We simply weren’t ready for the internet. Humans haven’t really been ready for any of the advances we have ever made. Hank Green has an excellent video about the societal vulnerability to new communications technology. I don’t know how we address it, because we never really addressed the others either.
The original printing press enabled Luther to break the Church’s theocracy. More modern printing enabled newspapers to instigate the Spanish American war. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
The radio enabled the Nazis and the Red Scare to fill people’s homes with hate and fear. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
The TV enabled the police state and “law and order”-style Republican disinformation. People who were otherwise safe and comfortable at home were suddenly and constantly faced with escalating panic about criminals and terrorists, even while crime consistently decreased over time. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
All of these new technologies didn’t just change the way we communicated - they changed the way we thought about the world. Or rather, people in the right places at the right times used that technology to change how we thought about the world. We are human, and every new communications technology gives an ever smaller group of humans ever greater influence over the world.
And finally, the internet. We thought it would be different. We thought it would give voices to the many. But instead it gave the wealthy access to the soundboards where they can silence and amplify voices, and it opened up town squares for even the most hateful and ignorant ideas to gather and fester and grow to become legitimate political forces.
The internet enabled all of the massive changes we see today.
We simply weren’t ready for the internet. Humans haven’t really been ready for any of the advances we have ever made. Hank Green has an excellent video about the societal vulnerability to new communications technology. I don’t know how we address it, because we never really addressed the others either.
The original printing press enabled Luther to break the Church’s theocracy. More modern printing enabled newspapers to instigate the Spanish American war. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
The radio enabled the Nazis and the Red Scare to fill people’s homes with hate and fear. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
The TV enabled the police state and “law and order”-style Republican disinformation. People who were otherwise safe and comfortable at home were suddenly and constantly faced with escalating panic about criminals and terrorists, even while crime consistently decreased over time. The technology is still used in the modern day for propaganda and lies.
All of these new technologies didn’t just change the way we communicated - they changed the way we thought about the world. Or rather, people in the right places at the right times used that technology to change how we thought about the world. We are human, and every new communications technology gives an ever smaller group of humans ever greater influence over the world.
And finally, the internet. We thought it would be different. We thought it would give voices to the many. But instead it gave the wealthy access to the soundboards where they can silence and amplify voices, and it opened up town squares for even the most hateful and ignorant ideas to gather and fester and grow to become legitimate political forces.
The internet enabled all of the massive changes we see today.
Welcome to the internet.