Corporal Rockjaw was unusually amicable that day.
He told us that if anyone thought the mess hall food was shit, they should write their complaint on a list, add their force number and ID, and the matter would be escalated through proper channels.
Complaints were allowed, but the cost of speaking made the right of free speech worthless.
You can guess how many complaints surfaced that week.
Yeah, no-brainer there: Zero.
No one wrote their name down because consequence outweighed hope.
Nowadays I experience the inverse trap: speech is abundant, consequence is diffused, and anonymity creates the illusion that speaking costs nothing.
We defend the right to outrage more fiercely than we question its utility. The pendulum swung from enforced silence to weaponized noise.
But here’s what stayed the same: neither extreme gives you power.
Under Rockjaw, silence fed the system.
Online, outrage feeds the system.
Different mechanisms. Same result.
You’re still fuel.
Outrage isn’t always empty. It has toppled regimes, forced accountability, given voice to the structurally powerless.
When institutions ignore formal channels, rage becomes the pressure valve that makes them listen.
But most online outrage isn’t that.
Most of it is empty combustion: impulsive, tribal, self-indulgent.
Platforms reward emotional volatility because volatility produces engagement, and engagement produces profit. Social media wants escalation, because that keeps us scrolling.
You end up with anger about the anger, then anger about how the anger was handled, then threads created to contain the threads about the original threads.
The rabbit hole becomes endless, and here’s the kicker: Also self-sustaining.
Outrage is a shortcut, signaling morality without action.
Identity is protected. Outrage feels like belonging. There’s that dopamine hit of righteousness. When you feel unheard or threatened, outrage feels like progress, even when nothing changes.
Algorithms are written to amplify this. Attention is fuel.
Intensity gets distribution.
When one person in your group ignites, you mirror the emotion and intensity. The loop deepens with every cycle.
You cannot eliminate collective outrage. But you can starve your personal exposure.
Step away at the first physiological spike.
Curate your feeds without apology.
Enter platforms with intent, not drift or distraction.
Break the algorithmic loop by refusing to reward it with your attention.
Outrage will always exist.
Participating as a commodity used for monetization is optional.
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I’ve gone with the flow of PC’s, laptops, smart phones and technological expansion from the days of green screens and 16kb or less memory and drives. Now in excess of three decades have passed, long enough to know the emptiness and pointlessness of the online world of free speech, indignation, protest, outrage, opinion and what have you. It’s all so fruitless without real world engagement and action. The real world gives not a good god damn for any of it. I take to the river in my kayak and am back in the divine world of nature, a guest in a world dominated by the gorgeous flow of water, full of life. At 75 I am returning to cash, an asset in my wallet, doing my shopping in the less populated hours, when most of the world around me is abed. Your closing words have it: “Break the algorithmic loop by refusing to reward it with your attention. Outrage will always exist. Participating as a commodity used for monetization is optional.” Well said.
Thank you Sir.