> That same power to connect can lead people down a dark or dangerous path. Approach the internet with an uncritical mind and you could emerge as a flat-earther

> That same power to connect can lead people down a dark or dangerous path. Approach the internet with an uncritical mind and you could emerge as a flat-earther, anti-vaccer, or worse. Maybe. Or, perhaps it's the tendency of irrationality to beg more irrationality today, when a large number of vectors exists in which the irrationality can spread. If someone said something irrational and blaming 30 years ago, a few people might hear it and think, "huh, that's a weird thought". Most would probably not repeat the thought to anyone later because most people don't want to be viewed as irrational or weird by others. Maybe a few people might, because they were already irrational, but the chances were low that enough would repeat it to where it could spread. 30 years later, two things have happened to increase the likelihood of a "viral irrationality" to root and grow at increasing rates: 1. lots of people on the Internet and 2. lots of irrational things being said on the Internet. I would classify most of the irrationality on the Internet as others speaking for others thoughts or feelings. Check out Alex Jones just pulling shit out of his ass for example, under the guise of "news", but really just being a performance artist. He's "entertaining" people by pretending to be trustworthy, and keeping it going by making anyone listen to him question the "real" news (of which is he is not a member) to keep the schtick going. I look at it more like a weird NP problem, where increasing amounts of time are needed to unravel the logic being presented as it spreads further into the aggregate, given it's self-referential in nature to answer leading questions with more irrationality. The blame game people play might be likened to two traveling salesmen trying to solve each other's problems of shortest path while also traveling paths that avoid or overlap each other. Given certain paths, the salesman may find themselves in a loop, blaming each other for being stuck, but unable to stop doing the calculations to get themselves out of the pickle. Check out the concept of a double bind. It's relevant to this discussion.