Such news stories add credence to the idea that the web + social media have been a universal solvent for societies. Especially democratic societies.
Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news. Or, mentioned in a tiny column in the newspaper on some page. Most people wouldn't have come into contact with it. Let alone with such vigor that it led to an us v. them dynamic. It would have been a somewhat pointless gesture that would have been quickly forgotten.
Editorial discretion would have pulled to something more "important" such as Presidents pressuring interns into sexual activity.
Today, due to the attentional nature of the internet, the same story is quite attractive. No matter what your stance, you click on it, at least once, because it's bizarre. It's distilled catnip. On HN as well.
People and machines notice that you're clicking on it. So people start talking about it on social media. Which you engage with. And so more of it is served to you by the machines looped in. On and on until you spend an hour or more of your life on a topic you probably wouldn't have touched or known about thirty years ago.
The emotional valence created by the issue is overpowering as compared to the past, and it's self-sustaining. Forever propagating through the intellectual wastelands we're self-curating.
Humans have been dying on pointless hills for thousands of years. But our technology has amplified it to quite an art form.
> Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news.
Not because of some unique effect of social media; race in education has been that kind of culture war centerpiece for a long time; it was more than 25 years ago that a major national controversy erupted because of a single local school board decision on recognizing African American English as a distinct source language that students come with and which impacts teaching of Standard American English.
(It's true that decisions to impose a racist view of American society by the same faction that has pushed anti-CRT policies in the states where they have recently passed anti-CRT laws wouldn't be news, but that's more the same shift of the center on educational content that the anti-CRT movement is part of the response to than anything about social media.)
Absolutely this. Dragging CRT into a math curriculum is a bad idea. The state legislature passing laws to ban the practice is even worse.
I know you're being facetious about interns, but issues today go so far beyond this. There's an actual war on in Europe, inflation is the highest it's been since the 70's and the pandemic is still wreaking havoc on global supply chains. There are very real crises to deal with, but there's political hay to be made from culture war divisions.
Well said, and this feedback loop you refer to fits into the “culture wars” narrative that prepossesses many news establishments as they vie for eyeballs to reinforce their ad revenue and bolster their Twitter feeds. Some of this stuff is click bait, but other stories take on lives or their own whereas they would ordinarily be forgotten about shortly after arrival.
I fail to see what part of the article is "political." The article states the facts, the books being banned, gets a quote from an opposing voice taking a jab at Florida republicans, and reiterates this is not the first time that Florida republicans have tampered with school curriculum. These are facts it doesn't matter if it was done by republicans or democrats. I would expect NPR to report the news regardless of whodunit. That's news, a change was made, the people who made the change are mentioned, an opposing opinion is supplied and prior history is shown. Just because you may support or dissent to the actions taken of the parties involved doesn't make the news political it just makes it news.
Yeah? How's this for an alternative headline! "Florida attempts to disguise grift as criticism of instructional materials as republican CRT witch hunt continues unabated." Looks like the only publisher allowed for math text books happens to be the one run by Glenn Youngkin. Factual, unprovocative, and more likely to piss you off. Why play the middle line when we can just air the dirty laundry for everyone to smell.
Oh sure, maybe. If they bothered to release the list of titles and the isbn for each book that was banned perhaps we could reach such a conclusion. But since no such list exists and no citation examples are provided. Seems pretty easy to dismiss the actions taken by the Florida Department of Education as strictly political. What do they have to hide? I want to see what they consider to be prohibited topics for a mathematics curriculum.
Here you go. I think that RickJWagner's point is why not wait. Why jump to conclusions and post inflammatory headlines as a default... because NPR is a leftist political entity now.
Oh man the second one is at least a little funny. I can certainly say seeing that may have kept a horrifically bored 6th grade me a little more engaged on that paper.
The one about the sexual abuse is too extreme though and def shouldn’t be a casual subject for word problems.
I can understand rejecting them for "failed to meet curriculum standards", but what does "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies" really mean? Are there math topics and "stategies" that are illegal in the US/Florida somehow?
I also understand that including critical race theory in math books seems wildly irrelevant (unless I miss something) and therefor not fit for the curriculum. But I'm interested to hear how that happens in the first place? Who includes education about "intersection of race, society, and law" in mathematical books, for what purpose? Shouldn't that belong to some other educational program instead, like society or history classes?
I could imagine it being something along the lines of "The economic productivity of a typical black slave was X... yada yada yada... how many dollars in reparations does America owe modern black Americans Y years later at interest rate Z."
I could also imagine it being something much more benign. I really wish we could see what it actually was so we could see if the DoE's judgement here was reasonable or not.
> I could imagine it being something along the lines of "The economic productivity of a typical black slave was X... yada yada yada... how many dollars in reparations does America owe modern black Americans Y years later at interest rate Z."
That does seems a bit unnecessary example since there is high racial tensions and the book is supposed to be about math. You could just use another example in that case. If it was about cases like that, I might just agree with them being rejected.
> I really wish we could see what it actually was so we could see if the DoE's judgement here was reasonable or not.
Agree, seems weird to not show people what the problem was if it's easy to justify. But then again, a lot of judicial, government and politics from America seems weird to me so...
Thank you for this link. I was wondering when someone was going to present some concrete evidence for the "social justice" creep into mathematics curriculum that some people object to.
> I could imagine it being something along the lines of
It would be so nice if politicians could show us precisely what they're protecting our children from, so we wouldn't need to rely on HideousKojima's imagination for examples.
A couple years ago including "intersection of race, society, and law" in math books was the hot new thing (a lot of "black people can't empathize with the names in the math book" etc.) Articles about it even showed up here IIRC.
Unsolicited strategies are "core math". I am convinced 98% of the books are banned because of this but they tossed in CRT to get peoples' wallets out for political donations.
Title may as well have been "dear leader protects children".
I understand we don't have any evidence supporting Florida's claim, but you don't have any evidence supporting what you said either. I'm inclined to believe Florida until shown otherwise.
It is a bit strange. But it could be something as simple as a provision in the contract with the publishers that they not release info on any textbooks that are rejected.
It's open information that has been released in the past by many states, including Florida. They released a list of the books this morning but not the reasons why they got rejected so it was a choice to not give the information out at the same time as the notice.
Sure, but I am choosing to (loosely) pick a side. The only evidence we have is their claim, and I'll believe it unless better evidence comes to light against it.
The article is lacking in substance because it does not actually tell you what material in the math books was so egregious that the book deserved to be banned or may be state of Florida did not publish this information. Banning books seems to be the new battle ground for politicians, sigh.
It's lacking in substance because those in Florida making the decisions aren't releasing their reasoning or even a list of the books they aren't accepting.
Some Florida politicians have asked for the info and the media has filed FOIA or the Florida equivalent for the details.
"Banning books seems to be the new battle ground for politicians, sigh."
Writing textbooks for core subject areas, with material stirring controversy seems to be the new battleground for educators.
Ever notice how someone can create a hostile environment without doing anything hostile? Or someone can push right to edge, then back off, claiming "not my intent".
There is an analogous concept in physical therapy. You move a body part as far as you can, to test range of motion and limits. Then try it again, except the therapist assists you to move it farther, even supporting it while you rest a moment. Then you repeat the test, almost always going significantly farther.
You move the bar, the limit, the acceptable range of motion, or speech, or teaching social justice under the guise of core math.
> state of Florida did not publish this information.
Correct. DeSantis is using the journalistic practice of branding something as some flavor of offensive, without citing any examples. This is the first time I see journalists complain about it and demand specifics.
If you give people specifics, they can argue about those specifics. Handwavy "crt" claims are all most people need to support this decision. Digging in to actual facts and specifics gets too messy, and might cause people to have to think too much.
Agreed. It seems useless and brain cell-killing to be subjected to the hot takes from each side's chattering class, without access to the exact books and passages that led to these bans.
There is no details for the exact reason that Florida did not supply any details other than the negative hot-button words. Complaining the coverage is inadequate is silly since the whole story is that Florida banned textbooks without saying what. I can accept a detailed list of examples of things that are not acceptable. Banning books without any detail is the story.
But is it? The headline seems focused on the hot-button issue rather than the process. And it provides no context about the scope of the problem (is Florida's process an outlier here?), or other examples.
I think the hot take culture war approach to the issue reduces the pressure for transparency, since the hot take generators act as if they have everything they need to decide exactly what to think without any further data.
My guess is that the books were banned for bad reasons, but my guesses aren't of much value without verification.
Really? We can't discuss the fact that our government is making decisions about what teachers can and can't teach children, and have decided they can keep the entire process, including their decisions secret from us?
If we wanted to discuss that topic, is this article the right place to start?
What is Florida's process? How does it differ from other states? What is the role of human discretion? What are some other examples of how this process plays out?
We are left to guess. Or maybe some comments here will offer the information. Either way, a bad, clickbait article.
> We can't discuss the fact that our government is making decisions about what teachers can and can't teach children
If public school teachers made the decisions than the government would be making the decisions. Public school teachers in Florida (and frankly elsewhere in the US) are government employees. This is a government setting teaching standards for itself, its literally what government has been doing since it got into the public education business.
In Florida (and frankly elsewhere in the US) private schools can set and choose their own curriculums. If the public curriculum is not to your liking, go private. I believe even in Florida, you can opt in to charter schools too, which have more curriculum flexibility than the public schools.
Floridian here. I've lived here all my life, and DeSantis is the first Governor under whom I have felt that the entire agenda is piss off people who aren't politically aligned with his values. Not a week goes by without some inflammatory new policy making it into the news cycle, and it saddens me because Florida has a ton of problems that we could be collaborating on legislatively, but instead, it's just partisan brinkmanship day in and day out.
I'm a fourth generation Floridian, and I've lived in the state for 42 years. I plan on moving my family out of here sometime in the next few years, as I don't think the future holds anything better here.
This is the first time in US history where a Governor has unilaterally drafted map redistricting an entire state, and it will give the GOP a 4:1 advantage. That's not democracy, it's a rigged system, and removes the will of the people from the equation.
For me, it's not a liberal/conservative issue, it's a representation issue, and an issue of priorities. Basically, I'm tired of the bullshit, and I think there are better places to raise a family, so I'll be taking my talent and tax dollars elsewhere.
That's a good thing. There are a number of mutually exclusive positions the left and right simply don't agree on. At this point the only way to achieve peace is if like minded people moved together and the ones that don't get along separate. That goes for California as well as Florida. It's painful in the short term but everyone will be happier long term. That's why it's the "United States" and not a "homogeneous nation state."
I take your point, but it elides a significant cohort of the population that doesn't have the financial resources to make such a choice. The proposed redistricting eliminates black/brown districts from the current electoral map, and those populations won't have the representation they have today as a result. A lot of these folks don't have the financial means to go elsewhere, so they're on the losing end with nowhere to go.
I think you might be conflating significant discomfort with financial inability. People used to uproot their families and migrate while scavenging, or dad would move to a place with better prospects while sending money back home until they'd saved enough to move.
There are places where the cost of living is less than half what it is in Florida. Disrupting your family's life over a two year period to make a move is risky and painful, but far more feasible than people usually say.
Given modern food banks, charity, gofundme, etc, not wanting to move is a decision rooted in comfort, not survival.
Just a gentle suggestion: next time you have a chance, talk to someone who is in the kind of economic situation you allude to here. Talk to the cleaners or security guards at your office, talk to people who perhaps clean your home or cut your grass, talk to any server or cook you interact with. You will hear lots of stories, I'm sure, but not many that fit into your picture here. More people than not are absolutely unable to make progress in their life, they are not "uncomfortable" with it, they are postponing medically necessary surgery to get the hours, they are working 60hrs a week gladly to just make rent, they are trying so hard to be smart with their time and opportunity, with little actual reward. Really, just ask! It will open your eyes, I promise you.
I'm not speaking from ignorance, but a place of brutal pragmatism. I understand that mobility comes with risks and disruption and is not always a good move. It is, however, far more possible and feasible than many make it out to be, and sometimes the best choice still isn't a good one.
It's similar to the idea that's popular here: people in single family housing need to move to make way for multi family housing so we can bring in more immigrants.
I found it really upsetting that, after an overwhelming number of Floridians voted to reinstate voting rights for some felons, DeSantis signed a law that prevented them from voting if they had any unpaid fees (Florida loves to bill convicts so most do).
Regardless of ones political stance, the ruthless drive to win at all costs is causing serious damage to our society.
Yeah, this is a perfect example of overriding the will of the people in the interest of continuing to hold political power. It's ironic given the "stop the steal" narrative of recent, but here we are.
While what you say makes sense, the only solution is if people start calling out politicians within their party. Criticizing the other party doesn't promote internal change.
And yet, blue state liberal democrats are clamoring to move to Florida. New Yorkers and Californians trying to escape their failed states with outrageous taxes, is it any wonder then that states like Florida and Texas are purposely trying to seem as unattractive as possible to these people. Way too many people in Florida these days.
"Texas had a population in 2017 of 28.32 million. On a per capita basis then, the percent of people leaving Texas was 0.016. California lost just over 661,000 people to domestic migration in the 12 months ended in July 2017. Given California’s population in 2017 of 39.4 million, the per capita basis of people leaving California was 0.016, approximately the same rate as in Texas."
> And yet, blue state liberal democrats are clamoring to move to Florida.
Old people are looking to move to Florida for the weather. I don't think that many liberals are looking to move there for the politics. Especially if you have a family—who on earth would want to give up the New York State school system, to raise your kids in the Florida school system? I can't imagine any blue state liberals would want that.
I would be curious if anyone has a high quality link containing real examples that were deemed offensive. My guess is the textbooks had sections that involved quantitatively examining "social justice" issues. I'm not for or against this in a math textbook, but it definitely gives an opportunity to "spin" the situation by massively simplifying the problem discussed, which opens the door to politicization.
Soon they will loop back around to banning / modifying the teaching of evolutionary theory like some tried in the recent past because of "religious" reasons.
I have a suspicion that banning teaching evolution is the ultimate goal here. Or maybe just getting rid of public schools altogether, but leaving in place a mandate for children to get an 8th grade education. Religious schooling will always be cheaper, since we don't tax churches, so all the voucher money will go to schools that teach creationism.
The ultimate goal is to entrench white christian conservative power in the face of impending demographic minority and progressive political inter-generational drift. Demonizing and suppressing black scholarship and whitewashing historical and cultural narratives through education is one means to that end.
I think that's just a variant of the slippery slope fallacy. There's nothing related to religion here, and they have not mentioned anything about evolution.
“Our desire is to … confront the culture in which we all live today in ways which will continue to advance God’s kingdom, not to stay in our own safe territories,” Betsy DeVos said.
Are you so far inside your bubble that you can't connect conservative values aligned to religious thinking to the conservative push to defund public education benefitting private parochial schools?
> Are you so far inside your bubble that you can't connect conservative values aligned to religious thinking to the conservative push to defund public education benefitting private parochial schools
You know its funny. I always hear this “folk devil” described regarding the charter school movement, yet my SIL works at a teacher at a charter school that has no religious curriculum. Its oriented to exploring the use of novel teaching methodologies not yet adopted by the public schools and quite successful. Its in a more economically depressed area, which serves the kids in that area quite well and is sought after educational center for parents in that area, because the public school is crap (and was crap before the charters opened). This in large part why charter school initiatives poll well in economically depressed communities.
Do some parochial schools benefit? Sure.
Is the charter school movement only for parochial schools? Nope.
> You know its funny. I always hear this “folk devil” described regarding the charter school movement
Only indirectly. It's about the voucher movement (parochial schools can't be charter schools).
The main connection to the charter movement (with regard to support specifically for parochial schools) is that the pro-parochial voucher movement sometimes uses push for charters as an Overton-window shifting technique to break down resistance to public funding of private schools where they can't win outright.
(The voucher and charter movements are more deeply connected through the broader private-for-profit schooling industry and it's lobbying, but that's a different angle than the parochial schooling one, though it connects back because the industry definitely uses the religious community much the same way the auto insurance industry uses MADD.)
Not at all, I just don't think the tired late 2000s trope of the religious boogeyman is still really relevant. The entire debate has shifted to something else, and honestly even amongst conservatives they don't have much of a voice anymore
Actually they have if you look at some of the groups that support some of this stuff and the language they use. Very reminiscent of the language used in their attempts to ban evolutionary teaching and related subjects. A lot of the same groups against CRT are also against LGBTQ rights on the basis of religious beliefs.
This is a really useless news story. Couldn't they do a little legwork and figure out which books were rejected? I'd really like to see what material was in these math books. I'm guessing the rejection is some level of overreaction, but it's hard to say how much without knowing what's being rejected.
Does the Florida DOE have a set of guidelines for how they determine if material is inappropriate for students? Seems like if the Government is going to make decisions for the people they should at least have an idea on what grounds these decisions are made upon.
They haven't listed the books banned or given examples of the content they find objectionable. Until they do this is just political theatre that relies on peoples imaginations to fill in the blanks.
It might be worth recalling Richard Feynman's old story about being part of the California textbook selection process - a process so profoundly dysfunctional and corrupt that Dr. Feynman may have been the only member of the evaluation committee who actually read a meaningful percentage of the textbooks which they were passing judgement on.
(No, I see nothing in NPR's story to suggest that they compared Florida's stated reasons for rejecting various textbooks with the actual contents of the textbooks.)
> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.
> it's allowing the possibility that systems themselves can be racist.
It's much too weak a phrasing to say that it only "allows for the possibility." Its core doctrine is that 1) the idea of race itself is a social construct used to oppress/exploit, and 2) laws and institutions are racist and function to create and maintain inequalities.
>> Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.
I'm reminded of this aphorism: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.".
Similarly, while cops might arrest/stop the people they see breaking the law, if they're disproportionately patrolling minority-majority neighborhoods there will be an unequal effect.
The wikipedia definition seems to match with my own understanding of what it is:
> cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law
In the country where I was brought up that was just part of history/society classes instead of a separate thing, but racial tensions in the US seems more extreme than anywhere else so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?
> so maybe that's why it exists as a separate thing?
In the same way that number theory is its own thing, and algebra is its own thing, and you might take separate classes on each; algebraic number theory is its own thing and you probably wouldn't take a class on it before grad school.
It's a tool used by some politicians to paint the other side as insane radicals. Insane news stories are pointed at and accused of being a result of CRT, and of course their own side would outlaw it.
That's why they ban books without even saying which books are banned: so they are seen as taking action against the enemy, CRT. In reality there is perhaps some corruption and they want to help a specific publisher.
I was highlighting a paradox in the postulate above mine, not expressing cognitive dissonance which is an ungrounded assumption to make based on such a pithy comment.
The dude asked for simple. Trying to argue with a simplified version of someone else's argument instead of the actual argument is a favorite straw man.
Honestly, no. The law-school subject, a certain set of proposed changes to education relating to race in U.S. grade schools (not even getting into which set of changes), and the thing Republicans are opposing are all called "critical race theory", and they really have nothing to do with each other.
When it comes to anything to do with race, gender, sexuality or politics is better to do research elsewhere than ask HN. This is the relevant text from the first couple of paragraphs of Wikipedia's page on CRT:
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary intellectual and social movement of civil-rights scholars and activists who seek to examine the intersection of race, society, and law in the United States and to challenge mainstream American liberal approaches to racial justice. The word critical in its name is an academic term that refers to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.
A key CRT concept is intersectionality—the way in which different forms of inequality and identity are affected by interconnections of race, class, gender and disability. Scholars of CRT view race as a social construct with no biological basis. One tenet of CRT is that racism and disparate racial outcomes are the result of complex, changing, and often subtle social and institutional dynamics, rather than explicit and intentional prejudices of individuals.
CRT scholars argue that the social and legal construction of race advances the interests of white people at the expense of people of color, and that the liberal notion of U.S. law as "neutral" plays a significant role in maintaining a racially unjust social order, where formally color-blind laws continue to have racially discriminatory outcomes.
I think it's a study of how race relations affect just more than how people perceive others, it also affects things like big governmental policies. IMO it's like studying how lack of water lead to more than thirst, it causes things like kidney and other organ failure; meanwhile the people who are against the theory seem to think "it's just thirst!".
I don't know much about it but it sounds like a topic designed to get the citizenry to bicker at each other about so they don't come together on much more important issues like economic, tax policy and justice reform. News has been trying to get it to stick for a while now.
It's a technical field of legal scholarship that isn't taught outside of law school. It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right. That they never define what it is should be a red flag for any critical thinker. The easiest boogeyman to construct is completely amorphous. It requires zero evidence, just a constant onslaught of fearmongering.
>It's not designed for "the citizenry," but it's been scapegoated and demonized by folks on the right.
Again, don't care one way or the other but I'll take the "bait," if it was never designed for the citizenry, why is it being taught in elementary, middle and high schools, or is it?
As an aside, police are allowed to lie about evidence when interrogating suspects. Police are allowed to interrogate children without their parents consent or knowledge. Police are allowed to confiscate any cash they find in your car during a routine traffic stop without due process. This is typically done to bolster police budgets. I deem these as a way more important reforms that people are distracted from thinking about with this new wedge issue.
That's the question, isn't it? We're being told that it is. We're told that 42 out of 54 rejected math books "incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT." Of those 42 books, how many included CRT and not some other "prohibited topic" or "unsolicited strategy"? Doesn't say. What does an example of a math book including CRT even look like? Doesn't say.
And as much as I agree with your aside... this was done by the Florida Department of Education and textbook review is within their mandate and abusive policing is not. While I wish it wasn't a partisan issue, it seems that everything is a partisan issue these days, even chicken sandwiches.
basically anybody extending Black History month beyond 28 days and reminding people that black history is US history and that it doesn’t make sense to have any race-history months if US history was taught more accurately. (It includes other heritages too, Black American community is just more organized to more effectively spearhead representation pushes.)
Conservatives news sources spend alot of air time on the idea of this happening than reality. The general idea is that they don’t like unpleasant history for their children, that they preemptively call revisionist. This has now become a boogeyman in conservative leaning states and affecting real world things.
> reminding people that black history is US history
Perhaps we should also remind people that there's plenty of black folks outside the U.S. too. U.S. history is only a tiny, even negligible fraction of history taken as a whole.
That isn't quite on the nose: if a parent finds something goes against their beliefs should they be able to stop everybody's kids from learning about it in school?
I think we can all know why examples aren't being included, it's just egregious politicizing for personal gain. DeSantis wants to run for President, all these moves just improve his chances at winning the primary.
What's crazy is that he only won the Governor election by very small margins. He's acting like Florida is a deep red state. It's going to backfire on him IMO.
He's got a 54% approval rating as opposed to 38% disapproval. He's also running at 58% approval among independents. Finally, he is also polling double digits against any potential Democrat challenger. Pretty clear his policies have been popular with most Floridians.
He won by less than 40k votes (something like less than half a percent) [1], I’m sorry but that’s a dangerous game to play if you want to win general elections.
Polls this early don’t matter, polls the weeks before election does.
This is nothing but political grand standing.
Also independent voters are a misnomer. Independents will typically vote for their preferred party the majority of the time, they're still partisans they just don't vote in primaries. [2] [3]
Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news. Or, mentioned in a tiny column in the newspaper on some page. Most people wouldn't have come into contact with it. Let alone with such vigor that it led to an us v. them dynamic. It would have been a somewhat pointless gesture that would have been quickly forgotten.
Editorial discretion would have pulled to something more "important" such as Presidents pressuring interns into sexual activity.
Today, due to the attentional nature of the internet, the same story is quite attractive. No matter what your stance, you click on it, at least once, because it's bizarre. It's distilled catnip. On HN as well.
People and machines notice that you're clicking on it. So people start talking about it on social media. Which you engage with. And so more of it is served to you by the machines looped in. On and on until you spend an hour or more of your life on a topic you probably wouldn't have touched or known about thirty years ago.
The emotional valence created by the issue is overpowering as compared to the past, and it's self-sustaining. Forever propagating through the intellectual wastelands we're self-curating.
Humans have been dying on pointless hills for thousands of years. But our technology has amplified it to quite an art form.