Or, widespread Internet use decreased the ability of the traditional gatekeepers of information to manipulate voters.
What the third wave is missing (right now at least) is functioning conflict resolution for (re)newly discovered gaps in the consensus, beyond litigation and guns, just as the article says. If we don't figure out a way to resolve conflicts in world views, and come to some kind of consensus on what is, there's a risk laws and force will be used instead.
I'd ask people to read articles sympathetically rather than keyword-trigger on their current bugbears, but it's pretty much impossible in political topics.
I too can not see how centralized government can survive without a centralized source of truth. But what to do about it? It should be possible through other means to arrange public services, public works, and other things required for civilization to survive.
Well, we could embrace epistemological humility and demand the reduction in the scope and scale of centralized government?
After reading that sentence unsympathetically, I think that you mean that democracy cannot survive without an official priestly class mediating truth for the masses. Is that too cynical?
citizen A thinks roglob is gree citizen B thinks roglob is purp
all citizens need to know what roglob is in order to function(live/make money/sleep/whatever) and to a certain extent have the same 'understanding' of roglob
So a "consensual consensus" means citizens A and B agree that in order to function(live/...) roglop starts with prue... the rest of the letters will be decided 'later', and that's enough for all citizens to function. (later being not fully specified out)
Implications are: A and B have to change the way they live, a bit, based on the "consensus" roglop.
And of course, it assumes that A and B accept to be 'a society' and accept that having a single roglop is good. (which, in itself, is another roglop,... it's roglops all the way down)
Or, widespread internet used merely decentralized the means by which voters were manipulated, because voters were trained (in part by those traditional gatekeepers) to reject the mainstream and trust the fringe implicitly, rather than apply critical thinking skills to both.
I think the opposite is true. In the 2016 election, we saw people get trapped in information-bubbles. The internet allowed far-right/alt-right information sources such as Breitbart/Infowars to manipulate people and gain a wide audience.
Similarly, there has already been substantial evidence that the Russian government used a variety of techniques to spread false information through the internet.
To say that the internet decreased the amount of false information in the 2016 election is misleading and false.
I remember “liberal” and “conservative” media empires before the web...
I remember gerrymanderred 50/50 political races before the web...
That is not what is being said though, the amount of 'false information' increased for sure. The point is that the internet lets NEW actors manipulate minds outside of the standard 'mass media' channels. The 'mass media gatekeepers' did not have full control on the narrative at all times anymore. IOW 2016 made it clear that mass media is not in absolute control.
Now consider that these standard channels (tv, papers, etc) are used by everyone as the main means of transmitting messages from not only advertisers but also by interest groups pushing a cause and also government actors pushing an agenda (the 'buildup' to the iraq invasion springs immediately to mind). It should be no shock that everyone involved in these media channels is freaked the fuck out by the 2016 election. There is no longer any mass narrative. I think some actors realized this sooner than the actual media, which appears to have just woken up to it this year.
The internet is not some magical haven for information and knowledge. In its current form, it's comparable to information anarchy. It's not tenable.
In any case, I think we need a return to some sort of expertise or trusted authority system. Hopefully the internet allows for this to be independent of the political and corporate establishment.
It is still affected by bad actors, but has improved substantially from what it was by a growing community of oversight. Not a perfect model, but an interesting one in my opinion.
The same fact-checking that got Nixon and buried McGovern, or elected Raegan twice, or George Bush of CIA and Iran-Contra fame, or the war mongering Clinton and Bush Jr., or the more-of-the-same Obama?
You took events that transpired and then placed the blame on the system that allowed us to correct for these events in the first place (or at least attempt to). I'm sorry your criteria for a functioning and healthy media system is one that A) Never makes mistakes B) Can preemptively stop government officials from doing bad things.
I'd be interested to see you expound on the statements you made.
Hello thanks for reading.