I think political parties only later began astroturfing on social media and split users in camps. Formerly content on reddit in default subreddits often had low quality, but you still got some nice topics here and there. Now it is a propaganda hellhole that is completely in the hands of pretty polarized users.
> "Us versus them" seems to be baked into the structure of humans.
Not quite, but one of the most effective temptations one can offer is giving people a moral excuse to hate others. Best when see as those as responsible for all evil in the world. It feels good to judge, it distracts from your own faults, flaws, insecurities, fears and problems. This is pretty blatant and has become far, far worse than the formerly perhaps populist content on reddit. We especially see this on political topics, but also the pandemic as an example.
> "Us versus them" seems to be baked into the structure of humans.
Not quite, but one of the most effective temptations one can offer is giving people a moral excuse to hate others. Best when see as those as responsible for all evil in the world. It feels good to judge, it distracts from your own faults, flaws, insecurities, fears and problems. This is pretty blatant and has become far, far worse than the formerly perhaps populist content on reddit. We especially see this on political topics, but also the pandemic as an example.