Step back from the edge.
9.11.25
“The rational among us hoped it would get better. Then we went right back to the most extreme, divisive, incendiary rhetoric we had.
When we can see clearly the threat before us, what will we do? What are we made of, really?
I pray. I hope. I beg that we can find a new path — but my take, my truth, is that I fear we’ve stepped into the abyss.”
— Isaac Saul, Tangle
We are in the midst of the biggest and most sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s. It is a symptom of deeper problems within our society.
“From President Trump, who was targeted in two assassination attempts last year, to lawmakers, judges and local elections officials, violence is now a continuous threat for public figures across the country. The shooting of Kirk is poised to drive a divided nation even further into its partisan silos, amplifying the animosity between the political parties.”
— Aaron Zitner, The Wall Street Journal
“On social media, it was easy to find left-wing posters reveling in Mr. Kirk’s death and suggesting he got what he deserved. On the right, initial expressions of grief and shock were overtaken by open calls for political reckoning and vengeance. There were ominous proclamations that the country was on the brink of civil war — or should be.
The outbursts worried experts, who warned that Americans’ tolerance for politically motivated attacks has been growing at a striking pace.”
— Richard Fausset, Ken Bensinger, and Alan Feuer, The New York Times
These are the reverberations of inflammatory rhetoric. Debate that escalates into hyperbole. Most of us can discern delusion from reality and shrug off calls to violence. We can identify when a politician or pundit is phrasing a message to create headlines and viral traction. We understand how the social media and clickbait attention game is played.
Yet, the ideologies of the population exist on a spectrum. It is easy to become radicalized by an algorithm or to get lost in the false ultimatums levied by insular online communities. At some point, we lose sight of the plot. Eventually, those on the fringes are pushed over the edge.
Our beliefs are only as good as the information we consume. When our media ecosystem is incentivized to reinforce existing beliefs, separate communities, and promote inflammatory content for clicks, it is easy to see how our foundational beliefs degrade to the quality of our content. Our trend towards polarization acts in exact accordance with the systems we designed.
Social media corporations unleash sophisticated machine learning algorithms on the minds of children and teens. Your feed, which may feel like a brief moment of entertainment, is a targeted attempt to capture your attention at all costs. Unfortunately for society, what has proven to be the most effective method of success is inflaming controversy.
Traditional media publications carve out a niche ideology to defend market share, eventually becoming captured by their own audiences. It is in their economic best interest to reinforce the existing beliefs of their readers, separating their messaging to stand out from the herd. Division creates barriers to exit, strengthening their hold on subscribers. Even the best are not immune.
Divided into our separate realities, it becomes impossible to communicate across partisan lines. In the absence of words, some resort to violence.
“War is what happens when language fails”
— Margaret Atwood
We condemn violence, but fail to identify its root cause. We are quick to call for easy solutions, but ignore the harder problem we must solve. A problem for which the window to implement a viable solution is closing.
Our mission with Aemula is to align incentives across the media ecosystem, empower independent journalists to share a wider diversity of perspectives, open new lines of communication across communities, and reverse the trend of polarization in our news feeds.
If we hope to achieve these goals, we must move quickly. We cannot do it alone. We need your help.
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