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it is a luxury of modern times. Century and more ago only upper classes were having debates/arguments/discussions because only they had the option to try to con
by trhway 6y ago
it is a luxury of modern times. Century and more ago only upper classes were having debates/arguments/discussions because only they had the option to try to control their fate by trying to win those debates (and those white males had less diverse set of opinions then we have in the society today). The rest of society was consumed in daily grit for survival, they had no impact on decisions and whatever decisions were taken it was for them akin to a weather or geological events. These days everybody can participate, thanks to economic development and communication tools and especially social media. Though not everybody has sufficiently trained mental toolset to handle it.
>Everyone is so hostile and eager to end other people.
Couple centuries ago disagreement could easily end up as a duel resulting in a death and losing a political fight may have had more severe consequences than just losing an elected office. These days usually only ego is damaged. And even that - in the current environment criticism is equaled with harassment (so egos are safe and happily growing large and larger...) Thus as a result in particular proliferation of alternative facts, etc. Kind of multiverse of quantum mechanics.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Century and more ago only upper classes were having debates/arguments/discussions because only they had the option to try to control their fate by trying to win those debates. It still is. The working class footsoldiers aren't engaging in debates/arguments/discussions, they are being deployed as weapons, largely of intimidation, whose purpose isn't to convince others of what is true or right to believe, but what is safe to express. They may be relaying slogans, but its not about debate or discussion, and there is essentially no engagement.
- trhway 6y agothat is a systems theory question - is true mass debate possible giving so far observed half-life of mere milliseconds before it gets desintegrated into mass propaganda. Basically it calls for new Shannon - what is the maximum information (in particular - can it be more than simple slogan?) can be communicated (i.e. received/understood and meaningfully (it is key point here, ie. at the level comparable to the received information) responded) in some massively parallel and may be partially ordered (yet definitely not totally sequential) manner in a massive graph of very diverse nodes.
- tester34 6y ago>(and those white males had less diverse set of opinions then we have in the society today). how's skin color relevant here?
- trhway 6y agoabsolutely relevant. 1-2 centuries ago the deciding top of the society were mostly white males. That naturally leaded to the less diverse set of opinions held by them. Or do you think Jim Crow, etc. would have the same history if black people were part of the deciding elite 150-100 years ago?