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Both the author's own words and the quoted ones use big words to make the writing appear more intelligent and insightful that it really is. The gist of the con

Both the author's own words and the quoted ones use big words to make the writing appear more intelligent and insightful that it really is. The gist of the concept seems to be that a utopian future predicted long ago never came to pass, and despite globalization, fast communication, and free movement of goods and sometimes individuals, people devolved into narrowly scoped groups instead. There's contention about control of institutions, control of capital, fruits to the gains of economic activity, so these groups are often at odds, and traditional solutions to their conflict are either too ineffective (government, compromise) or too drastic (protests, unrest, warfare), creating an awkward passive-aggressive state of pervasive discontent no one is happy with. And all of the author's quote-mining seems to be a response to another overwrought essay that noted that tools like protests, angry mobs, identity politics, and the Internet, that were used by progressives to further their causes, did real damage to the credibility of institutions, and both the tools and that mistrust are now being repurposed by nationalists and fascists. This seems like non-news, and is completely to be expected, but somehow the author implies they find issue with the thesis, yet arrives at a very similar conclusion. All these are too many words to say people will opportunistically group together and machinate towards a local betterment for their in-group above most others. Technology has generally lowered the cost and drawbacks of this opportunistic behavior, and free discourse and free assembly laws enable much of this in parts of the world, even when for-profit surveillance is prevalent. In other places, authorities have cracked down on dissent against the regime, so people who have more to lose than gain are too afraid to make waves online. But the factor limiting unrest is their desperation, which has little to do with technology. To me, all of the author's points seem closer to realism, than technorealism. Technorealism tries to have a nuanced conversation about the things that change and the things that stay the same while living in an Internet-connected world, while this writing raves a lot about the decline of society itself and the supposed fault of a loose mob of electing a demagogue for the laughs. It's hardly deserving of the attention it's getting.

whatshisface 8y ago
In an alternate universe where global communication had led to one single identity group, intellectuals would be decrying the death of the community and the alienation of individuals from their neighbors.
barrkel 8y ago
Without having the (IMO) chief reference link in the article - http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/Wave3lec.htm http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/Wave3lec.htm - I think it's easy to misread this one. What's going on is not just in-groups operating towards local betterment. It's a disintegration of national consensus from the decline of mass (industrial) media. Democracy can't work without at least a rough consensus on what the truth is. The filter bubbles we increasingly inhabit lack conflict resolution and the bubbles drift further apart. We end up with factionalism, leading to balkanization, and unless we find a way to resolve the underlying tension, we're on the way to violence, IMO.
- reindeerer 8y ago
  > we're on the way to violence, IMO. Interesting to see if most of the violence will occur in digital space. It might already be going on in multiple forms
- sunir 8y ago
  The polity was fractured like this before TV and radio. Mostly the lesson over time has been that people don’t want to agree about anything with their rivals until absolutely forced to. The content of the argument is less important than the medium of argument. Network TV didn’t create a realm of common facts exactly but a single forcing factor that compelled resolution because the system could not sustain a lot of competing ideas. Of course this meant that better ideas would survive, and that very often meant good ideas that worked in reality—-though not always. Now you have to show an idea is better by implementing it at a smaller scale and growing it rather than winning all at once at a national level. It’s all doable but it is harder and takes longer. It is possibly lower risk and more dynamic.
  - randallsquared 8y ago
    > The polity was fractured like this before TV and radio. But it wasn't felt. Before TV and radio, the main method of communication was print and conversation, so that a random person picked out of a population might come in contact with only a few political or cultural opinions in a given day. This continued into the age of TV and radio because only a few such opinions were permitted by those controlling the broadcasts. Now that people might easily come into conflict culturally or politically hundreds of times a day, the real diversity of opinion across a large population is apparent to a given member of that population, in a way that it wasn't before, even if we assume that the differences were really there. That constant conflict is a few clicks away at any moment leads many people to internalize that they are constantly fighting for their ability to hold their political beliefs and perform their culture, and/or to shut out most large differences to the extent they can, while conforming themselves to minor differences. The only people who experienced this kind of constant churn in the past were travelers, and mostly only while traveling. We are all travelers now.
misrab 8y ago
Very articulate and thoughtful. It makes me happy that level-headed people like yourself exist. I'm curious, where do people like yourself linger? What made you into a person who can respond as such? Are you an engineer who reads a lot? An academic? Pardon me if that's direct, I just feel like understanding that may lead to an understanding of how to promote more level-headed discussion.

whatshisface 8y ago

In an alternate universe where global communication had led to one single identity group, intellectuals would be decrying the death of the community and the alienation of individuals from their neighbors.

barrkel 8y ago

Without having the (IMO) chief reference link in the article - http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/Wave3lec.htm http://www.criticalthink.info/Phil1301/Wave3lec.htm - I think it's easy to misread this one. What's going on is not just in-groups operating towards local betterment. It's a disintegration of national consensus from the decline of mass (industrial) media. Democracy can't work without at least a rough consensus on what the truth is. The filter bubbles we increasingly inhabit lack conflict resolution and the bubbles drift further apart. We end up with factionalism, leading to balkanization, and unless we find a way to resolve the underlying tension, we're on the way to violence, IMO.

reindeerer 8y ago
> we're on the way to violence, IMO. Interesting to see if most of the violence will occur in digital space. It might already be going on in multiple forms
sunir 8y ago
The polity was fractured like this before TV and radio. Mostly the lesson over time has been that people don’t want to agree about anything with their rivals until absolutely forced to. The content of the argument is less important than the medium of argument. Network TV didn’t create a realm of common facts exactly but a single forcing factor that compelled resolution because the system could not sustain a lot of competing ideas. Of course this meant that better ideas would survive, and that very often meant good ideas that worked in reality—-though not always. Now you have to show an idea is better by implementing it at a smaller scale and growing it rather than winning all at once at a national level. It’s all doable but it is harder and takes longer. It is possibly lower risk and more dynamic.
- randallsquared 8y ago
  > The polity was fractured like this before TV and radio. But it wasn't felt. Before TV and radio, the main method of communication was print and conversation, so that a random person picked out of a population might come in contact with only a few political or cultural opinions in a given day. This continued into the age of TV and radio because only a few such opinions were permitted by those controlling the broadcasts. Now that people might easily come into conflict culturally or politically hundreds of times a day, the real diversity of opinion across a large population is apparent to a given member of that population, in a way that it wasn't before, even if we assume that the differences were really there. That constant conflict is a few clicks away at any moment leads many people to internalize that they are constantly fighting for their ability to hold their political beliefs and perform their culture, and/or to shut out most large differences to the extent they can, while conforming themselves to minor differences. The only people who experienced this kind of constant churn in the past were travelers, and mostly only while traveling. We are all travelers now.

misrab 8y ago

Very articulate and thoughtful. It makes me happy that level-headed people like yourself exist. I'm curious, where do people like yourself linger? What made you into a person who can respond as such? Are you an engineer who reads a lot? An academic? Pardon me if that's direct, I just feel like understanding that may lead to an understanding of how to promote more level-headed discussion.