a divide from us and them. Similarly the vast amount of controversial decisions we settle each day, constantly trigger and strengthen our tribal mindset, in a world where we rarely come to an agreement after a debate. Primarly through our desire to uphold our reputation, that of what makes up who we are something humans don’t take lightly. Causing instant polarization and fractions, introducing a war where human irrationality, ancient human survival behaviours and emotional responses come into play, producing a battleground with no middle ground.
Tribalism in present society.
Now, how does the theory of tribalism translate to the modern world of 2021? To the naked eye, we have large societies, organisations, with a rather luxurious lifestyle that does not include foraging or hunting. However the individual or human brain has not much altered being still very similar to what we were composed of centuries ago, compared to the vast growth of technology and innovation.
The intelligence deficit between AI and Humans, are not mutually exclusive as in nature we can see a similar intellectual rivalry between humans and animals. Being the dominant creature within nature, gives humanity the ability and upper hand to shape and force the world we desire to live in. Similarly, this intelligence deficit between AI and humans threatens our ability to shape the world where humans are piortised, With AI and platforms such as social media, that run on the data of their participants, manipulation is becoming increasingly easier and so is subjecting humans into their cages, locked with their phones, hours on end, to achieve the following 3 criterias.
- retainment time
- share (get people on the sight)
- monetization (making money!!!)
All of these criteria to be perfected need an immense amount of data, to be predicted accurately. Appealing to the customer is to appeal to their taste and drive them under one road or culture of information, simply because than will they (people) spend longer on your platform. Now, why does this truly matter? I mean appealing to our taste and giving us what we want is a win-win, is it not? That’s a rather good question, but the answer is no, a definite nooooooooo. As giving us specified content without double perspective radicalises individuals, giving them only one piece of the picture. Creating echo chambers, which “in discussions of news media, an echo chamber refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.”
For example, imagine if you are a Biden fan, it would be rather stupid for these digital brands to sell you anything other than something similar to what Biden advocates such as broadcasting BLM messages. As “they sell certainty,” they don’t sell something you advocate against; they sell you something to keep you hooked and online. Youtube and Facebook know the specific content you are likely to enjoy and the content which leads you to cringe and log out of your laptop. This data and knowledge to build the “perfect platform,” creates a platform where they digitally jail you with voices you like to hear, radicalising your thoughts from once neutral to the opposite side of the spectrum.
Separating humans into specific groups depending on their beliefs and opinions is like that of the radicalised beliefs and isolation that tribes are built on. They forage and hunt together, and so do such groups when forging opinions similar to theirs, adding fuel to their thoughts sometimes with no truth behind their thoughts, but it does not matter when believed by a big enough population.
The increasing polarization of humanity is not only present in politics but also on celebratory gossip shows and topics not worth debating on, splitting up our world in groups, just for the benefit of digital companies. American politics is by far the best example of the growing radicalisation imposed by our devices, technology and news feeds. With newsfeeds such as CNN favouring the left while FOX infamously supporting the right, informing readers about the news with a sense of bias either favouring or discrediting a political camp. But not only are now media cooperation becoming more bias, but states in the U.S are also becoming increasingly more competitive and violent against each other, as google’s knowledge of where you live alters what you see when you type a question in the search bar, meaning that if your state is produced of a majority red population, it is more likely results will return you with much more republican news. Facebook posts and youtube content that you see are increasingly being more tribal, subjecting you to the same type of content or view over and over again. Subjecting humans to radicalisation drives hate, discontent and creates a problem where there previously were none, pushing the world to an endless list of social divides.
Inflicting harm on our democracies and our most fundamental way of life by our technology or otherwise we can call as alien. We might as well call our technology alien, because most of us don’t even know how the tech we use truly works and what its true intentions and abilities are. It is very soon that with the growing use of a tribal way of life that we don’t vote on the greater good but our impulse, our emotions and our irrationality or from fake ideals crafted by radicalised tribalist technology that we use and subject ourselves to. Only driving our world into a darker society, all from marketing “certainty.”
About the author:
Eldon Tse — Hong Kong 🇭🇰 | Instagram
Always open to listen to new opinion and ground breaking ideas, to reach me please feel free to contact me through Instagram.