I completely agree but awareness at least helps you understand your own reaction to the problem and if actually this is a helpful way for you to spend your limited attention
Thank you Dominic and Laurie for laying this out with such clarity and restraint. What resonated most for me is how you disentangle moral emotion from moral action—showing how outrage can feel like integrity while quietly eroding agency and health.
One thought your piece stirred is that rage bait may be training us to confuse attention with responsibility. When every perceived norm violation demands a response, discernment collapses. Not everything wrong is ours to carry, and not every reaction is a contribution. Relearning selective attention may be as much an ethical skill as a neurological one.
Attention without action can masquerade as conscience.
We can’t act on everything we see - and pretending we can may be a way of avoiding the harder question: what am I actually in a position to do, and for who?
Thank you Dominic! That line is sharp and clarifying. Asking who am I actually in a position to act for reframes restraint as integrity, not indifference. Without that question, outrage risks becoming a stand-in for responsibility rather than an expression of it.
My one and only hero is Nelson Mandela. I choose him because he was able to find forgiveness, understanding, perspective, and wisdom while being in prison. He had everything taken from him and somehow he realized his guards were just as much prisoners of the system as he was. Rage and feeling victimized leads us to dead ends. Forgiveness and understanding takes our power back. Now if I could only do it myself…
He is a fantastic role model, and I can’t fathom the inner transformation he must have gone through during all those years in prison. For me, I’ve come to realize I don’t want to keep destructive emotions inside me, they’re like a cancer that spreads. As that understanding has settled in, I find I no longer have any desire to expose myself to it.
This analysis captures a modern form of cognitive waste that parallels economic inefficiency. When our attention mechanisms evolved for genuine threats are hijacked by manufactured outrage, we're essentially wasting our most valuable cognitive resources on signals that provide no meaningful information.
The comparison to resource waste in traditional societies is particularly apt. Just as a tribe couldn't afford to waste food or energy, our brains can't afford to waste executive function on content designed purely for engagement metrics. Yet that's exactly what's happening at scale.
What makes this especially concerning is the opportunity cost. Every thirty minutes spent on rage bait is cognitive capacity that could have been directed toward actual problem-solving, relationship building, or skill development. The waste compounds over time.
How do we shift from individual interventions to addressing the structural incentives that make attention waste profitable in the first place?
Meaningful change has to happen at the cultural level. Individually, the most powerful thing we can do is pay attention, and teach our children to recognize how destructive this behavior is.
My honest answer: I'm not sure we get there without the cultural norm shifting first - where engaging with obvious bait becomes low-status rather than satisfying.
It's slow, but it's also how smoking went from cool to boring.
> In small groups, a cheater or free-rider threatened everyone’s survival.
this sounds wrong. the evolutionary root of this doesn't seem to make sense given young children do not display this behavior all that much. Until we drill it into them.
the reason i have been drawn to anger inducing stuff isn't that it was wrong, it's because there was always still something for me to learn although engagement was dangerous : adopting the ideas would likely mean rejection. There always were and still are plenty of wrong things that don't grab my attention. The answer that worked for me was mindful engagement and trying to figure tings out.
It's so difficult to break the loop when other people are actively trying to get you…and on every single social media platform.
You’re right. But once you are mindful of it…it gets easier.
I completely agree but awareness at least helps you understand your own reaction to the problem and if actually this is a helpful way for you to spend your limited attention
Thank you Dominic and Laurie for laying this out with such clarity and restraint. What resonated most for me is how you disentangle moral emotion from moral action—showing how outrage can feel like integrity while quietly eroding agency and health.
One thought your piece stirred is that rage bait may be training us to confuse attention with responsibility. When every perceived norm violation demands a response, discernment collapses. Not everything wrong is ours to carry, and not every reaction is a contribution. Relearning selective attention may be as much an ethical skill as a neurological one.
That is very thoughtful way to look at this. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Laurie for this great post!
Attention without action can masquerade as conscience.
We can’t act on everything we see - and pretending we can may be a way of avoiding the harder question: what am I actually in a position to do, and for who?
Thanks for the thoughtful comment
Thank you Dominic! That line is sharp and clarifying. Asking who am I actually in a position to act for reframes restraint as integrity, not indifference. Without that question, outrage risks becoming a stand-in for responsibility rather than an expression of it.
Thank you for extending the conversation there.
My one and only hero is Nelson Mandela. I choose him because he was able to find forgiveness, understanding, perspective, and wisdom while being in prison. He had everything taken from him and somehow he realized his guards were just as much prisoners of the system as he was. Rage and feeling victimized leads us to dead ends. Forgiveness and understanding takes our power back. Now if I could only do it myself…
He is a fantastic role model, and I can’t fathom the inner transformation he must have gone through during all those years in prison. For me, I’ve come to realize I don’t want to keep destructive emotions inside me, they’re like a cancer that spreads. As that understanding has settled in, I find I no longer have any desire to expose myself to it.
That's such an insightful example. "Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."
This analysis captures a modern form of cognitive waste that parallels economic inefficiency. When our attention mechanisms evolved for genuine threats are hijacked by manufactured outrage, we're essentially wasting our most valuable cognitive resources on signals that provide no meaningful information.
The comparison to resource waste in traditional societies is particularly apt. Just as a tribe couldn't afford to waste food or energy, our brains can't afford to waste executive function on content designed purely for engagement metrics. Yet that's exactly what's happening at scale.
What makes this especially concerning is the opportunity cost. Every thirty minutes spent on rage bait is cognitive capacity that could have been directed toward actual problem-solving, relationship building, or skill development. The waste compounds over time.
How do we shift from individual interventions to addressing the structural incentives that make attention waste profitable in the first place?
Meaningful change has to happen at the cultural level. Individually, the most powerful thing we can do is pay attention, and teach our children to recognize how destructive this behavior is.
My honest answer: I'm not sure we get there without the cultural norm shifting first - where engaging with obvious bait becomes low-status rather than satisfying.
It's slow, but it's also how smoking went from cool to boring.
It's actual time theft. Your time and mental peace. It's being siphoned into these people's pockets and they're laughing all the way to the bank.
But once you are aware of it you get to choose. :)
Absolutely. Awareness is how we start change. 👏
"Time theft" is exactly right!
I rarely get pulled in. Most of the time I see it for what it is and just continue to scroll.
That is wonderful.
You're a better person than me haha
We take things to personal, why did this happen to me?
Finishing an IOP program today, I need to say the actual journey has just started.
Thank you so much for the life support.
Incredible.
> In small groups, a cheater or free-rider threatened everyone’s survival.
this sounds wrong. the evolutionary root of this doesn't seem to make sense given young children do not display this behavior all that much. Until we drill it into them.
the reason i have been drawn to anger inducing stuff isn't that it was wrong, it's because there was always still something for me to learn although engagement was dangerous : adopting the ideas would likely mean rejection. There always were and still are plenty of wrong things that don't grab my attention. The answer that worked for me was mindful engagement and trying to figure tings out.