Social Media and Suicide: Response to Jonathan Haidt 

Be careful, the second order observation is watching! ;)

given your general content im pretty surprised you are here ha ha

@@jamesrowsell9346 He had been a huge Jonathan Haidt fanboy in the past, and he occasionally talks about Jordan Peterson too, who this channel also featured in the past. Which is why I had send him some time ago a video from this channel, and I am glad it lead to some exchange of ideas. The only question I ponder now since yesterday is what does that say about my own identity construction that I helped something to happen that I wanted to see, but have not capitalised of it on my own social media or otherwise in redefining (or reinforcing) who I am.

Out of curiosity, how would you describe yourself politically, Adam?

@@deenil i'd describe him as right wing.

Correlation is not the same as causation, especially in such a short timespan in which all of the technology and social implications they have exploded at the same time, not only social media. Suicides might be growing because of economical and, by extent, existential aspect of existing that media brought up to people, the idea that we will work until we die, that we are only as worth as the money we make etc. It is sad that the suicide is a taboo, but believe me when i say that it is taboo everywhere, especially more traditional or religious countries.

Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world - that is not hidden. Suicide is taboo everywhere. Name me one culture were suicide is not taboo.

Just like how the murder rates in like Japan 🇯🇵 for instance are prolly way off tbh

@@DjKryx yes, tony, that's why I wrote high correlation instead of referring to causation; however, from the front lines of this phenomenon I'd strongly bet on there being a causal link. Asia isn't a monolith so there's varying degrees of the effects but one main difference between the west/global north and much of Asia is that a lot of the population heavily using social media has vastly different levels of education and understanding of targeting algorithms; hence, a drastic impact. The taboo of suicide exists everywhere, yes but in some Asian and African countries it is illegal. Ironically the stat can pursue legal actions against you or your guardians if you're suffering from suicidal ideation. That along with the cultural implications make the picture much more muddled.

Well said. It reminds me of the analogue to the authenticity double-bind. When you can't establish a healthy distance between your present self and your "authentic self", you can become a prisoner of your own biography. The evolution of that is what you bring up: a prisoner of your profile _or_ a prisoner of the general peer.

Excellent comment. Quite a few of the ideas surrounding web3 entailed subtle the attempts to integrate the aforementioned past profiles without having to actually live out that profile, (metaverse). I think its interesting because this idea seems from its inception just a way for social media companies to solve one of the issues of the age of profilicity, the cognitive dissonance you mentioned, whilst also capitalizing on its solution. I think time will tell if we adopt healthier attempts with coping during this age as the professor said, but I also agree that it seemed ushered in or at least sped up by particular forms of social media.

Yes. Also, I feel like a higher valuation of your online presence comes w/ a higher anxiety about deviating from what you've stated you are. I'm 30, grew up in the internets and social media, but not at the full takeover stage that it is now. So I guess for us it was very important, we used it a lot, but "identity" was still more expressed offline? So it didn't matter much if you contradicted yourself online or something. If anything it was the other way around, it would be the place where it was alright to break the "offline identity" w/ no issues. For younger folks it seems like deviating a bit from your online identity is a huge deal/source of anxiety (and perhaps even online/offline identity is way more blurred).

Internet communities also place massive punishments on people for revising their beliefs, so they're encouraged to perpetually double down instead of letting the natural progression of their identity play out. They aren't allowed to just be going through a phase, they are pressured to maintain their individual status quo.

Or else they mature to the point where they see these self identifications for what they are. Of course that means going through a sometimes painful state of confusion and death of identity. What is left is the animal and that can be very freeing.

really similliar experience here, with a 22 years old guy in brazil

@@transcendentphilosophy you're right! My mistake

Please, do as I do, use all your present and future resources to invest in yourself and your mental health, don't bear children into this sick world so that they go through the same or worse than us.

Same, as another 22 year old man here social media also has effects on people who don't use it or don't use it correctly within their own circles by ostracizing them. Social medias a societal tumor

So have you decided to remove and conceal and delete as much as possible and becoming unknown and unavailable and not participating in social media?

or subjectivity, for that matter

@@howtomakeamonster how is subjectivity impossible? You are having a subjective experience right now, are you not?

Well, authenticity is possible if it is understood as a unique cross section of already existing psychological features and traits.

Why do you feel the urge to build a profile if you consider yourself an authentic type of person ? The point of « identity technologies » isn’t to master them all. You shouldn’t use one if it makes you uncomfortable. And being good at building a profile isn’t really contingent on believing the validity of the act. Many people are fully on board with profilicity but have terrible profiles. And a cynical but crafty enough person could surely build profiles and even teach how to build them, while considering the act meaningless.

@@thomaharadja5307 The idea is that its somewhat needed to build a profile especially for someone in my age, all people around you have profiles, they make connections using these profiles and they raise their identify value using these profiles. so its quite understandable why anyone would feel the "urge" to build a profile. The urge is their because it is what it is. The problem was in the tension between the two methods, basically my authenticity wasn't good in the profile market. I believe that the "general peer' didn't accept me and I couldn't afford to lose my authenticity but in the same time I needed to gain my profilicty. I ended up just leaving the online profile game and just go along with my authencity. But now I know that my authenticity is maybe not that sacred.

@@Amal-kz6yi I'm in a bit of a pickle here too. I'm in my 40s now, and in my life I did manage to become what would be considered 'authentic' and 'original'. I've had a pretty amazing life, when I tell people about it they comment on what an interesting and unusual life it is, without fail. I'm proud of my life, which I consciously built as something to be proud of. Around the early 2010s I became aware that this social media stuff was really starting to impact actual social life, and I naturally thought I should develop a profile. However, I found that my 'highly authentic' life did not translate well to social media at all. First I reacted by ironically using it, for example, back in the early days of Facebook I posted as if I was touring Argentina on horseback, each day I would Google a town that I could reach and write about how I was enjoying the local sites and cuisine etc. But eventually I all but abandoned it, and became merely a social media spectator, which still consumes a lot of time/energy. But now I'm newly single, most of the achievements that gave me social standing peaked several years ago. I now find myself needing a profile just to be part of modern society, but I still cannot bring myself to do what I consider to be inauthentic... as a consequence I feel like I'm becoming isolated. I too would like for my authenticity to lose its sacred status, but to swap it for a phony profile just feels intuitively wrong. It's certainly not easy being young in all this, but it's no easier being middle aged, perhaps even harder?

​@@neoepicurean3772I struggle with this feeling as well, especially on dating profiles. I don't want to feel like I'm selling the best version of myself to everyone

This man is WAY overdue for a Lex podcast cameo

Would love to see him on Rogan.

What was the difference between a sincerity culture and an authenticity culture? He kind of skimmed over that in the video

Yes, depression become part of the profile

British people are allergic to some of the worst excesses of social media. I think its a cultural thing, a 'pisstaking' culture.

There are differences. Sincerity is given to you by a pre-existing society i.e. roles, that you're expected to internalize. Profiles are chosen, and then shaped by the communities you join. Relatedly, sincerity is far more stable - traditional role characteristics can be maintained for a lifetime with little expectation of you changing - whereas profiles are tweaked all the time, and sometimes even remade altogether. Profiles are essentially personal brands, whereas roles are hardly branding - they're basically just social norms.

i would say Roles are more collective and more detached from agency, while Profiles are more interpersonal and thus involve the social aspect of agency (boundaries) & contingencies in different situations, rather than collective roles that over‐arc **all** situations including when you're alone. Roles could be considered less flexible i guess?

Yeah but when people talk about addiction being one of the hardest health issues to treat they are usually talking about physical addiction. Like an alcoholic who will literally go into a fit if they don't drink some alcohol or a heroin addict who goes through severe withdrawal symptoms unless they have the drug. These people literally need a substitute for their addiction to function in day to day life. Then you have something like weed which is more psychologically addictive. You can quit it, you might have some cravings but after a month you'll be fine as long as you don't happen into an environment that'll influence you to use or your motivation is strong enough. Social media is basically the same thing and they've found that social media isn't really addicting in itself it's more about the way in which people use social media. Identity is really important and in a lot ways people need it to go about day to day life. It's almost like proposing a money addiction, a cellphone addiction, a car addiction. Like we use these things a lot because we need to and in our modern world they are basically impossible to avoid.

well i feel if you think its hard it is going to be hard...if you identify with that addiction then it might be harder...i feel people get extremely attached to the image that they are addicted and they need a solution for it and are constantly trying to fight it because they are always reacting to this assumption of a problem and there is something that needs to be fixed and i feel we make desperate attempts to fix something because we think that our current state is extremely bad....i sense people generally behave more impatiently as well...when you dont try to control something really badly there is a sense of relaxation you experience...issues almost die down automatically after a while just like anxiety goes away if i patiently wait for it go away and not have a reaction to it and consider it to be real...atleast that's what i felt about my porn addiction...i haven't watched any in over a year and i suddenly stopped watching it because i almost pretended with myself that i am fine and there is nothing wrong with me and i also started telling myself a different story...and maybe being more aware and meditating...idk...

They aren't all the same tho. Among your three examples, RU-vid is very different. It's not really all that profilic for the vast majority of its users, only major content creators have to worry about their profiles. Regular users like us are basically just nobodies and the platform pretty much doesn't suggest otherwise, hence there's very little profile curation. By contrast Instagram is incredibly profilic.

@@ArawnOfAnnwn Yeah you're right. I was looking for TikTok in my head but somehow wrote youtube instead. The difference between youtube and tiktok in terms of how the behaviour of users is shaped by a social media I think shows how much design of these media can greatly effect the user's experience in building profilicity.

Hello. Old comment, but are there any papers or books of his specifically that you might recommend?

Carsick Cars - You Can Listen You Can Talk ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Koq-G8Ose4k.html

Carsick Cars - You Can Listen You Can Talk: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koq-G...

We are all trapped in this to some degree.

First the feedback is from actual peers especially if those peers follow your profile. Second I agree that a teenager putting something on their profile is more of a way of saying "this is something I like/believe in" and not so much of "this'll get me a lot of likes/I'll feel validated" I believe alot (if not most) people do that even after their teenage years. If people are teased about it they might take it down/feel shame. If alot of people LOVE IT then they might try to do something like it again. It's really all about that like button...and view count. Take those two stats away and you get a bunch of people who just put themselves out there. It sort of reminds me of how Instagram just added a like button for stories. Like I used to post stories and not care about how many people saw them or if anybody liked them which made me not think too much about posting them but now that I get a notification everytime someone likes one of my stories I sort of get an odd feeling when there's a story no one's liked. I really don't think the blatant display of stats are necessary for social media platforms to work. I think the operators of the platforms know that the dopamine rush of getting a like, a follower, a bunch of views on a story make people want to come back for more. That's the main reason they do it.

This, also online drift (the algorithms tendency to curate an environment of progressively extreme content in whichever direction you already fall) exacerbates this. I also think if you generalize this to maybe more actionable ideas such as politics or health choices, one can see the tendency to become crystallized in beliefs. There also never exists the need to openly have ones ideas challenged in the real world as its risky to the curated profile and also there exists a plethora of like minded content and individuals on your feed.

Your comment is great dude, hahaha I mean, if it's meandering it is so in a good way, not too far on the subject and reaching enough to get to relevant fields to your points. About the question you asked last, I don't think there will be a shift in the way you describe. First because those politics may stop being profitable to have for the companies who pose them, shifting through other profiles out necessity; and second because, though I'm probably making a far-fetched claim, most people having a sense of doom towards some kind of fate for humanity, as if the task of prospering past this point or some not-so-far point in the future is "too much for humans to handle".

Tbh I feel the shift in global climate policy can be more closely aligned to shifts in profitability, rather than moral attribution to largely inhuman governmental systems, as evidenced by the "lost decade" of carbon worsening in the early 2000s. Greta Thunberg is an interesting case, but it's worth noting her parents' role in her campaign and their job as media/marketing entrepreneurs. To me, it would be difficult to evidence a theory that charted identitarian media shifts role in climate praxis and policy outside of existing socioeconomic and class-political power structures, particularly when information monopolisation is at all time highs, with the feedback loop of algorithmic content being held almost entirely by what Varoufakis describes as the "Cloudalists". The effects of direct action groups based around older paradigms of solidarity such as the Gilets Jaunes or XR have arguably lead to more demonstrative shifts in local or national policy.

These are all very good points. As to your final question: Do you believe it shall be the work of 'identity politics' that will ultimately provoke the kind of dramatic re-orientations toward ecological sustainability? I am not sure. The communication theme of ecology provides a lot of opportunities for profile building, including an opportunity for you to build your academic profile. These are its immediate social effects. The effects of this kind of communication on the extra-social and extra-psychological environment (i.e: the planet) are difficult/impossible to assess. Will your academic work help saving the planet-? Hard to tell. Did Christianity make the world more full of love, and did it bring humanity closer to salvation? Hard to tell. But it certain;y created a lot of opportunities for people to identify themselves in certain ways. Or, put differently: does it make a difference for the planet if people sincerely commit to ecology, authentically embrace it, or are truly invested in their ecological profiles? I am not sure. But it makes a difference for themselves.

@@hans-georgmoeller7027 Thanks for your thoughtful reply professor. I have some follow-up thoughts that I would again appreciate your reflection on, though I apologise again for the length of the reply. I'd be happy to correspond on a different format if you were willing to engage with me on these topics. I think a comparative analysis of different identity schemes and the ecological relations they fashion, phenomenologically and empirically, would be a compelling study. For instance, I related your writings on Sincerity with accounts of indigenous ontologies regarding how they experience/perceive place, non-human life, and their situation in the lifeworld. I have limited familiarity only with Okanagan and Anishinaabe philosophies from West Canada, but as I understand their accounts of their traditions, identity is certainly 'fixed' to place, occupations were lasting and had ancestral ties, to the extent that one's name corresponded to one's social occupation ('i am of the river' or 'he is one who grows white ash trees'). Responsibility to place, occupations and community is front and center of their ethical involvement, which institutes a kind of cyclical renewal of the sincere relationship with the place they are situated. Being land-based, where Being is 'sited' in Heidegger's terms, is not experienced as a lack. In this sense, their sincere relationships and sense of self is also authentic. I recognise a lot of scholars latch onto indigenous accounts as part of the philosophical quest to re-site 'authentic' Being. There is a continuity from Heidegger onwards of attempting to resituate Being within this sincere-authentic fixed relation to place, such that we are phenomenologically and empirically 'pre-modern' in a sense. I think it can be observed, mostly amongst young people, a move toward embracing indigenous ethics towards the cause of ecological justice/restoration, yet such commitment remains profilic to the extent that it obviously requires a great deal of time, a shared culture, and a number of other elements such that one's orientation actually takes on the 'feel' of a sincere-authentic paradigm. This is also why I agree that the political new-sincerity types, from Rorty to Fukuyama who call for a new large-scale civic secular collective identity, or a left-nationalism, are naive in their belief that we can return to such an identity-scheme. Yet I am also impressed by land-based activism in Europe, for instance, NoTAV in France and ZAD in Italy (where an account can be read in the book "The Zad and NoTAV: Territorial Struggles and the Making of a New Political Intelligence") where land-defense constitutes an arena where a diverse political community springs up, and attracts people from across the world to come and live and contribute, tapping into the social nomadism of people looking for causes to root themselves in and identify with. To me these struggles have been authentic in a way that almost transcends the paradox at the heart of authenticity, where commitment to land-defense seriously endangers one's broader social and judicial identity and is expressed not so much profilically by the individuals involved (anonymity is often necessary to avoid the surveillance which would endanger their broader social identity from being linked to disruptive and illegal land-defense) but is experienced as the day-to-day participation of people developing political and militant strategies to realise their cause in each differentiated sphere: legally, politically, and socially. Individuals seem to sacrifice the rewards of curating a socially acceptable profilic identity to engage in illegal, but authentic, activism for a cause (which still yields some profilic benefits, but i'm skeptical as to this being the primary drive behind their commitments). I understand that this is basically what Andreas Malm wants in his books like 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' - an authentic care for ecological justice that transcends profilic value-creation and endangers one's broader social identity. The same could be said for XR, GreenPeace, the DeepGreen movement and other militant eco-activists. The movie 'Woman At War' presents a stylised account of Malm's ideal activist: a woman in a mostly middle-class Icelandic community who presents a socially acceptable profile in her public life, whilst committing domestic terrorism and disrupting fossil-capital's power grids in solitary acts which she thereafter promotes in an anonymous manifesto under an alias. This anonymous profile is then reported on by the media, and she overhears how this profile - not entirely curated by her - is received by her community (in more and more positive ways). In this example, it is not so much her individual actions which are most disruptive of fossil capital, but the popularity of the profile and its positive affirmation by the general peer which potentially entails a broader shift in public orientation toward similar, or even more extreme actions. The activist in question is involved in a dilemma of whether to commit extreme actions that threaten to alienate the general peer and ultimately undermine the cause. Eco-activism is similarly hamstringed by the dynamic (or dialectical?) limits of second-order observation by those who engage in struggles profilically. I see it as particularly pertinent to your analysis that the struggles of eco-activists of all stripes is also waged in the social sphere of second-order observation; the law gains the upper hand if the media is able to portray those engaged in land-defense as vandals, terrorists or unethical, disorganised delinquents. Yet if the movement maintains an attractive profile (which they are compelled to create to effectively struggle in the social domain) they resist this spectacular evaluation perpetrated by the media and a negative evaluation by the general peer. I remember the brief CHAZ occupation during the BLM protests that was swiftly demonised by FOX news as a good example of how struggling over the moral evaluation of profiles, of both individuals and causes, is a necessary element in modern activism. Propaganda historically has basically realised that projecting a negative profile of the Other into the public gaze permits certain militant, imperialist, or interventionist actions with minimised risk of retaliation or unrest. My follow-up questions off the back of this are: does 'Nature' itself have a profile that has been constructed in different ways historically and culturally that permits forms of identification? Does land-based commitment, constructing one's identity as connected to place, actually engender forms of sincere-authentic ethics, politics and identities with suitably altered phenomenological-empirical relations? Does self-awareness of the need to project a profile of one's cause, and one's identity, necessarily undermine a sincere-authentic relation to one's place or cause? Should eco-activism embrace the profilic dimension of their struggle though it entails a sophisticated curation of their cause and is limited by 'what is acceptable' in second-order observation, or rather pursue an 'authentic' relation to ecological justice which may engender more extreme acts, demanding as it does transcending the legal limits of the State or the social limits of second-order observation?

@@ewanjenkins I agree: a"comparative analysis of different identity schemes and the ecological relations they fashion, phenomenologically and empirically" is compelling and I hope you'll pursue the topic. Basically everything you say in your comment seems plausible to me, but I am not that familiar with the subject and especially not with many of the concrete types of activism you mention. My brief answer to the question about "Nature" is: Yes. A brief response to the other questions is: I don't think that in today's society eco-activism can be non-profilic. Any "return" to previous modes of sincerity-authenticity will have to be embedded in profile-oriented communication if it is supposed to have any activist or political effect, because activism and politics, by definition, speak to the general peer. I think that activism should "embrace', or rather acknowledge this and be fully aware of it. Maybe your work can help raising this awareness. In this way, you may be able to contribute to the cause.

As you pointed I don’t think it make too much sense to say that Asian societies have a smaller suicide rate (if they even rly do) because of the type of technology of identities that are or were in place. Things like suicide taboo (people may be less faced with stories of suicide and acceptation of it as a solution to anything), the relation with death, the impact of suicide on the family and the stigma of it pushing ppl to hide it may well be more meaningful than the opposition of different technologies of identities where it may be more a matter of switching technologies and it being visible than the type of technologies you were transitioning from.

Authenticity became about as a reaction to sincerity, you cannot be authentic if you follow a social role, in the same vain, profilicity cannot be authentic in the sense that it's always virtual, it's pretending, and in that sense it's also not authentic, but it can be an escape of the pressures of being authentic since you can have and hide behind different profiles, or because you can construct a life virtually that you don't have in actuality. The 3 modes reside on the shadows of each other.

I would say post industrial revolution, this has been a much more severe phenomenon of integration. Prior to that, problem's of "fitting in" was not exactly a social issue. Social media and the Internet more broadly has been uniquely devastating to the human psyche.

The past was far more stable, albeit this wasn't necessarily a good thing. A person born to a farmer or tradesman in some village or town could expect to just carry on the family occupation, and all the norms associated therein, for the rest of their life. The way their father or mother (depending on which gender the person is) lived was pretty much a blueprint for how they themselves would live.

@@ArawnOfAnnwn This is what i am talking about. We can’t know for sure as history has a tendency of smoothing out the bumps. Imagine that the farmer was bad at his job in years 1-7 of his 30 year career, and questioned his status. Only to grow accepting and competent by year 8, then we chuck him in the “Well he did fine” bucket, forgetting his existential dread early on. I feel much better leaning into uncertainty on this topic. This wheel spinning shit gets tiring.

@@priapulida I'd have expected a more thoughtful response from commenters on Prof Moeller's videos. Do you expect anyone familiar with philosophy to take your assertion that "the West, all big tech companies, all social media" are left-wing seriously?

@@priapulida, so you do expect people to take your widely wrong assertion seriously. Okay, so please explain how in your mind neoliberal, capitalistic, and hierarchical authoritarian businesses are "lefties" when those traits are antithetical to leftist politics.

@@priapulida, right, so you have no explanation nor understanding.

@@priapulida, you're several comments into a discussion you don't think is productive, which you have made unproductive by making a rather outlandish claim at odds with any credible evidence.

@@priapulida, it isn't "my view" at all. You're trying to assert something that is contrary to the politics and philosophy of "leftism". So unless you have something credible to overturn literally every bit of politics, economics, history, and philosophy, then I'd say you're either trolling or need to step out of your bubble.

Thanks, Sarah. I think authenticity is "aufgehoben" in profilicity, in the Hegelian triple sense: eliminated, maintained, and raised to another level. Put in a different philosophical vocabulary, authenticity 's "simulated" in profilicity and put in its service: which means that while performing and displaying authenticity (e.g.: "show the unvarnished face") one produces a sort of "copy" of authenticity--instead of the "beauty" filter, one uses the "authenticity filter", so to speak. Authenticity is used to enhance profilicity. The same can be done with sincerity, i.e. by curating a profile of "loving mother" or "dedicated husband" on Facebook.

@@hans-georgmoeller7027 i think it is not simulated, but just displayed. Attention is power, so are likes, views etc. Digital profiles are just tool for acquiring and displaying power and it can be done by showing filtered buttocks or doing something authentically. Like in life, you can acquire power by being competent or by lying ( beauty filter) and the digital media promotes the latter.

'Cept people don't like to feel that they're not anything special, so this seems like a non-starter as they'd quickly lose motivation.

@@ArawnOfAnnwn I guess we're all born to suffer then

Yeah he's not saying that society has to learn to harmonize these two profiles he's just saying that one's more dominant than the other. Authenticity used to be more dominant, this idea that you have to be true to yourself while profilicity, putting yourself out there and that self being validated by your audience is dominant right now. People are already using it. It's already been in the mainstream it's just that people are still attached to the nondominant paradigm and keep trying to push it. That's the conflict. It's like reading the directions on how to steer a canoe but your in a car. That's the conflict. I feel like alot of people's frustrations about this idea would be settled if they were to read You and Your Profile. I struggled with alot of this before reading the book but it definitely makes it alot more clear.

@@gh0s1wav I must've missed him saying the 'profile' is currently more dominant than the 'authentic self'. If that's the case, then he's surely wrong -- most people are clearly more impacted by their face-to-face relationships (familial, work, friends, etc.) than their online presence. I can, however, sympathize with the idea that online profiles have become part of many individuals' self-concept, and that hopefully with time online profiles will be more harmonious with the 'other selves' (for lack of a better word).

"but rather to trust that society will figure out" - sounded like he said teenagers need help doing this, not that it'll all be okay in time.

What do you think?

Profiles are not just online. For example" a CV is also (part of) a profile. Without curating my academic profile, I couldn't keep my job.

good question. I tend to think that trans--like other genders, too--has more and more to do with profile curation. In short: traditional gender roles have been increasingly replaced by gender profiles. And transgender is a good example for this shift. Do you have any thoughts on this? (So far, our only video that touches on this issue is the one on Abigail Thorn).

@@hans-georgmoeller7027 Thank you professor for your answer. I do agree with what you proposed. For example, social media platforms like Instagram give features to display pronouns. This becomes an integral part of the identity/profile of an individual using it. But It is still fascinating to know whether the profile is a way of promoting authentic identity? it would be nice if we know more about it in your future videos. the topic is fascinating and is something to ponder upon. ( PS: Your videos are very insightful. have a very good day!)