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The big things to understand here are
1) when you see yourself doing something, you change your self-image to include "I am a person who does that thing"
2) when you think others see you a certain way, the same.
3) you will act in ways that are consistent with your self-image
So in light of that, please consider how being a user of Social Media, especially real-name social media, is structurally identical to being a prisoner in a Chinese POW camp during the Korean war.
When you endorse a cause on social media, the rewards are worthless. Tiny rewards mean that you will not perceive your statements as being coerced, you will own them. And yet, the public eye puts pressure on you to say things that are pro-social in a very particular way
Most people want to appear compassionate. A political slogan, a bleeding heart story, these things that you spread virally, they change your self-image. And they leave you with evidence, public evidence, that you are the kind of person who speaks out about "systemic oppression"
Social media created the feedback loop that drove everyone mad with social justice. Just like in the Chinese camp, the subtle but constant pressure to make cheap moralistic statements resulted in mass conversions. I believe this is the true cause of the "great awokening"
Today I found a relevant story about some psychological tactics used by China long ago, that happen to draw strong parallels to what might be going on here. He's not implicating China.
It's about ~25 tweets long.
https://twitter.com/0x49fa98/status/1272180537541656577
edit - heres an easier to read format: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1272180537541656577.html
TLDR - Humans goto GREAT lengths to make sure their words and actions are consistent with what they've said and done in the past. Virtue signaling on social media broadcasts to large audiences, creating a feedback loop of ever increasing virtue signaling to remain consistent with the growing number of documented and easily searched statements one has made in the past. The effectiveness is not from peer pressure, but rather, the author truly believes their own metamorphosis.