https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/04/19/streamers-mental-health/
https://nypost.com/2021/01/08/rioters-left-feces-urine-in-hallways-and-offices-during-mobbing-of-us-capitol/
https://fakenous.net/?p=2154
https://fakenous.net/?p=2134 “The first thing to understand about humanity is that most human beings have very little character. They have minimal moral motivation (https://fakenous.net/?p=272), and weak internal motivations in general. They are easily swayed by circumstances, especially by people around them. So the reason why your neighbor doesn’t grab your wallet or punch you in the face when you annoy him is not that it would be wrong to do so. The reason is that it’s against the social norms — he doesn’t see other people doing that, he knows that other people would disapprove of it, and society might punish such behavior. That’s really the main reason.
People’s allegiance to social norms is emotional, not intellectual. They just feel like they have to follow the norms. So they’re not very subtle about it — e.g., people aren’t very good at distinguishing good social norms from bad ones. Also, some of the norms are vague and general, like “Treat people with a certain level of respect, even when you disagree with them.”
The most valuable thing that America has — the thing that makes things go better in innumerable ways than the way they go in 99% of other societies — is not its wealth, nor its particular laws and policies, nor even its Constitution. The most valuable thing is a set of norms and institutions that managed to take hold and become stable. Or at least metastable.”
