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> Then for six years I got disconnected; when I left prison and came back online, I was confronted by a brave new world. Facebook and Twitter had replaced blogg
by nowherebeen 5y ago
> Then for six years I got disconnected; when I left prison and came back online, I was confronted by a brave new world. Facebook and Twitter had replaced blogging and had made the Internet like TV: centralized and image-centered, with content embedded in pictures, without links.
> Like TV it now increasingly entertains us, and even more so than television it amplifies our existing beliefs and habits. It makes us feel more than think, and it comforts more than challenges. The result is a deeply fragmented society, driven by emotions, and radicalized by lack of contact and challenge from outside. This is why Oxford Dictionaries designated “post-truth” as the word of 2016: an adjective "relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals."
That’s quite intriguing. I never thought about it this way.
- Kaibeezy 5y agoHumans have a long, deep and broad history of being told and shown stuff, whether epic poetry, puppet shows, political oratory, folk singers, etc., so it’s not new. What’s new is the precipitous drop in access to, and consumption of, medium- to long-form written materials. The collective cognitive limitations of a culture of non-readers are truly terrifying. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25311662 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25311662