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Right? If I had to come to with like, five problems that I felt like they were both urgent enough and and significant enough that we should literally implement
by saghm 1mo ago
Right? If I had to come to with like, five problems that I felt like they were both urgent enough and and significant enough that we should literally implement the least bad policy immediately rather than do nothing until we come up with something better, I don't think this would be on my list, and it definitely wouldn't be the top of my list if it was. There are things I think that are more harmful and have been going on a lot longer where people don't seem to have any desire to push back as hard against letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, so it's hard for me to take legislation like this at face value rather than suspecting that there's something less direct that the government is getting out of it (and I say this as someone who is pretty much invariably very far to the left and often in favor of heavier government involvement in various areas).
- ethbr1 1mo agoFunctioning democracy seems pretty important, and a healthy shared reality and news is a key component of that. Social media, as currently implemented, directly harms that.
- saghm 1mo agoI have basically the same reaction to this framing: if I had to list the five largest threats to our functioning democracy in the US right now, social media use by teenagers would not make the list.
- ethbr1 1mo agoWhat are your five largest threats to functioning democracy in the US right now? Because I question any list that doesn't include a substantial chunk of voters being ignorant on concerns of critical importance to the country. And if that's a problem now, as a result of a couple decades of low-brow, high-emotion 80s and 90s conservative talk radio and tv, then what do you think better-engineered algorithmic slop is doing to the next voting cohort's brains? Democracies succeed or fail on the average voter's ability to somewhat understand matters.