started thinking about it unironically in the shower, but then it all spiraled till I got this.
Throughout the whole history of humanity, most of the language and information were passed through personal one on one interactions. Where disagreement was personal. In the modern age of the internet. Both right and left, rich and poor, have destroyed that. To be a successful scientist before, you needed to learn how to transmit your ideas not only on paper, but also in a conference room filled with tens of people. Nowadays, modern scientists are struggling to even speak, as social anxiety induced by the social separation of the internet makes them publish any of their studies on online platforms. This involves costs not only for the scientists but for the society as a whole. As simply using a source of a science article that is published by a big name now makes you right and the other person wrong. I myself am still debated on this issue.
But what touches me the most is the political debate. Both right and left have sunk into the deep pit of awful, gut wrenching, poisonous and hazardous debates that do not impose a greater meaning than to gain a popular majority. People such as Vaush, Hasanabi and many others construct themselves on the basis of debating on the internet. Most awful detail being that their debate is mostly just critique of a video. While the right in what I’ve personally seen is just as awful, or in my opinion even more. They use nonsensical, straw-man and other logical fallacies filled arguments that do not impose or add anything to the greater picture. Even debates in real life are now a vomit-fest. Biggest example being the Trump and Biden debate. People didn’t even consider it as one and turned it into a joke. Real life debates are now filled with either animalistic screaming or the unacceptance of either one’s platform. It leads nowhere and the result of it is minimal at best. I’m afraid for the future of debates and what it might lead to. Debates are dead and we killed them, but what shall we kill next?
Please prove me wrong, I’m going to sleep with this horrible thought that I hate.
This phenomenon is as old as history.
Socrates was killed because he made fun of powerful people. Anaxagoras was exiled from Athens for arguing that the sun and moon are just fire and rock, rather than gods. Galileo was persecuted because he got into a pissing match with the Jesuits over the nature of comets, then when the Pope’s support for Galileo’s (geocentric) views wavered (…they wavered for political reasons), Galileo wrote a treatise ridiculing the Pope. Hearst and Pulitzer propagandized the US into the Spanish-American War. Mondale lost the election because the media decided he looked ridiculous.
Yeah the internet is terrible for discourse, but the more basic fact is that almost all humans suck at discourse. Even, or maybe especially, Galileo.
Marx and Lenin both have entire chapters of foundational books devoted to take downs of their contemporaries. This isn’t a new phenomenon.
I think what’s different now is algorithms encouraging very surface level debate to top. To the point that it doesn’t feel like anyone really has anything to say. The people actually discussing solutions and debating their merits are completely drowned out.