This is so important.
It's been the zeitgeist for a while now to avoid trust at all cost. symptoms of the zeitgeist in censoring solutions like the article shows; Technologists obsession with decentralization and a zero trust monetary system; economist obsession with game theory and rational quantity optimizing individual agents models.
Don't get me wrong, these models are useful, but they are perceived like laws of nature, or even religion where any other, especially, qualitative description of reality is automatically considered wrong and against dogma.
These things got accepted is truth because these ideas were developed while the US went in to a huge economical boom post WW2, and by association are perceived to be the causes of this boom. At the same time, Soviet Russia failed model for society and the atrocities committed against its citizens are perceived as proof of the danger in any departure from this dogma.
The naturalization of these values; the rise of social media; and information technology. created the perfect storm for a complete erosion of trust in authority.
Attention economy ran by people that believe business endavours can only be rational and purely profit driven, made disinformation a standard in media through click optimizing sensationalized content.
Even science succumbed to this: when universities started seeing themselves as businesses that need PR to optimize some metric. These PR departments sensationalized science communication, pumping out exaggerated reports about early stage science. Leaving the public confused and distrustful.
Science is the core of truth In western secular culture. Now that science got commoditized for PR purposes, we lost this last grasp at truth.
This, At the macro level, We lost trust, and we lost truth. The only psychological/societal cohesion inducing element left is power and domination.
Distributed media is not necessarily a good thing. I think a local, transparent distributed and heirachial forms of media might be better for humanity.
That gets it backwards - the reason for no trust is because they aren't trustworthy. Rather than try to ensure that they are under the transparency they clammor and cry for gatekeepers and "good old days".
It brings to mind the USSR and glasnost - once they are shown to fundamentally be a lie "going back" is delusional and doomed to failure. It is like the joke about the despairing old man who is now forever known as "the guy who shagged a goat" despite decades farming, building docks, and fishing.
Don't get me wrong, these models are useful, but they are perceived like laws of nature, or even religion where any other, especially, qualitative description of reality is automatically considered wrong and against dogma.
These things got accepted is truth because these ideas were developed while the US went in to a huge economical boom post WW2, and by association are perceived to be the causes of this boom. At the same time, Soviet Russia failed model for society and the atrocities committed against its citizens are perceived as proof of the danger in any departure from this dogma. The naturalization of these values; the rise of social media; and information technology. created the perfect storm for a complete erosion of trust in authority. Attention economy ran by people that believe business endavours can only be rational and purely profit driven, made disinformation a standard in media through click optimizing sensationalized content. Even science succumbed to this: when universities started seeing themselves as businesses that need PR to optimize some metric. These PR departments sensationalized science communication, pumping out exaggerated reports about early stage science. Leaving the public confused and distrustful.
Science is the core of truth In western secular culture. Now that science got commoditized for PR purposes, we lost this last grasp at truth.
This, At the macro level, We lost trust, and we lost truth. The only psychological/societal cohesion inducing element left is power and domination.
Distributed media is not necessarily a good thing. I think a local, transparent distributed and heirachial forms of media might be better for humanity.