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Don't think I agree. Think of it in economic terms of supply and demand. If something becomes cheaper to produce, you get more of it. Or think of it in terms

Don't think I agree. Think of it in economic terms of supply and demand. If something becomes cheaper to produce, you get more of it. Or think of it in terms of Gresham's Law: Bad discourse drives out good. But maybe... if the ratio stayed the same, but what got amplified/liked/upvoted got dumber, then the algorithms would guarantee that what we see got a higher ratio of junk. (But if that's true, then eventually the first two paragraphs will come into play, and the proportion will in fact change.)

jll29 1y ago
Maybe it is exactly because books are so cheap nowadays that nobody aspires to own them. Maybe it is exactly because education is free [at least in part of Europe] that people do not value it anymore [there]. On reflection: no, it's the phones, folks. On a recent train ride, a young woman sitting diagonnally in front from me was frantically typing on her cellphone. It appeared from a distance she was cutting out some phrase, putting it into a frame and posting it to a social network. While this took just seconds, the task was itself interrupted by her checking chat messages from multiple contacts, each of which she replied in less than two seconds. This is something that I've had to watch in public spaces a lot: the compulsion to react on incomming messages - but then at the receiving end the dopamin kicks in until a reply to the response is sent and so on, ad infinitum. Timing-wise, there is little time to think deeply about what to write, the content becomes victim to short utterance ping-pong.
ethbr1 1y ago
Exhibit A for how US political discourse has become dumber: presidential debates. 2020: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1lY5jFNcQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1lY5jFNcQ 2004: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYpP-T0IcyA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYpP-T0IcyA 1988: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OIGH710aY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OIGH710aY 1960: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP8-oxq8ig https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP8-oxq8ig (skipping over a few weird years there in 1972, 68, 64)

jll29 1y ago

Maybe it is exactly because books are so cheap nowadays that nobody aspires to own them. Maybe it is exactly because education is free [at least in part of Europe] that people do not value it anymore [there]. On reflection: no, it's the phones, folks. On a recent train ride, a young woman sitting diagonnally in front from me was frantically typing on her cellphone. It appeared from a distance she was cutting out some phrase, putting it into a frame and posting it to a social network. While this took just seconds, the task was itself interrupted by her checking chat messages from multiple contacts, each of which she replied in less than two seconds. This is something that I've had to watch in public spaces a lot: the compulsion to react on incomming messages - but then at the receiving end the dopamin kicks in until a reply to the response is sent and so on, ad infinitum. Timing-wise, there is little time to think deeply about what to write, the content becomes victim to short utterance ping-pong.

ethbr1 1y ago

Exhibit A for how US political discourse has become dumber: presidential debates. 2020: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1lY5jFNcQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1lY5jFNcQ 2004: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYpP-T0IcyA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYpP-T0IcyA 1988: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OIGH710aY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OIGH710aY 1960: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP8-oxq8ig https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP8-oxq8ig (skipping over a few weird years there in 1972, 68, 64)