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Originally Posted by Ab
Again, you prove the point. He didn't write that. Someone else did.
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Yea, I think ^THIS^ misses the point, tbh.
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Originally Posted by Ab
It's connected. This is the sort of rant I usually give after the third bottle on a Friday night but it's Monday and I'm not drinking at the moment so this feels kinda weird, but bear with me.
1. modernity transformed us all into active individuals on our own special journeys. The Protestant Reformation gave me a personal relationship with Jebus based on the penitence in my own heart. The Industrial Revolution made me and my clothing choices a driver of international change. Consumerism of the 20th century was based on convenience and customisation of goods and services based on what I personally want. HOLY SHIT I AM SO FUCKING IMPORTANT.
2. unfettered Friedmanesque neoliberal economics since the 70s has massively decreased social mobility and opportunity and created a new feudalism under which the few get an increasingly large share of the pie and more power in the system. GODDAMMIT I AM INSIGNIFICANT AND LESS INFLUENTIAL BY THE DAY.
3. 1&2 together cause massive anxiety and tension. They can't both be true. I was brought up getting told that I'm a modern autonomous agent, but now that I'm adulting the world treats me like a disposable object and the rich are just getting richer and richer while I can't even afford kids or a house or a job. IT'S NOT FAIR.
4. anxious and tense individuals seek reassurance and protection from their groups. We're social apes. So individuals become hung up on group identity and start focusing on the tribal displays that reinforce tribal status. Showing off in-group membership is the only thing that makes us not terrified that inequality is kicking us in our autonomous individual nuts. Hence why virtue-signalling social justice warriors.
5. Along comes a set of tech designed to amplify the anxiety of social apes, and the tech gets better at the amplification the more anxious the apes get.
armorking
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OTOH, ^this^ is hilarious and in a lot of ways a pretty good high level summary of a fairly large swathe of recent history.
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Originally Posted by fixed_truth
I reckon a lot of that alienation would improve with a more participatory democracy.
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Yes. I want that too.
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Originally Posted by Cyberbob
the sheer fact that I don't want every uneducated, anti-science, anti-progress, racist, *-ist nut bag having the same weight as the most educated and most progressive people, makes me a terrible person. If a person in the public eye said that on Twitter, they'd have 35 million people seeking to destroy every facet of their life within 30 seconds.
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I actually agree with you here, we don't just need a more participatory democracy, I think we need something like a participatory direct epistemocracy. Basically, everyone gets to vote on whatever topic they care enough to vote on, but if you become educated / qualified on a particular topic, your vote has extra weight, more so the greater your expertise.
Of course, with a system like that, education needs to be freely available on every topic that anyone could care to vote on.