Free to speak your (hive) mind

While scrolling through my Facebook feed my eyes fell upon an intriguing video. It was from a page I myself did not follow, but was shown to me because several of my friends had liked the most recent post from said page. This particular video was titled "Are some cultures better than others?," and after watching it I was pretty shocked with the wild conclusions the creators had made. "What have African tribes contributed to society? I'm sure China has done some interesting things, but have those things helped the world or expanded their own culture?" I really could not believe what I had just heard. Surley people do not think like this! I checked the stats; 11,000 shares and 10,000 likes. The page itself, PragerU, has over two and a half million likes. 

So I decided to check the comments, hoping that decent humans were fact checking this video and taunting the creators' obvious racism and bias. But I was wrong. The comments were filled with hundreds of like-minded individuals shouting through their keyboards things like "There are many, especially those on the left, who should listen to this. He's got it exactly right." and "The liberal mindset in the grade schools high schools and Collegiate level in this country need to be removed education needs to go back to the way it was." Throughout the hundreds of comments, there were under a dozen condemning the video; and those individuals that did were attacked for being a "SJW" or a "Hillary Supporter". 

The PragurU example shows that the hive mind mentality is thriving in full force through 2017's politics. There are more localized examples as well, such as an individual surrounding themselves with people who conform to their own standards. One FB Friend of mine posted nothing about the FOX News executives sexually harassing women, but instantly posted about Weinsteins assault news. Her post was followed by instant comments calling out "liberals" for supporting Weinstein for so long.

Facebook has allowed individuals to surround themselves with Pages, People, and Posts that support their own belief system. Whether that is a video about how "More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means a greener Earth", "Christians are the most persecuted minority", "The goodness of America far outweighs its sins", or "Gender is binary. This shouldn't be controversial". It is so easy to surround ourselves with things that reaffirm our political beliefs, factual or not. It takes effort to step out of your political comfort zone, but people are afraid of doing that. It's not intellectually stimulating to always hear what you already believe. We have to challenge ourselves and read, watch, and post things that differ from our opinion. Otherwise we post, repost, and rewatch the things that sound good to us and our like minded friends.