No Mercy / No Malice
Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. In a comment to Vox that recalls the first post-Babel diaspora, he said: " The ... See more
The Atlantic • Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
Authoritarianism controls the flow of information so that conspiracy theories never spread in the first place. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have tried to moderate content on their platforms, but this has proved to be an extremely thorny game of whack-a-mole and a textbook example of a wicked problem. Countries like China, North Korea, and Iran ha... See more
Aaron Z. Lewis • You Can Handle the Post-Truth: A Pocket Guide to the Surreal Internet
I think we can date the fall of the tower to the years between 2011 (Gurri’s focal year of “nihilistic” protests) and 2015, a year marked by the “great awokening on the left and the ascendancy of Donald Trump on the right. Trump did not destroy the tower; he merely exploited its fall. He was the first politician to master the new dynamics of ... See more
The Atlantic • Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
I realized that if Facebook won’t stop promoting fascism—promoting Nazism in Germany—they will never care about protecting your focus and attention. These companies will never restrain themselves. The risks of letting them continue behaving the way they have are greater than the risks of overreacting. They have to be stopped.