Interesting point. Do you think were it not for outrage economy, would US tackle it faster/slower/at the same rate? Maybe the reason for outrage economy is that there is a fair amount of things to be outraged about.

I personally think the majority of the outrage economy is counter productive. It is important to identify and communicate areas for improvement, but I think most of the solutions generated from the state of outrage are off target. I think emotional outrage is a natural response to some of the injustice in the world, but rarely helpful in actually solving a problem.

Is the life of one innocent person an acceptable price for success?

What do you mean by success here? Depending on your definition, I think there are times where the answer is yes. There are clear analogs to the trolley problem in public policy every day.

Is the life of one innocent person an acceptable price for the lives of several innocent people?

Note well: I'm not actually a consequentialist. I'm just pointing out what "for success" actually means, at least some of the time.

The answer we have generally come to is based on a psudo kantian interpretation of causality. One innocent can die due to inaction, but you can't actively kill one to save many.

We don't allow nonconsentual body snachers to harvest one person to save many. Alternatively we may allocate finite funds to save several lives instead of a single life. We may also choose not to spend the money to save a life

Sorry nobody gives a fuck that our global military dick swinging prevented Senegal and Guatemala from sailing into New York harbor and carting off our treasures.

The outrage economy tends to focus on people and interpersonal drama. Some comedian said this, or maybe some company did something stupid and there’s a walkout.

If anything there’s a massive shortage of outrage. Given the degree of misery the entrenched elite is inflicting on the masses, the fact that we don’t have a general strike or torch wielding mobs swarming over the gates of billionaire’s houses is frankly astonishing.

Outrage is only good in that it generate interest in the topic. There is a surplus of hot-headed illogical people bogging down any real constructive discussion. There is a shortage of people that understand the realistic challenges involved and working to come up with viable Solutions on either side of a given issue

The problem is that the only viable solution is for an entrenched elite with disproportionate power and money to lose much of that power and influence.

It’s a struggle between the masses and the ruling class about who gets to make decisions in our society, not like lunch meeting where we can find common sense action items to agree on.

How does outrage help overcome this challenge. A good chunk of the country stands with the status quo and elites on any given topic.

I don't think outrage changes minds, just engages your base. It also encourages the working masses to lash out at each other. Most outrage topics serve mostly to pit the masses against each other, based on skin color, gender, or who has bigger scraps from the economic table.

If you want real change, the solutions are relatively simple IMHO. Ranked choice voting, proportional representation in senate and congress, and less winner take all closer to a Parliament.

Outrage economy is about making the opposite decisions from the "ruling class" no matter what those decisions are