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I didn't read that. Organizing a union or a political or social movement occur through deliberate, thoughtful efforts. I took his comment to indicate something
by crusty 9y ago
I didn't read that. Organizing a union or a political or social movement occur through deliberate, thoughtful efforts. I took his comment to indicate something along the lines of; Mobs (IRL or digital) are emotion driven and feed off of (or even are dependent upon) instantaneous, omni-directional communication. Maybe adding friction to communication has historically had the benefit of reducing mob tendencies. But friction does not mean prevented or blocked.
I haven't thought any of this over myself, but if I supported this idea, I'd offer that friction, in reducing mob tendencies, might actually make more room for the types of communications that promote rational democratic ideas.
Basically, i think you read way more into his idea of friction than was there.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoYup. The way I see this is more like adding intertia in control systems - it makes a system a bit more sluggish, but can prevent it from oscillating out of control.
- makomk 9y agoThe ultimate problem I have with this idea is that it only makes creating structures slow, not actually taking action. (We lost the kind of friction that would slow down the latter around the time TV and radio appeared.) So even without social media we can have hasty, knee-jerk extreme reactions to pretty much anything, they just have to go through the established structure.