Sefer Devarim is mostly a record of Moshe’s final speech to Bnei Yisrael, ahead of our entry into Eretz Yisrael - the Land of our Destiny. Many Mitzvot are repeated here - framed in the practical context of a free nation about to bring the lofty Torah to everyday life.
If Moshe really wanted to drive engagement and attention, though, the social psychologists of today would tell him that he got his opening all wrong.
"אלה הדברים..."
“These are the words” - Because these are words of reproof, he is enumerating all the places where they provoked G-d to anger. Therefore, he suppresses all mention of the matters in which they sinned and refers to them only by a mere allusion… out of respect for Israel” - Rashi
Moshe rebukes the nation at the beginning of his speech, but he is very particular in going about it by way of allusion. Out of respect for Bnei Yisrael, he only hints at the events and doesn’t evoke a more detailed and visceral recollection of what happened at each place. If he had wanted to get them ‘engaged’, he should have communicated the gory details in full colour!
We humans are hardwired to be pulled to negativity more than positivity. This is called the ‘Negativity Bias’. When driving down the street, we are more likely to look back at the car crash than the sweet fellow handing flowers to his fiance. Social psychologists believe this is rooted in an evolutionary awareness to potential survival threats. It’s nice to look at pretty sunsets, but it’s more important to watch out for ferocious lions!
In our online world, social media algorithms may be born neutral but they don’t stay that way. They have a clear goal to grow user engagement so they feed off the negativity bias as the most efficient way to get more ‘sticky eyes’... That’s actually why social media is labelled as, 'bad'.
Former Google leader and an expert on happiness and AI, Mo Gawdat, shares a digital plaster, “Search specifically for something positive and only click on that. Your computer will learn what you truly like and you will get to a point where it will only show you things that make you happy. Mindlessly swiping, typing and liking is wasting your precious time on earth and inadvertently feeds the AI machine.”
Confuse the AI and change the world for good. Spending time in real-world goodness is, of course, an even better option. Moshe delivered his speech outdoors in the desert.
Be like Moshe. Choose happy over horrible. Choose honour over algorithm.
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