I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I come from a conservative religious family, but I grew up to be pretty far left. I think part of it is lead poisoning, which has been sadly downplayed consistently for decades, but we now know has serious and long lasting negative effects on critical thinking, impulse control, and empathy, that the effects are cumulative, and that they can worsen later in life as cognitive abilities decline with age. We’re partly seeing the long term fallout of leaded gasoline in older adults. Another piece is wealth disparity, which results in the most harm to people who have the least, but also seems to have negative psychological effects on the wealthy. It may be that obscene wealth selects for people with low empathy and compassion because it required the exploitation of others, but it also seems as though becoming that wealthy causes a decline in empathy and compassion to some extent. The lack of empathy has been strongly associated with conservatism, and as you mentioned internet echo chambers tend to amplify conservative beliefs in people, pretty much by design. So the conclusion I come to is that older adults NOW tend to be more conservative and hateful because 1) past lead exposure causing cognitive impairments including reducing empathy, 2) age and decades of holding political power have allowed older people to hoard disproportionate wealth, further damaging their empathy for people they see as lesser for being poor, 3) the rise of algorithmic social media creating echo chambers that polarize and amplify political beliefs, and 4) social media companies being owned and run by older, ultra wealthy conservatives who use their platforms to promote their own conservative political beliefs. Ultimately all of these problems stem fundamentally from capitalism. Capitalists downplayed the dangers of lead so we put it in paint and gas. Capitalists wanted more and more so they lobbied and bribed and manipulated our society to make it easier. Capitalists wanted to hold on to their wealth so they enacted decades long propaganda campaigns through tv, print, and finally the internet and social media, to push capitalist ideals and trick normal people into supporting them against their own self interest. So why did this fascist cunt become a fascist cunt? Because rich people wanted to be richer.
I’ve seen rich people grow fearful as their physical abilities fade. From as little as not trusting walking on ice to not trusting walking after dark to unsteady driving to staying inside a locked door more. Perhaps that makes them more susceptible to the scare talk, the scapegoating, blaming “others”
I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. I come from a conservative religious family, but I grew up to be pretty far left. I think part of it is lead poisoning, which has been sadly downplayed consistently for decades, but we now know has serious and long lasting negative effects on critical thinking, impulse control, and empathy, that the effects are cumulative, and that they can worsen later in life as cognitive abilities decline with age. We’re partly seeing the long term fallout of leaded gasoline in older adults. Another piece is wealth disparity, which results in the most harm to people who have the least, but also seems to have negative psychological effects on the wealthy. It may be that obscene wealth selects for people with low empathy and compassion because it required the exploitation of others, but it also seems as though becoming that wealthy causes a decline in empathy and compassion to some extent. The lack of empathy has been strongly associated with conservatism, and as you mentioned internet echo chambers tend to amplify conservative beliefs in people, pretty much by design. So the conclusion I come to is that older adults NOW tend to be more conservative and hateful because 1) past lead exposure causing cognitive impairments including reducing empathy, 2) age and decades of holding political power have allowed older people to hoard disproportionate wealth, further damaging their empathy for people they see as lesser for being poor, 3) the rise of algorithmic social media creating echo chambers that polarize and amplify political beliefs, and 4) social media companies being owned and run by older, ultra wealthy conservatives who use their platforms to promote their own conservative political beliefs. Ultimately all of these problems stem fundamentally from capitalism. Capitalists downplayed the dangers of lead so we put it in paint and gas. Capitalists wanted more and more so they lobbied and bribed and manipulated our society to make it easier. Capitalists wanted to hold on to their wealth so they enacted decades long propaganda campaigns through tv, print, and finally the internet and social media, to push capitalist ideals and trick normal people into supporting them against their own self interest. So why did this fascist cunt become a fascist cunt? Because rich people wanted to be richer.
I’ve seen rich people grow fearful as their physical abilities fade. From as little as not trusting walking on ice to not trusting walking after dark to unsteady driving to staying inside a locked door more. Perhaps that makes them more susceptible to the scare talk, the scapegoating, blaming “others”