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This could be summarized: in the west, technology has empowered populism and in the east, technology has empowered totalitarianism; often to the same ends.

notreallyserio 5y ago
You missed the argument against accountability for ones own words (aka "cancel culture"). To be fair, though, it was kind of shoehorned in. I wonder if it was the original point of the article?
- helen___keller 5y ago
  I do think the author made a mistake here: the author credits western 'social controls' to so-called "Neo-paternalist nudge theories", i.e. as if there's some western illiberal thinkers out there that have decided for us that we should collectively police each other socially for the greater good. This couldn't be further from the truth. Those thinkers exist, but they have no power anyways. Cancel culture and other "illiberal" modern activity is actually emergent behavior from strongly connected social networks. It's pure populism. It's just that millions of people go on the internet for the purpose of feeling angry at somebody else on twitter or facebook, and this via the free market results in people losing jobs, people being ostracized, or even the formation of real-life protests and riots.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    I wouldn't call social media viral phenomena as strongly connected as opposed to broadly connected. Viral media does not require strong connections (people reacting over Twitter or Reddit hardly know each other), and neither is virality obviously boosted by strong connections.
1337shadow 5y ago
Populism being the point of democracy or am I missing something? How can that be "often to the same end" than totalitarism?
- helen___keller 5y ago
  It might be a little misleading to say populism is the point of democracy, but you're not wrong. Either way, "the same end" referring to massive surveillance, social controls, etc. In China obviously the CCP does all that In the West, it happens more or less organically through populism: communities all installing ring cam, cancelling people on twitter, etc. It's driven by populism instead of totalitarianism. And that's not even to say it's all bad either, if the vast majority of people want to see a neo-nazi lose their public service job, is cancel culture really that bad in this situation? Like you mentioned, that's essentially democracy. However, it can get out of control when it's gone unchecked. Every now and then you see one of those "cancel culture gone wrong" articles upvoted to the top here, where one quote out of context gets amplified on social media and ends in lost jobs and death threats. The real problem is that there is no mechanism to keep the overwhelming power of modern populism in check. The country wasn't designed in an era where a million people could start a shit storm together from separate geographies. In the 18th century, you needed to get enough angry people in one location to form a mob. That only happened in rare and exceptional circumstances. It was self limiting, in a way. The internet has changed the rules, so societies are still learning to adapt.

notreallyserio 5y ago

You missed the argument against accountability for ones own words (aka "cancel culture"). To be fair, though, it was kind of shoehorned in. I wonder if it was the original point of the article?

helen___keller 5y ago
I do think the author made a mistake here: the author credits western 'social controls' to so-called "Neo-paternalist nudge theories", i.e. as if there's some western illiberal thinkers out there that have decided for us that we should collectively police each other socially for the greater good. This couldn't be further from the truth. Those thinkers exist, but they have no power anyways. Cancel culture and other "illiberal" modern activity is actually emergent behavior from strongly connected social networks. It's pure populism. It's just that millions of people go on the internet for the purpose of feeling angry at somebody else on twitter or facebook, and this via the free market results in people losing jobs, people being ostracized, or even the formation of real-life protests and riots.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  I wouldn't call social media viral phenomena as strongly connected as opposed to broadly connected. Viral media does not require strong connections (people reacting over Twitter or Reddit hardly know each other), and neither is virality obviously boosted by strong connections.

1337shadow 5y ago

Populism being the point of democracy or am I missing something? How can that be "often to the same end" than totalitarism?

helen___keller 5y ago
It might be a little misleading to say populism is the point of democracy, but you're not wrong. Either way, "the same end" referring to massive surveillance, social controls, etc. In China obviously the CCP does all that In the West, it happens more or less organically through populism: communities all installing ring cam, cancelling people on twitter, etc. It's driven by populism instead of totalitarianism. And that's not even to say it's all bad either, if the vast majority of people want to see a neo-nazi lose their public service job, is cancel culture really that bad in this situation? Like you mentioned, that's essentially democracy. However, it can get out of control when it's gone unchecked. Every now and then you see one of those "cancel culture gone wrong" articles upvoted to the top here, where one quote out of context gets amplified on social media and ends in lost jobs and death threats. The real problem is that there is no mechanism to keep the overwhelming power of modern populism in check. The country wasn't designed in an era where a million people could start a shit storm together from separate geographies. In the 18th century, you needed to get enough angry people in one location to form a mob. That only happened in rare and exceptional circumstances. It was self limiting, in a way. The internet has changed the rules, so societies are still learning to adapt.