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Comment by ghj | Hacker News Reader

We live in very different times.

In the past, every idea had to go through a filtering process in order to spread. I am not talking about some truth filter, but that the idea needs to meet some virality threshold since the medium of communication is very low bandwidth and slow. (Ex: scholars writing to letters to each other, or housewives gossiping about the latest folk remedy)

The greatest change that happened in the 21st century is that ideas spread at the speed of light, and any bullshit can be broadcast to billions of eyeballs very quickly.

Rather than a couple housewives laughing off how the neighbor tried the squeezing lemon juice into eyeball trick last week and found that it didn't work, you have some X% of people trying it immediately after seeing it on twitter.

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> The greatest change that happened in the 21st century is that ideas spread at the speed of light, and any bullshit can be broadcast to billions of eyeballs very quickly.

On the other hand: those billions of eyeballs now have three gajillion hours of youtube presented to them any second. I'm fairly certain that a few large newspapers a hundred years ago had a much, much better reach when it came to implementing ideas into the general public, because there was so little else.

It's like hearing somebody speak that stands 5m from you in an otherwise silent room vs hearing somebody shout at the other end of a football stadium. If all the fans in that stadium coordinate to amplify their message, you will hear it and it will vibrate the seat you're sitting on, but they barely get that coordinated unless it's very simple messages that are incredible light on information.

Rather than hanging their neighbors for witchcraft, instead they moan about conspiracy theories involving QAnon or Russia.

On balance, the free dissemination of ideas seems to have helped truth spread more easily. Lies didn't have any problem spreading before we had electricity. Unless you think that we should still be basing our entire culture around the worship of gods carved from stone and wood?

That too will revert.

In many countries, the power of social media gives a platform for superstition and mystical thinking to expand.

In less developed nations, where religion and superstition are fundamental parts of the power structure, they travel even faster than facts, and those who argue for reason are silenced (Death of rationalists in India for example).

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