"The internet’s democratization of information also brought with it a nasty little curve ball in the form of user-generated content..."
Exactly! User-Generated Content. No one in the mainstream (say the WSJ or the Financial Times or Economist) seems to ever really acknowledge how world changing that was. That anyone with a computer could produce anything made of information and give it away or sell it in a global marketplace has changed the human condition. Maybe even more so than the printing press. did.
UGC and the internet gave everyone a printing press, and a factory, and a way to get paid.
I am a simple old man. When I think of how the Internet has changed the world, the first thing that comes to mind is, "How did anyone find out where concerts were being held and how did people get advance tickets?"
Any other website is welcome to scrape all those and I'd love to post other people's comments about specific Congressmen, and ultimately all government officials.
"...the mass audience is now so fragmented that truth itself is often a subjective matter based on sectarian perspectives. The result has been distrust and disenchantment and discord, with agreement a rarity and strife the new norm."
You have a great turn of phrase. A well-written piece, thanks, Brad.
I am reminded of Neal Stephenson's "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" - in which he envisages this extreme subjectivity-split in society where even a purported nuclear event, which didn't happen, became entrenched as truth and reified within a more conservative "red-necked" sector of the society (one for which Stephenson seems to have some contempt - I guess he's not Republican - wonder if that's still the case 😏).
Ironically, come actual life today, we have a recent incident where a calamity HAS actually happened (the recent Ohio train derailment), and when I saw how it was being downplayed and even initially ignored by the blue-leaning MSM, my thoughts turned to this immediately as well.
No wonder conspiracy theory is a burgeoning phenomenon! When you start realising how media is utilised to ignore inconvenient events and distort truth so radically (the whole Covid thing being the pinnacle of this), then everything one thinks one knows, becomes subject to suspicion and review - and one floats in a perpetual sea of distrust.
The exponential rush of technological progress brought to us by the most brilliant human minds is forever constrained by the ubiquitous flaws, and stubborn developmental resistance, of human psychology.
The mismatch is THE problem. We can not evolve fast enough to absorb the change.
And today our elites and institutions are exploiting the technical progress brought to us by those brilliant minds to actually diminish the potential progress of human psychology. By all evidence, we are going backwards... toward greater personal dysfunction and away from advance in emotional and/or spiritual transcendence that would allow us to truly harness and exploit the technology advances in the overall human condition.
Is the revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky a sign that we might be near taking these needed steps?
if I were to zoom out and find one fundamental observation to describe the trouble we are in, it would be that technology is progressing so fast, that we cannot adapt to the changes quick enough to avoid catastrophe.
if I remember Darwins theory correctly, the hallmark of evolutionary fitness isn’t that only the strong survive...it’s the species that can adapt to change the best.
I clipped this recently from somewhere for a notebook: "every revolutionary change in the means of communication is followed by a change in the entire structure of society."
And, as Brad says, this is what we're living through, and we're much closer to the beginning than to the end. If the past is any guide, there were about 200 yrs between the invention of the Gutenberg printing press and the Peace of Westphalia. In the intervening centuries, just about every political, religious and social arrangement and belief, and more or less the entire architecture of European thought, was radically redone. (And it only took a few million corpses.)
Oswald Spengler calls Western Civ "Faustian", meaning that just like the character Faust, we are willing to sell our souls (aka religious belief) for total knowledge and total control of the world. Thus as a culture we seem to be addicted to both technology (and its promises) and to the illusion of control.
Maybe we'll finally be able to relax after we hand over complete power to the next deus-ex-machina: AI.
Let’s shift the discussion to solutions. Why don’t we create a decentralized 4th branch of government that holds the other branches accountable. It’s time for the people to have a seat at the table once again, since we are supposed to be the government.
The elites who were trusted to convey information were found to be lying, in epic proportion! And now are trying to convince us that the knowledge that shed light on their manipulation is disinformation. The want us to trust their fact-checking. We will no longer be fooled.
Several problems have been created by the democratization of information. First, everything is an opinion. That's a problem when trying to explain results of a scientific study. Next, Hollywood has convinced people that all they have to do is "google" it and they'll have everything at their fingertips. This was realized by the search engines early on, and when they decided to partner with government on suppression of dissent - the very definition of fascism - inconvenient information was shoved to page 17 of results. Third, the ability to construct a fruitful search query is critical and rare.
I take issue with people getting stupider in geometric proportions. I think we sometimes confuse how quantity relates to quality. The example of the pricing mechanism is it is most efficient when all participants are included. This is the wisdom of crowds. The problem is the madness of mobs. What I think we see with social media is the bad drives out the good. (same as with currencies) These are the trolls and other idiots who destroy all reasonable debate. They drive away those looking for solutions and attract those like themselves. Their size is magnified by the fact that they have driven away the reasonable which is the majority.
"The internet’s democratization of information also brought with it a nasty little curve ball in the form of user-generated content..."
Exactly! User-Generated Content. No one in the mainstream (say the WSJ or the Financial Times or Economist) seems to ever really acknowledge how world changing that was. That anyone with a computer could produce anything made of information and give it away or sell it in a global marketplace has changed the human condition. Maybe even more so than the printing press. did.
UGC and the internet gave everyone a printing press, and a factory, and a way to get paid.
I am a simple old man. When I think of how the Internet has changed the world, the first thing that comes to mind is, "How did anyone find out where concerts were being held and how did people get advance tickets?"
Indeed, I sometimes feel the same way....
One thing we can do now is easily keep a public running tab on what every Congressman is doing.
I made a thread for each one of them in 2022:
https://patrick.net/post/1377838/2022-11-29-us-congressmen-lists
When I run across some notable quote or action by any of them, I added it to his or her page, eg:
https://patrick.net/post/1345754/2022-06-01-rand-paul
Any other website is welcome to scrape all those and I'd love to post other people's comments about specific Congressmen, and ultimately all government officials.
"...the mass audience is now so fragmented that truth itself is often a subjective matter based on sectarian perspectives. The result has been distrust and disenchantment and discord, with agreement a rarity and strife the new norm."
You have a great turn of phrase. A well-written piece, thanks, Brad.
I am reminded of Neal Stephenson's "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" - in which he envisages this extreme subjectivity-split in society where even a purported nuclear event, which didn't happen, became entrenched as truth and reified within a more conservative "red-necked" sector of the society (one for which Stephenson seems to have some contempt - I guess he's not Republican - wonder if that's still the case 😏).
Ironically, come actual life today, we have a recent incident where a calamity HAS actually happened (the recent Ohio train derailment), and when I saw how it was being downplayed and even initially ignored by the blue-leaning MSM, my thoughts turned to this immediately as well.
No wonder conspiracy theory is a burgeoning phenomenon! When you start realising how media is utilised to ignore inconvenient events and distort truth so radically (the whole Covid thing being the pinnacle of this), then everything one thinks one knows, becomes subject to suspicion and review - and one floats in a perpetual sea of distrust.
The exponential rush of technological progress brought to us by the most brilliant human minds is forever constrained by the ubiquitous flaws, and stubborn developmental resistance, of human psychology.
The mismatch is THE problem. We can not evolve fast enough to absorb the change.
And today our elites and institutions are exploiting the technical progress brought to us by those brilliant minds to actually diminish the potential progress of human psychology. By all evidence, we are going backwards... toward greater personal dysfunction and away from advance in emotional and/or spiritual transcendence that would allow us to truly harness and exploit the technology advances in the overall human condition.
Is the revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky a sign that we might be near taking these needed steps?
The awakening is happening. But when you've been awake for years, decades even, it appears ponderously slow to us. I'm guessing.
U make a good point Frank.
if I were to zoom out and find one fundamental observation to describe the trouble we are in, it would be that technology is progressing so fast, that we cannot adapt to the changes quick enough to avoid catastrophe.
if I remember Darwins theory correctly, the hallmark of evolutionary fitness isn’t that only the strong survive...it’s the species that can adapt to change the best.
if that is the case, we are in for trouble...
What an excellent article. almost makes me hopeful. But I'm old, so I'd feel better in a snipers nest.
Instead, we all live in a viper's nest.
Ap.
I clipped this recently from somewhere for a notebook: "every revolutionary change in the means of communication is followed by a change in the entire structure of society."
And, as Brad says, this is what we're living through, and we're much closer to the beginning than to the end. If the past is any guide, there were about 200 yrs between the invention of the Gutenberg printing press and the Peace of Westphalia. In the intervening centuries, just about every political, religious and social arrangement and belief, and more or less the entire architecture of European thought, was radically redone. (And it only took a few million corpses.)
Oswald Spengler calls Western Civ "Faustian", meaning that just like the character Faust, we are willing to sell our souls (aka religious belief) for total knowledge and total control of the world. Thus as a culture we seem to be addicted to both technology (and its promises) and to the illusion of control.
Maybe we'll finally be able to relax after we hand over complete power to the next deus-ex-machina: AI.
As a member in good standing of the 'PHD less' masses, or, as Ezra Pound said, the 'greasy vulgus', I enjoyed the article, well done!
Let’s shift the discussion to solutions. Why don’t we create a decentralized 4th branch of government that holds the other branches accountable. It’s time for the people to have a seat at the table once again, since we are supposed to be the government.
https://open.substack.com/pub/joshketry/p/lets-build-a-4th-branch-of-government?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
The elites who were trusted to convey information were found to be lying, in epic proportion! And now are trying to convince us that the knowledge that shed light on their manipulation is disinformation. The want us to trust their fact-checking. We will no longer be fooled.
Several problems have been created by the democratization of information. First, everything is an opinion. That's a problem when trying to explain results of a scientific study. Next, Hollywood has convinced people that all they have to do is "google" it and they'll have everything at their fingertips. This was realized by the search engines early on, and when they decided to partner with government on suppression of dissent - the very definition of fascism - inconvenient information was shoved to page 17 of results. Third, the ability to construct a fruitful search query is critical and rare.
I take issue with people getting stupider in geometric proportions. I think we sometimes confuse how quantity relates to quality. The example of the pricing mechanism is it is most efficient when all participants are included. This is the wisdom of crowds. The problem is the madness of mobs. What I think we see with social media is the bad drives out the good. (same as with currencies) These are the trolls and other idiots who destroy all reasonable debate. They drive away those looking for solutions and attract those like themselves. Their size is magnified by the fact that they have driven away the reasonable which is the majority.
That's fair.