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I wonder is this a line of thinking borne of weariness? The dreadful nature of political discourse everywhere is surely something that should be up for improvem
by rusk 9y ago
I wonder is this a line of thinking borne of weariness? The dreadful nature of political discourse everywhere is surely something that should be up for improvement. I'd like to think technology could be used to improve this, even though lately it seems to have been confusing things. I'd be given to thinking that once the public at large become more familiar with, and respectful of the power of social media, it will be the means through which this discourse is improved. I think we already see this in many spheres, just that the ugliness usually tends to undermine effectiveness. The trolls need to go, and they will in time but it's as much a social issue as a technological one. I think what we're seeing here is a "long 1997" similar to the "long September" phenomenon being played out as whole new massive chunks of the population join the online world.
- alloyed 9y agoI absolutely agree that our current situation needs to be improved, but looking at the history of media leads me to believe that by progressing past the centralized and regulated system of TV and radio we've left a local maximum when it comes to "civility". Older forms of "ugly" news, like the press of the french revolution or turn-of-the-century america, didn't get fixed over time, but by the law "catching up", either through oppression or the increase of regulation causing regulatory capture. Of course, the idea of recentralizing speech is more or less unacceptable: what would that even mean when the problem is not a small group of newsmakers, but literally everybody? I don't see any other solutions in our long past, though.