First off, I appreciate your comment. As a mild defense, I'm just worried that the internet (and emerging distributed web) might make for a landscape where fac

First off, I appreciate your comment. As a mild defense, I'm just worried that the internet (and emerging distributed web) might make for a landscape where facts no longer are predisposed to win, as they were in the very carefully calibrated prior social systems. There are no chokepoints as there have been through all prior history, where power could exert control, be that through kings, politicians, media, capital, overton window, or whatever. The tactics of persisting signals in a sea of liquid and a sea of air are different. Maybe we're in a different phase. I'm willing (though not welcoming) toward the idea of this being a phase change, after which it's not particularly helpful to focus on the "rightfulness" of factual information. I'm not saying there is no role for facts, I'm saying we might have to start thinking differently about how we expect the larger systems to integrate them EDIT: For example, removing Trump (the liar in chief) from Twitter has UNDOUBTEDLY improved public discourse imho. I wish we'd done it sooner. But we're actively building a world where that will be less and less possible. And while removing his lying megaphone improved things for a bit, we sure as heck haven't figured out the right way to deal with a Trump anomaly without that lever. What will we do in a digital regime where the mathematical guarantees and data structures at their core prevent us from silencing him? To what authority will we negotiate about "truth"?