"The stupidity of current discourse uses social media, of course, because that's the dominant media, but I don't believe they caused it. " And certainly based

"The stupidity of current discourse uses social media, of course, because that's the dominant media, but I don't believe they caused it. " And certainly based on past statements he's made, I took that the tech augmented the issue, but was not being posed as the root cause. Like you I think Turchin is on to something, but Haidt here is also largely pointing out a symptom that has immense influence in the current day. To that, I'm not sure if he is as much "afraid/impressed with tech" as much as pointing the human inability to think remotely (or even care most of the time) about laws of unintended consequences, let alone how to address them when they inevitably arise.