The psychology of doommongering

[BlueBlancmange]

Following on from the thread about the motives of people who doom monger about the future, I have been thinking about why those who engage feel confident it will work.

To be clear, just as on the other thread, I am not talking about people who, for example, realistically state that we likely won't just be totally back to normal by next autumn. While not ideal, this is a perfectly reasonable outlook. I am talking about people who post things like 'People need to accept that this is the way we live now. Anyone who thinks the vaccines won't be rendered totally redundant within 6 months due to the new variants is quite frankly delusional. I'm afraid we need to get used to the idea that we will need to socially distance forever and that life as we knew it is gone'.

This is not the general scientific consensus, yet they post these alarming prognoses in tones of authority and utter certainty.

I assume their underlying thinking is that no normal person would possibly want the future to be like that. Therefore, when people read it, they will assume that someone would only post something that dire if they have carefully weighed up the evidence and been forced to conclude it's the case (sadly). Also, anyone who would not doom monger with the motive to simply upset others (as in most people) is likely to find it hard to imagine that could possible be the motive of anyone else.

Just wondering what others think.

The thing with the ad hominem attacks is that although they may be very satisfying in the moment to the person dishing them out, in the long term they push people further apart and polarise debate. They are really damaging to our chances of finding any kind of common ground or understanding other viewpoints, and right now those things are more important than ever.

If I told you I was planning for the possibility of lockdown at Christmas back in April, and suggested may you should do the same, would that have been doom and gloom? Would I have been wrong?

Now, if I tell you that you may be locked down next Christmas, and maybe you should plan ahead, is that doom and gloom?

When has the information your television given you, and the predictions your TV has given you been accurate? Has it ever been correct?

At what point do you think maybe I should look at the world around me and make decisions not based on what I am being told by my tellybox, but by what I can read in research papers and and what I can see going on around me?

For some it's the chicken little effect. Constantly castrophising and warning of the next impending disaster, the next terrible thing beyond their control. Some are genuinely anxious types who work themselves into a state and are not helped by the first type. Some like to start a fire and watch it burn, mixture of boredom, attention seeking and control. Lots of reasons for doom mongering. Out of the three named types only the anxious ones actually do anything about it or affected by the crisis. The rest are just passing time.

Hahaha grin yes

Well... except I didn't say it was bollocks.

Statements iike "the trouble with the brigade is they because they are all " might seem like just arguing robustly, but they competely undermine any chance of the people being accused of being in that 'brigade' thinking you have good motives yourself and might be worth listening to. They create an us and them, two tribes, when really all you had at the start were a few different people with different opinions. Some of those people might have been quite open to changing those opinions before the ad hominem attacks - but will be less so afterwards.

It doesn't help that the more stressed we all get the more we almost want there to be someone to blame, someone we can take our anger and stress out on. So it's understandable, but that doesn't make it any less damaging.

@lesnittinsel

The thing with the ad hominem attacks is that although they may be very satisfying in the moment to the person dishing them out, in the long term they push people further apart and polarise debate. They are really damaging to our chances of finding any kind of common ground or understanding other viewpoints, and right now those things are more important than ever.

I think the common ground is known and agreed upon.

1. Virus is bad and kills people who are unhealthy, vulnerable, elderly, or have undiagnosed vulnerabilities in their physiology.
2. Short of the remarkably low likelihood of genital contact, the only way for the virus to enter your body is through your eye sockets, your nose or your mouth.

That is the foundation of this viral infection, and it hasn't changed since we knew about it well over a year ago.

I do realise that some people early on lobbied to conceal the 'it goes in through the face' narrative, in the interest of stopping the rush on PPE, and to be fair, it was a sensible action to take from a macro perspective, and if people were stupid enough to believe that, then they are just stupid people.

There has never been any doubt, and there is no evidence what so ever, that removing the virus from the air before it enters your body, and preventing the virus from coming into contact with your eyes, is the best means of preventing infection. If you do not let the virus into your body, you absolutely cannot get ill from it.

.

In regard to taking risks, not wearing masks, denial of the future, burying heads in sand, etc. I believe everyone should be free to do as they please, provided they do not then expect other people to dig them out of the shit.

If you want to hug your friends and go to parties and drink in pubs, you should be allowed to do so. But you should not have the right to complain if the bar will only let you drink outside in the snow, and you should not be allowed to complain if your partner or child dies in ICU and you only get to watch it on Zoom.

We should be allowed to get on with our lives in the ways we each see fit. We are meant to be adults. If you have a difference of opinion and you lose you job over it, or lose your marriage over it, then so be it. That is what being an adult and making adult decisions is all about.

Well... except I didn't say it was bollocks.

TBH I wasn't entirely sure what you meant or disagreeing with you, I was just laughing at "bollocks"

Laughing at bollocks is totally fair enough.

Laughing at bollocks is totally fair enough.

And "bollocks" is an excellent response to most posts made on discussion forums anyway

I couldn't agree more! That's why I hid AIBU a while back. But occasionally I get dragged back in!

I don't consider posts that refer to facts that are negative to be doom mongering. I think doom mongering posts are those based in opinion not fact, that are hugely pessimistic, and generally made in response to other people taking a hopeful position.

I have seen a number of posts in response to those taking an optimistic outlook that call the person deluded and naive, and go to great pains to tell them that things will be far worse than they imagine, and imply they lack intelligence not to realise this. Based on speculation, not fact.

Obviously they have the right to do this, but given it doesn't take much emotional intelligence to know this could increase upset and anxiety for people who are already struggling, their motivation is interesting.

@User2921

I don't consider posts that refer to facts that are negative to be doom mongering. I think doom mongering posts are those based in opinion not fact, that are hugely pessimistic, and generally made in response to other people taking a hopeful position.

I have seen a number of posts in response to those taking an optimistic outlook that call the person deluded and naive, and go to great pains to tell them that things will be far worse than they imagine, and imply they lack intelligence not to realise this. Based on speculation, not fact.

Obviously they have the right to do this, but given it doesn't take much emotional intelligence to know this could increase upset and anxiety for people who are already struggling, their motivation is interesting.

This is exactly what I am talking about.

I find the “chipper” doommongerers bring me down a bit.

There was a poster on another thread cheering us all up by saying that it didn’t matter that concerts and holidays were finished, as technology would soon enable us to experience bands and vacation destinations virtually. Likewise those who say schooling can be done just as well from home on a screen.

That vision of the future makes me want to jump off a cliff.

@ElliFAntspoo

If I told you I was planning for the possibility of lockdown at Christmas back in April, and suggested may you should do the same, would that have been doom and gloom? Would I have been wrong?

Now, if I tell you that you may be locked down next Christmas, and maybe you should plan ahead, is that doom and gloom?

When has the information your television given you, and the predictions your TV has given you been accurate? Has it ever been correct?

At what point do you think maybe I should look at the world around me and make decisions not based on what I am being told by my tellybox, but by what I can read in research papers and and what I can see going on around me?

Exactly.

People were called doom-mongers for predicting lockdown; for predicting that this pandemic would be a long haul of more than a few weeks; for predicting that foreign holidays would entail a risk of last-minute border closures and quarantine conditions; for predicting a second wave; for predicting that Christmas would be "cancelled"'; for predicting that schools would be shut again.

To me, none of those predictions exactly required advanced knowledge of epidemiology. They were all gigantically obvious. Calling those people doom-mongers just means you're still sticking your head in the sand about the realities of a global pandemic.

No people are not doommongers for predicting those things but they are for saying that “ this is how it will always be now... we will live like that forever. “. There’s a big difference.

@ElliFAntspoo

If I told you I was planning for the possibility of lockdown at Christmas back in April, and suggested may you should do the same, would that have been doom and gloom? Would I have been wrong?

Now, if I tell you that you may be locked down next Christmas, and maybe you should plan ahead, is that doom and gloom?

When has the information your television given you, and the predictions your TV has given you been accurate? Has it ever been correct?

At what point do you think maybe I should look at the world around me and make decisions not based on what I am being told by my tellybox, but by what I can read in research papers and and what I can see going on around me?

I agree. If you look back at the threads from February/March 2020 there are a number of people called doom-mongers who suggested things that have happened or even the reality has been worse.

It's always been the case that people have said that people who are looking and using their knowledge to prepare are often shouted down... From when Noah built his ark people laughed and probably called him a doom-mongerer.
I remember reading an autobiography of a Jew who was round at a Jewish friend's when the election result was announced that Hitler had got in.
He described the friend clapping him on the back, and saying "We'll see what he can do. He won't touch people like you and I."
He decided to leave Germany and tried to persuade his friend to as well. His friend said, "It can't get that bad. I'm sure he'll stop it soon." Shortly after the borders were closed and he felt very guilty that he hadn't tried harder to persuade his friend, who was killed.

By calling people doom-mongers you are trying to manipulate people into not talking about their thoughts.

Sometimes it is helpful to be optimistic. Sometimes it is helpful to look at the future and realise that it isn't that simple. People who hoped that schools would go back after Easter, then beginning of May, then surely they can't keep them off after halfterm... were giving themselves disappointment after disappointment, which, for some people will be far more harmful mentally.

@lazylinguist

So basically, people who don’t think life is going to magically return to normal in 3 months time should just shut up? So much for freedom of speech I guess.

Where did I say the doommongers shouldn't have freedom of speech? They can say "We're all doomed!" if they like, and others can call them doommongers if they like. Freedom of speech. (Incidentally, fwiw, I have never called somebody a doommonger, or been accused of a personal attack on MN or anywhere else, and I've never even opened one of those dementor threads.)

But they are mostly not intentionally dragging others down. They are commenting on events, not people. Whereas name calling, eg "doom monger" "dementor" etc, actually is dragging someone down. It's a personal attack.

You are welcome to state what drags you down. Others may be dragged down by different things.

No it's a way of debating. There are actually rules about this on most debating forums. Name calling is not valid debate because 1 Its a personal attack
2 it's an attempt to shut the other person down.

Interesting. I guess MN must not consider calling someone a doommonger a personal attack then? Of course, I wouldn't call MN a debating forum, and would not expect MNers in general to be particularly interested in, or bound by, the rules of debate.

Literally every single scholar since the time of the Ancient Greeks: An Ad Hominem Attack is an example of a logical fallacy. Random on MN: Bollocks.

Nope. I'm not saying that an ad hominem argument is a logical or useful way of debating. I'm saying that it's a mistake to think that the purpose of MN or its members is logical debate. It's a chat forum, not a courtroom. People can and will make remarks based on how they feel. Sometimes that strays into genuinely personal attacks, using pejorative language. Personally, I don't think 'Don't be such a doommonger' falls into that category.

Incidentally, the one time I did unintentionally offend someone on MN was by saying something about 'the opinions of randoms (in general, not directed at her) on a forum'. Apparently calling people 'randoms' is offensive. Don't worry though - I don't consider it a personal attack.

Please don’t do this.

MN is really good about upholding the rights of marginalised groups and has an understandably low tolerance for hate speech.

When you make attempts to widen the net of ‘things that might cause offence’ to include absurdities, as you have done here, you diminish and undermine the genuine offence so often caused to minority groups.

I’m quite sure that you didn’t intend to conduct yourself in a manner that undermines efforts to stamp out genuine hate speech. I’d like to think that you’re better than this.

@Divebar

No people are not doommongers for predicting those things but they are for saying that “ this is how it will always be now... we will live like that forever. “. There’s a big difference.

Let's take that apart shall we....

1. Covid absolutely will be with us forever. H1N1 (The Spanish Flu) has been with us for 100 years, and started off just like this, killing million and mullions all over the world. Now we are all largely immune, but not because we did anything as a species, but because children in that time were largely asymptomatic carriers, and developed immunity and passed that immunity on to their children. The old, unfit, vulnerable and compromised all died. Ant it took 5 years to run through society and had many very deadly resurgences over that period.

So if you think it's different this time, and we are in some way better human beings, one has to wonder why we have never in the entire history of studying corona viruses, managed to figure out how to stop one from infecting a human host or stop one from being transmitted from one human to another.

1. H1N1 absolutely changed the world forever. There followed on from that pandemic a financial crisis that we fondly refer to as the great depression. The costs of war and the costs of the pandemic destroyed the world economy and sewed the seed of WW2, and the ultimately the fall of the British Empire and the passing of the position of World Power to the US. You may argue that no one single cause can be blamed, but the facts remain and we ignore history at our peril.

So, absolutely what happens in the future will be nothing like what has happened in the past. We are printing near infinite quantities of money in every single country in the world. This is not imaginary. It has economic consequences, and we know what they are because we have done it before over and over again.

For those who wish to know what the future holds, the parameters within which we will operate are there. They are indisputable facts. How we choose to absorb those facts, and how we plan and act based on what we think other people and other governments will do is down to each of us as individuals.

Some people prefer to keep their heads in the sand. Cognitive bias. I get it. Those are the same people who, upon hearing that China had locked down an area the size of Europe to stop a virus, thought, no it won't come here and didn't go out and buy PPE just in case.

I’m quite sure that you didn’t intend to conduct yourself in a manner that undermines efforts to stamp out genuine hate speech. I’d like to think that you’re better than this.

I'm sure you didn't intend to sound extremely patronising. Actually, no I'm not. You have described what you think I was doing. I happen to disagree with your assessment.

To be clear: I am against hate speech. I don't think saying someone's being a doommonger is hate speech. Neither do I think that calling someone a random is hate speech, or indeed offensive at all, as I think was patently clear from my remarks.

I think the psychology behind this and the conspiracy theorists / just let it run through the population so I can go out crowd are very similar.

They're both based on anxiety.

The first group are catastrophising. They present it as fact as they have convinced themselves of the worst case scenario and then get into confirmation bias.

The second group are in denial as this helps relieve their anxiety. Again, they then get into confirmation bias (particularly notable that they always say 'everyone I know feels exactly the same' or talk as if they represent the majority of people in society).

@umpteennamechanges

I think the psychology behind this and the conspiracy theorists / just let it run through the population so I can go out crowd are very similar.

They're both based on anxiety.

The first group are catastrophising. They present it as fact as they have convinced themselves of the worst case scenario and then get into confirmation bias.

The second group are in denial as this helps relieve their anxiety. Again, they then get into confirmation bias (particularly notable that they always say 'everyone I know feels exactly the same' or talk as if they represent the majority of people in society).

I think theres a lot in this. Though I'm not sure the second group are always experiencing anxiety about the virus itself, and using denial as a coping strategy, maybe more anxiety about not being able to return to normal life, which the catastophising posts escalate.

I also think those objecting to 'doom mongering' are not always anti lockdown. It is possible to accept and agree with the current restrictions while at the same time feeling hopeful that positive change lies ahead. Particularly at times when facts learn further towards this than the opposite.

As someone who has said that 'everyone I know thinks the same', your point is interesting, but it is nevertheless true in my experience. Perhaps this just means we gravitate towards the like minded, or the view becomes the dominant culture within the group so dissenters stay quiet. It's very interesting.

I also disagree that calling someone a doom monger should be linked to hate speech. While I fully understand the concept of speaking about opinion rather than personality, I think this falls into the catagory of harmless short hand for saying 'imo your comments are doom mongering'.
It is also based on a fluid characteristic, the person is being a doom monger in that post.

Far more offensive imo are posts where people who disagree are attacked for a perceived lack of intelligence, something that if true, can't be changed. This happens so frequently where behaviour and opinions are disagreed with, either explicitly, or indirectly through gentle patronisation.

The fact it may be cleverly worded so it's not technically a direct attack doesn't make it any less offensive, or less effective at silencing people holding different views.

While I fully understand the concept of speaking about opinion rather than personality, I think this falls into the catagory of harmless short hand for saying 'imo your comments are doom mongering'.
It is also based on a fluid characteristic, the person is being a doom monger in that post.

Exactly. Well put.

Why does anyone care whether other people have a gloomy outlook or not? And if they do care, why do they then call them names?

The facts are already laid down that are going to determine our future and the future world our children are going to occupy. You get to make your own assessment about how people will react to those facts, and how their reactions will shape the world.

How accurate you are, how you educate your children, how you prepare and plan for the next five years is entirely up to you.

I don't get the need to try to stifle free speech, or belittle those who view societies reactions differently to the way you do?

I can understand questioning facts and the implications of those facts. But the rest is pure speculation. Some of us will be right and some of us will be wrong. Some of us will suffer more than others. Some of us will lose more than others.

Name calling serves no purpose whatsoever. Nor do semantics.