> In fact, this latter concern of manipulation begs the question of what people really need computers for, and brings into question Ted Nelson's presumed answer

> In fact, this latter concern of manipulation begs the question of what people really need computers for, and brings into question Ted Nelson's presumed answer to it: i.e., that people have an inherent need to use computers to facilitate their own creativity. But what about the possibility that the majority of people prefer to be passive consumers? Neil Postman warned that we would become a trivial society, rife with distraction, like in Huxley's Brave New World. We're in a novel time to be introspective about the use of computers because in a very real sense, accessible information systems that treat all information equally have brought about an information overload apocalypse. With accessibility and creativity everywhere, we're starting to see what happens when any group of people can assemble social campaigns (bot networks spreading lies in social media frameworks) and achieve parity with the former "information priesthood" of centralized media. It's so easy to make and share information that people are inundated with the material of ethos (with the lies it cherishes and truths followers cling to), language, and creed. While other culture shock events have occurred in history, there is a fundamental difference in the recent decade has been the lack of any central actor for legacy power systems to coerce or stomp out. And because of this, we're having to find ways to cope at the individual level with an excess of information, even unwanted information that we don't even realize we're consuming. I'm not sure Nelson or even Huxley truly foresaw this. To someone who has not grown up in a sea of information with algorithms helpfully (and even desperately) shoving information into our faces to try and satisfy our needs before we realize we have them, it's difficult to describe the idea of struggling not to be manipulated by subtle bias. Prior to the information saturation we enjoy now, such attempts to totally control information tended to look a lot more like North Korea's press. Aspects of this even exist in less centralized media, such as when and where western press decides to "tell both sides of the story" as opposed to simply informing a position as fact. Counter to Huxley's rather puritan vision of us medicating and fornicating into irrelevance (which we've always done, let's be real), the idea that a minority view point (e.g., "America should be racially motivated literal monarchy") can be given the optics of having parity with ideas actually held by tens of millions of people seems to have energized people. Folks see a venue for increased social importance and control, and they're seizing it.