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Comment by bsanr2 | Hacker News Reader

>Curtis wanted to investigate why the critics of Donald Trump and Brexit were unable to offer an alternative vision for the future We did, but no one wants to listen to us "commies," "tree-huggers," and "minorities."

>a decline of mass democracy in the West leading to politicians favoring big business.

Startling parallels to the decline of much of the World Wide Web (and Google's utility in searching it - ironically, I can't find the blog post describing the pivot to "brands" in the wake of a deluge of SEO trash, and its negative effects on search efficacy).

I'm cautiously interested in watching it. It seems like it will have both interesting insights and interesting blindspots.

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> the pivot to "brands"

At some point when I was kid - before the internet - some cool adult described to me a course on marketing they took where Coca-Cola was a case study. The sheer impact of brand recognition, and the lengths they would go to for its perpetuation (because it paid off), were lessons that have stuck with me ever since.

Of course companies and other organizations want you to get comfy with their logo/animation. Be wary of the power of this, it's a double edged sword-- it can help you immensely when you're a small player starting out, but in the long run it tends to accrue more power to those who already have plenty.

In this case, "brands" meant platforms. So instead of getting results full of small websites that talked directly about your query, you got Pinterest spam. Because Pinteret is "trustworthy."

I watched it after seeing an episode posted to HN and I quite enjoyed it.

I remember a lot of it discussing reactions and changes to the culture of post-war world, in the UK, US, Soviet Union (and subsequent Russian Federation), China, and later on touches on places like the Middle East.

There were common themes that were continued through, and it left me with things to think about, but I don’t treat it as some definitive guide to where we are now.

Not even parallel, but directly implicated! One of the things he gets to in this, and other places, is the central role technology and logistics have both directly and indirectly to usher in new forms of social control.

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