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I've recently been thinking about the parallels between social media and the Tower of Babel. Maybe ancient societies were onto something when they warned us of

• saeranv 6y ago
  That's an interesting thought. Instant communication seems to pair badly with our inherent bias towards novelty and bigotry. In the past, we had gatekeepers (i.e media) that were educated enough to edit and contextualize communication to control that bias. Increasing the ability for everyone to communicate with one another has really unleased the worst of humanity.
  • BrandonM 6y ago
    Since you mentioned media's role, Matt Taibbi recently argued[1] that the media has somewhat recently departed from norms that were followed throughout the 20th century. To ensure the widest audiences possible, the CBSes and later CNNs of the world largely aimed to report stories from a "neutral" perspective (really a centrist perspective). Taibbi argues that in the last couple decades, though, even major media outlets have carved out biased perspectives to inspire more loyalty in smaller sets of people. Point being that I think you're right that the media played an important role in contextualizing mass communication and controlling bias. Not only does social media disintermediate mass communications, the intermediaries themselves are now ignoring roles they historically performed. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-post-objectivity-era https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-post-objectivity-era