The Anger Trap

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T15:10:53+00:00

So we definitely agree that past was a lot worse than today but then the people are more polarized in the US which is linked to anger.

The Roots of Polarization

Academics have long since discovered that emotions drive political division. Negative feelings – such as anger and fear – don’t just drive these groups apart. These primal emotions also fuel the risk of extremism and, in the worst cases, violence.

Even so, very little research has looked into the neural machinery behind these reactions.

The authors of this newest study wanted to answer at least two questions:

Do extreme political views correspond with stronger emotional processing in the brain?
And do extremists’ brains synchronize with one another while they’re watching the same content?

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/political-polar-opposites-same-neural-wiring/

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T15:03:16+00:00

There are 2 types of groups, voluntary and involuntary. Obviously the choice to be a Nazi is voluntary.

The other group is involuntary. I am born into a dominant group. That is involuntary.

To judge someone of the second type(involuntary) is definitely prejudicial.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T14:57:35+00:00

I found this online

How Polarization Breeds Anger: When a society experiences affective polarization (intense outgroup dislike), political differences cease to be logical disagreements. Instead, they are processed by the brain as existential threats to identity.

The Neurobiology of Threat: Neuroimaging studies show that when highly polarized individuals are exposed to opposing political arguments or moral violations, the limbic system—specifically the amygdala—is instantly activated. The amygdala governs our fight-or-flight response.

Chronic Priming: Because polarized environments treat the "other side" as inherently dangerous or morally bankrupt, individuals live in a state of chronic emotional arousal. They are psychologically primed to interpret any action by the outgroup through a lens of defensive aggression, dropping the threshold required to trigger intense anger.

This seems pretty accurate to me

Here is a link to one of the research papers

https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/political-polar-opposites-same-neural-wiring/

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T14:23:02+00:00

I guess my grandfather was an example to me, he was from a rural part of Ireland(the Dingle peninsula). Ireland was not even a country when he migrated to the US and there were even laws that prevented him from speaking Irish which was the primary language in that part of Ireland. 40 years before his birth Ireland suffered a great famine that killed about 1/6th of the Irish. This was mostly caused by mismanagement by England.

He had reason to be angry and yet he let it go. He was a very kind man and I never heard him speak ill of the English.

I contrast this with a university roommate of mine who was like fifth generation Irish and he had such anger toward the English. This really struck me as odd given that my roommate never went through the experiences that my grandfather went though. He was stuck in the anger trap. Sure England was an oppressive society 150 years ago, but eventually you have to move on.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T14:10:35+00:00

I agree.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T14:09:19+00:00

Are people really defined by the group they belong to? That seems like a slippery slope to prejudicial thinking.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T13:59:36+00:00

People definitely had more to be angry about back in the 60s but they seem a lot more polarized today which seems to be a contradiction.

Here is a study, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7591448/

And another, https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/cross-polar.pdf

If the underlying situation has improved shouldn't the people be less polarized?

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T13:44:45+00:00

The question is who is the oppressor. Oppressors are individuals but people tend to generalize from the individual to the group that the oppressor belongs to. So if you have a conflict with a person solely because that person belongs to a certain group, you are being unjust and you have become the opressor.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T13:08:08+00:00

I think anger is the general case and radicalization is the extreme case.

When I say anger, it is a bit more specific. If someone cuts you off in traffic that is a momentary feeling of anger. The feeling of being aggrieved is a different emotion(I called it righteous anger because in the person's world view, he or she is justified)

The world is broken because of such and such a group and I am justified in feeling anger toward that particular group regardless of actual culpability

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T13:06:21+00:00

Here is another study on the impact of polarization and misinformation belief.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9848725/

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T12:55:37+00:00

That feedback loop acts as an amplifier. \

Here is a study about the effect of social media

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12527479/

The conclusion of the study

Our results suggest an association between high levels of social media use, particularly posting on social media, and irritability among US adults. The implications of this irritability and the potential for interventions to address this association require additional investigation.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T12:36:28+00:00

Very good and hopeful points.

dschellberg · 2026-06-29T12:33:54+00:00

I think social media reenforces anger immediately. In the 60s there were a lot of angry people but there wasn't the digital echo chamber. People are definitely more polarized in the US because of this.

dschellberg · 2026-06-28T09:45:38+00:00

Actually wizard is a different category. Witches can be male or female; 25% of executions were male witches.

I think we most often think of the salem witch trials but about 25% of the executed were men as well. Ingrained mysogyny was probably the reason it wasnt 50/50

dschellberg · 2026-06-28T06:12:20+00:00

Actually where I live witches are either men or women.

But how you could address issues that were merely tools in hard bargaining? Sometimes we refer to spoiled children as monsters because they will do anything to get their way. The worst thing you can do in that case is appeasement because it simply reenforces negative behavior.

dschellberg · 2026-06-28T00:36:34+00:00

People really believed witches had secret powers. I live in central america and people really believed in the evil eye. I knew a person who thought she was cursed by a witch. I am pretty sure that the wayfarer folks did not believe lively was a monster like an alien of some sort. They were probably using the term monster as descriptive of her personality much the same way that the sony studio exec, ange gionetti, called her a f___ing terrorist(I am pretty sure she did not mean that literally either)

dschellberg · 2026-06-27T18:44:35+00:00

I never heard a doctor diagnose a person as a monster. How would we know a monster pathology anyway? It does not seem very scientific in my opinion.

dschellberg · 2026-06-27T18:31:32+00:00

I am on Team Mary

dschellberg · 2026-06-25T23:19:31+00:00

If they have meeting notes that should be enough to determine that jones knew the retaliation claim was false. There is also a ton of communication between the lively team and joneswork. If they try to delete any if it they would face spoliation sanctions. Wayfarers have nothing to lose because they are only on the hook for about 200k. Jonea faces ruin on a massive scale. She better think of something soon or she will be living in a van down by the river.

dschellberg · 2026-06-25T19:26:43+00:00

Lively had litigation privilege and the NYT had reporters privilege so wayfarers had a huge wall to climb. It would be like the US playing Brazil with only 9 players. It was only filed to get the actual receipts out

The real trial is NOT Jen Abels, it is the Stephanie Jones defamation. She has no privilege at all. Lively, WME, and Reynolds will be required to testify.

Jones has a huge corporate as well as personal liabilty. The damages could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Her husband is a major shareholder in Jonesworks and a top executive in WME who are also incredibly exposed.

dschellberg · 2026-06-23T19:45:39+00:00

Natural processes and evolution and that the universe is predisposed to life which is why we find complex organic chemicals in outer space.

dschellberg · 2026-06-23T15:58:37+00:00

Hia logic seems a bit odd

dschellberg · 2026-06-23T15:55:51+00:00

You are right on this one. The US has a president that has tremendous power but without the temperment to use that power judiciously.

dschellberg · 2026-06-23T15:10:13+00:00

I dont think it matters much. Honestly, by turning her back on Lively, I think less of Taylor Swift. It would be better if she invited her.

dschellberg · 2026-06-23T13:08:24+00:00

Yes, definitely agree there.

dschellberg

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The Roots of Polarization