Smart informed people can be manipulated as well.

It’s a flaw in how our brains have evolved. (Evolution is such a random bitch of a force, just look at me anthropomorphize her while typing on a QWERTY keyboard specifically designed to slow me down!)

We need to account for it instead of using it against ourselves.

Not a real response to your question, but the first thing I thought of (it’s not an infection):

The scarring from a lightning strike can, to me at least, look hauntingly beautiful.

If you’re writing in any sort of fantastical setting you can just make up a non-life threatening infection that mimics it.

You have to be passionate enough about the topic that it’s not work, it’s just something you do because you enjoy talking about <topic>.

This ^

I make a fair few posts (mostly back on reddit but now I’m here) and I don’t do it because I get anything concrete from it. I just like seeing the replies to some of the random shit that pops up in my random-ass brain. (And I enjoy seeing how people respond rather just the content of their responses too.)

I like chatting about certain things, and luckily for me I don’t need to create a community because they’re already there. But frequently I want to chat about something within that community that doesn’t exist, thus, I post. Making a community is just the next step in that.

Bit of a tangent, and also very much IIRC…

In the US saying “sorry” can possibly be construed as evidence towards admission to guilt of the crime, whereas in Canada there’s a “Sorry Clause” of some sort specifically stating that saying that apologizing isn’t necessarily an admission of guilt.

As a Canadian I kinda got a kick out that. I live somewhere many people still thank the bus drivers as they exit the bus.

You can’t “fix” human behaviour you can only account for it and adjust.

Our attention will always go towards the moment rather than the constant. (Unless that constant is pain.)

Your favourite actor dies? That’s momentous. You’ll never see them in another production. You upvote it.

A doctor says something you’ve heard a hundred times over? You don’t upvote it. You relegate it to the same place the other ninety-nine went to.

The problem is what you’re linking is something you personally disagree with, but that doesn’t mean it’s “bait” in the first place. (I probably should’ve avoided a political example as I think some are getting carried away with that, but it could be anything.)

Different example: I could link something about peanut butter though I hate peanut butter with all my heart and hope it ceases to exist. Yet you’d never call “peanut butter cookies recipe” engagement bait. (Well, probably never…)

The term or phrase has to encompass more than just political sides or something like it. It’s the act of spreading something you personally don’t want to spread. But what you’re helping spread could be benign from most people’s perspectives.

Definitely not exact, but sort of a variation. Hoping for something that hits it specific but for all I know there might not be a precise term for it yet. (Besides “outrage porn” but even that doesn’t hit the nail on the head, just a descriptor.)

Pretty good series, pretty sure the author’s an “acolyte” of Brandon Sanderson, so if anyone reading this likes the Cosmere you might like this series as well.

Been on my “reread” list for a while but the list keeps growing…