The Bandwagon Problem

We all know the bandwagon syndrome. It happens in sports, pop culture with favorite artists, and of course politics.

A side bar problem is developing. And that is some of the posting to boards of various stories.

Posting in general happens in sports all the time. You have fans for one side and the other all looking to one up the other side in what is being said. This is usually all in fun and most posters know in the end it will be the players that decide the outcome. Of course there is the usual percentage of blame the Ref posts that happen also. Overall though there is some discussion of a game or event that evaluates the actual events with some degree of rational discourse. One sided yes, but at least many comments discuss pro and cons of what is going on.

What has been happening over the last few elections and is definitely getting worse is the one upmanship in political commentary. People seem to work real hard to come up with the quip that gets the most up votes. There is less and less discussion of the story, the policy, the event, or the person and whether what they have to offer is viable.
This ramps up the hate in politics. If you only want recognition for how popular your comment is then you must up the ante in every story. You can read through post after post and the majority is just someone trying to make some inane comment that tops all the other comments on that particular story. There are still some posters trying to actually discuss a point or two either their own or from the story, but they are seriously drowned out by all the noise posts. And since most story boards default to the most popular posts being on top, any rational comment very rarely gets read. And of course this only reinforces the need to find the perfect derogatory quip if you want to have the most up votes.

I am hoping that these commentaries are only a reflection of a small group of people who have nothing to do, but become the most popular kids in class. It is hard to tell. I do not spend the time analyzing each person’s name to see how often it appears. Also there is the statements that accuse each side of hiring people to post on the boards. I would assume if this is the case then they would be the driver of finding quips to reflect negatively on the other point of view to hopefully convince others their side is right. It doesn’t do any good, but at least we aren’t in as much trouble as I am thinking.

What this does do is inhibit rational discussion of stories and political viewpoints. After awhile rational people will get tired of this insanity and quit participating. (I am not a rational person). This hurts us as a country. If we value free speech, overall the speech should have some value. How can people with good ideas or points of view or a truly good commentary on a situation be allowed to speak if only the noise gets through?

The internet was supposed to be the greatest invention to move free speech forward. In a backwards way it is becoming its greatest enemy. This includes much of the commentary by news bloggists too. If you want to say something you have to be the loudest person on the block or worse the Kardashians or the Palins. Which leads me to another point. Why are these two families and groups so popular? Neither group offers anything of value to our country yet they tend to dominate the media noise at a high level. There are more than these two family groups, but they are the most extreme example of worthless attention.

The news bloggists fall into this trap. Of course they are stuck since their shows are driven by ad dollars. They have to spit out a large amount of worthless verbiage and keep the attention on them self to survive in this media world. And at least they fall under an umbrella of being called professional commentators. Yet what they have to offer most of the time is the same juvenile name calling etc that the amateur bloggers do on the story boards.

So this leads to the problem. We now have people who are trying to lead political bandwagons with nothing more than one sentence statements that offer nothing to our country and nothing to us as a society.


On a different note, how do we support the scientists (and of course all the people) in Russia. They were protesting today in Moscow. More and more of what is happening in Russia is becoming frightening if you want democracy to flourish or at the very least survive. I wish I could offer more to them than this feeble attempt at mentioning their plight and the need for us to come out in their support. As regular readers know I am always supporting better education. How can you have a better education system if scientists cannot have the ability to do the research and work they need to do without obstruction (okay there is a value component to discuss another day) to help us understand our world. Or to teach us what they have learned. We need to continue to put pressure on Putin and support the Russian people so they can become the great country they want to be.

Watched the Belmont Stakes. Always a great day to watch a bit of sports history. Congratulations to American Pharaoh.

And to all those of the Great Generation on this historic day, too bad our current political leadership cannot step up to the plate for our country like you did. Thanks for everything you did.


Finally it is now summer a traditional time to travel. Please do if you get the chance. I know with the economy the last few years it has become difficult to be able to travel, but this is such a beautiful world, everyone needs to see as much of it as possible.