The 'doom porn' phenomenon

I'm thinking about writing a series addressing the various diseases Internet People have, but from the point of view of explaining them all through some kind of sociological view (rather than placing individual responsibility, or blame, or whatever)-- something about the rising levels of autism, widespread alienation due to social breakdown, or the erosion of local institutions and their replacement by amoral market forces... the point is look at the bigger picture.

But first and as a special case I wanted to discuss the general 'doom porn' phenomenon, now that I've been poasting about climate change in particular, since it seems relevant.

Rather than viewing it as a unique phenomenon, I think it can mainly be explained by the general model of addictive behavior.

What happens with very severe cases of addiction is that the mind and body of the addict are effectively consumed, hollowed out, and taken over-- rather than the person being in control, they are more like an empty vessel that lives solely to chase after stronger and stronger doses (before the eventual collapse occurs). 

This process is accompanied of course by the withdrawal from or abandonment of all social relationships, which goes in hand with their hollowed-out personality: contrary to Self Esteem fantasies, and a lot of Internet nonsense, one's personality is largely the result of interactions and relationships with others, not a Platonic ideal that exists apart from or above mundane reality.

Abandoning social ties results in personal disintegration, in which a healthy personal life is replaced with fetishes and obsessions.

This is why addicts view criticism of their addictions as an existential threat, and lash out accordingly. It's very different from how normal people treat criticism of their habits, but makes sense under the circumstances: their addiction has become their personality.

With that in mind, much of the whole 'doom porn' & climate change movement starts to make sense. 

It's revealing that the name itself is derived from an pornography, an obsessive pointless fetish, rather than anything scholarly or scientific or spiritual or religious (despite the branding).

The actual process of participating in 'the movement' (more of a cult) consists of consuming your weekly / daily fix in individual isolation, with no long term satisfaction or communal bonding, though there may be other junkies present-- no different from a chemical addiction.  

And revealingly, the majority of the climate change people themselves have a history of hardcore substance abuse: addictive in one facet of life usually means addictive in others. (Whether the personality leads to substance abuse, or the substance abuse leads to that kind of personality, is beyond the scope of the post.)

I don't say this to slander them personally, but to point out what they have in common-- the fact that substance abuse is so widespread in those circles, compared to the normal population, is indicative of the nature of the whole thing.

You might expect people with such problems would act in a humble manner, as opposed to the puritanical scolding and lecturing that the Greens are famous for, but there is a strange overlap between hedonism, transgression, and anti-social behavior and a victim / superiority complex-- they seem to reinforce each other.

The Green pats himself on the shoulder as he lashes out at you, or something like that... 

Their response to criticism is never mild amusement (as it would be if you were arguing against largely accepted scientific facts, like evolution) and nor does it take the tone of neutral academic disagreement, which would still be respectful of the opponent, while treating him as wrong / deluded / misinformed. 

Rather it takes the form of seething dismissal, intense hostility, and branding the opponent in highly moralistic terms. It implies personal sinfulness and wickedness, and suggests imminent punishment-- it's both the panicked response of a junkie whose habit is going to be taken away, and who must lash out to prevent internal collapse, and also the behavior of a self-appointed torturer looking for an excuse to indulge in cruelty. 

Examining the broader beliefs of the climate change people also reveals them to be more into pseudo-scientific Cargo Cult slop rather than anything rooted in reality, once again suggesting the 'science' part is a pure LARP-- there's a widespread belief in these circles in things like magical healing substances (even as we know there is a clear link between cannabis use, and substances in general, and schizophrenia), sentient computers, new sources of free limitless energy (none of which work), fixing pollution from from Asia by building windmills in Germany, and generally a lot of disordered, confused, and incoherent thinking. 

This is, once again, not to pick on them individually, but to establish that people who show sloppy thinking on the micro level are not going to be reliable for macro-level stuff, all of which requires an even greater level of consistency, rigor, and impartiality. 

Taking the r/collapse subreddit as an example, a lot of the thinking 'in action' essentially boils down to hysterically exaggerating the hell out of a handful of insights or observations, usually based off whatever the current trend is in the news now, and then using that to feed the addiction to imminent doom.  

Something like this:

1. Current trend

2. Another current trend

3. Extrapolation

4. Hysterical prediction of imminent apocalypse, based off of extrapolation

They start off with a solid structure and then go on to build something that is very flimsy on top of that.  

Examples? 

1. COVID vaccines didn't work

2. COVID has not been eliminated (b/c vaccines didn't work)

3. More people are being re-infected, and excess mortality remains elevated

4. 60% of the population will soon be dead

Or:

1. Micro-plastics are everywhere

2. Micro-plastics are likely harmful for individuals, and for the environment

3. Micro-plastics affect the soil

4. Human agriculture will fail, and most of the population will soon be dead of starvation

(Another trick is to refute criticism by bringing it back to points 1 & 2, as if the critics were disagreeing with the data itself and arguing against reality, when it's the exaggerated extrapolation that people naturally find suspicious, overly paranoid, and unscientific.)

It's remarkable how many times human society has almost collapsed, in these people's eyes-- as their subreddit grows and grows (and r/ collapse is just one example) the number of apocalyptic predictions also increases exponentially, and this makes the way society manages to keep on going, in spite of imminent doom, all the more miraculous. 

Many of them go on to produce a fantastic track record of apocalyptic predictions, which are always on the verge of coming true (and which therefore can never be falsified). Addicts exist in an eternal present, and being on an endless treadmill to nowhere in particular, they cannot take stock of their previous or future behavior.   

I can only conclude that it's as if the breakdown of societal order is creating a new group of gurus who make a living off of people's widespread personal problems, which are in turn the result of collective collapse.

In exchange for cult leader status, donations, and clicks they provide their desperate followers with what they crave-- in this case, the overwhelming sense of imminent doom, which perhaps allows the desperate people to envision an easy way out of their own lives, or excuse their own passivity and laziness.