No offense, Arnold, but I think blaming social media is a cop out.

I can't disagree that social media has uncovered some rot and amplified some problems.

But those things were already there. Our minds have always been susceptible to propaganda, we've always exploited fellow human beings through manipulation, we've always had trouble wrangling our minds.

Its the downside to being able to abstract. We can place too much importance on things that aren't real, get sidetracked if you will.

In a weird way, social media is kind of like the entire population being granted telepathy. We can all see how others think of us and every little thought we all have is made permanent for all to see.

Turns out, over all, we don't like each other very much. We're none of us the heroes we thought we were.

Now we're having tondeal with that real fact.

I think the jury is still out on whether ultimately that's going to be good or bad. We could evolve. We could toughen up mentally. This dischordant timeframe xoukd be a blip, a tough but necessary part on the way to something better. To use your analogy, this is the uncomfortable part of working out and pushing ourselves to fitness.

Time will tell. Maybe we should just trust the process though, even if it hurts a little in the short term.