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I think overall the connectedness is actually a bad thing, because it didn't come with education in critical thought and temperment. We're losing the battle of

I think overall the connectedness is actually a bad thing, because it didn't come with education in critical thought and temperment. We're losing the battle of enlightenment to echo chambers of hatred and fear.

tw1010 9y ago
Having the option to live in an echo chamber also means we have the option to pick the wise and rational sources from which to listen to. Whereas before when TV and the local community supposedly was the source of diversity of thought, did you also have to put up with a lot of irrational bullshit that is inherent in socially propagated truth. I'm glad I'm not forced to live in that world anymore. For people who live in the outskirts, or who don't have access to a university culture to get their rational (isolated, echo chamber-y) conversation from, the internet is a godsend. Saying that you wish that echo chambers wasn't an option anymore also means that you wish people didn't have the option to experiment with a community whose values don't align with the norms of their local enviourment.
- weberc2 9y ago
  > Having the option to live in an echo chamber also means we have the option to pick the wise and rational sources from which to listen to. Whereas before when TV and the local community supposedly was the source of diversity of thought, did you also have to put up with a lot of irrational bullshit that is inherent in socially propagated truth. I definitely have to deal with more socially propagated bullshit now than at any time in my history. Perhaps ironically, much more of it seems to be coming out of academia and journalism than ever before. For example, I can't think of a time when fields as patently ludicrous as "critical theory" have been taken as seriously as now. I can only speculate as to the cause.
- drngdds 9y ago
  I agree with this. "Echo chambers" (i.e., communities with the kind of people and content I like to interact with) are great as long as you know when you're in one.
alexashka 9y ago
'Battle of enlightenment' - I think you may be suffering from being in an echo chamber yourself (a negative one at that) and not being aware of it :) There is no 'battle for enlightenment', just people having access to way more stuff than ever before, and that is a big big win.
abusoufiyan 9y ago
It also didn't come with any way to upend the traditional barriers to connectedness: language, differing cultures, differing lived experiences, etc. So it shouldn't be surprising that that connectedness didn't actually fundamentally change much about the real world.

tw1010 9y ago

Having the option to live in an echo chamber also means we have the option to pick the wise and rational sources from which to listen to. Whereas before when TV and the local community supposedly was the source of diversity of thought, did you also have to put up with a lot of irrational bullshit that is inherent in socially propagated truth. I'm glad I'm not forced to live in that world anymore. For people who live in the outskirts, or who don't have access to a university culture to get their rational (isolated, echo chamber-y) conversation from, the internet is a godsend. Saying that you wish that echo chambers wasn't an option anymore also means that you wish people didn't have the option to experiment with a community whose values don't align with the norms of their local enviourment.

weberc2 9y ago
> Having the option to live in an echo chamber also means we have the option to pick the wise and rational sources from which to listen to. Whereas before when TV and the local community supposedly was the source of diversity of thought, did you also have to put up with a lot of irrational bullshit that is inherent in socially propagated truth. I definitely have to deal with more socially propagated bullshit now than at any time in my history. Perhaps ironically, much more of it seems to be coming out of academia and journalism than ever before. For example, I can't think of a time when fields as patently ludicrous as "critical theory" have been taken as seriously as now. I can only speculate as to the cause.
drngdds 9y ago
I agree with this. "Echo chambers" (i.e., communities with the kind of people and content I like to interact with) are great as long as you know when you're in one.

alexashka 9y ago

'Battle of enlightenment' - I think you may be suffering from being in an echo chamber yourself (a negative one at that) and not being aware of it :) There is no 'battle for enlightenment', just people having access to way more stuff than ever before, and that is a big big win.

abusoufiyan 9y ago

It also didn't come with any way to upend the traditional barriers to connectedness: language, differing cultures, differing lived experiences, etc. So it shouldn't be surprising that that connectedness didn't actually fundamentally change much about the real world.