Outrage is Addictive--And Someone's Cashing In on Yours (IMPORTANT INFO) [View all]

[usonian]

Last edited Sat Feb 8, 2025, 01:31 AM - Edit history (1)

We are kept angry, reactive, and sure we’re right. Because that reaction is profitable and mutes our power.
CHRISTOPHER IRELAND
FEB 02, 2025
https://christopherireland.substack.com/p/outrage-is-addictiveand-someones

The Outrage Cycle
You check the news—online, in print, or streaming—and instantly, you’re dropped into the latest crisis. Trump slashes funding. Inspectors General defy dismissal. Bird flu claims its first victim. Before you’ve even absorbed the details, you’re reacting. You lean in, seeking confirmation that others feel the same.

The system isn’t built for reflection—it’s built to keep you engaged, to keep you reacting, to ensure that your anger fuels the cycle.

If outrage didn’t feel good, we wouldn’t keep coming back for more. In some contexts, like watching sports, it’s even OK to enjoy it. Expressing anger—especially in a competitive or social context—delivers a neurochemical high. When anger is tied to an expectation, like winning an argument or exacting revenge, the brain rewards that behavior with a dopamine boost, making us feel engaged, energized, and righteous.

But when anger is regularly triggered, the consequences aren’t entertaining. The more we consume media that upsets us, the more we crave another conflict. Over time, we build tolerance, seeking out more extreme content just to get the same emotional payoff. The media’s variable and unpredictable rewards—outrage, validation, or a surge of likes—keep us hooked by using the same psychological tactic that keeps gamblers at the table. And this is where outrage stops being just an emotion and becomes an addiction.

Read. Learn.

I personally cruise DU titles, maybe read a few, and respond. Sometimes, I even link or even doctor up a graphic.

Then I flip over to Hacker News and scan titles there. The temperature is 10 or 20 degrees cooler, and big political items make it there. I post some here when they are insightful and expose the enemy's intent and strategy.

And that's it.

My reaction? I post techie info that's helpful for organizing and communicating privately, and urge leaders to lead.

Soldiers and sailors don't write their own plans. They work in coordination and cooperation. That's the big frustration, so urge leaders to lead. We are powerful together and weak as uncoordinated DU posters.

My editorial for the day.

LEADERS! LEAD

The rest of us?

STAY SHARP, MOTIVATED AND ALERT.

Your doom is "their" win.

https://christopherireland.substack.com/p/outrage-is-addictiveand-someones