I am being absolutely serious here with the Weimar Republic comparison. Because people are fucking miserable and it’s fucking terrifying.
A hundred years ago, broke people in big cities would go to fascist rallies because they were free, and because sometimes the organizers gave out free food and beer, and because people had nothing better to do.
And they stayed because hate feels good when you’re hurting and simple violent solutions appeal to the angry monkey parts of our brains.
And the fewer community connections you have - the more the economy strips your life down to work and sleep, or to job hunting and sleep, or to scrounging in the gutter to survive and sleep, and the less you go out and socialize with actual human beings - the more appealing the fascist illusion of unity, of being part of a powerful group, becomes.
And the only difference today is that the fascist rallies are beamed directly into your home.
We should use mass AI propaganda to direct all our hate to an imaginary group of people that don’t actually exist, and are distinct enough that no living human could ever be mistaken for one of them. Like, let’s just invent an entirely new racial phenotype from whole cloth, with unique physical features no one has. And then just create a storm of AI stories, images, and videos of these evil bastards doing all sorts of heinous things. All of humanity can unite behind hating a group of people that don’t actually exist.
If we’re going to live in a post-truth dystopia, let’s try using it for good for once.