[toyg]

Listening to someone talking is how humanity transmitted culture and stories for tens of thousands of years. The fact that "we" cannot tolerate it anymore, is a sign of how badly our brains are being reshaped (or maybe damaged) by screens.

[TeMPOraL]

OTOH, fire, writing and sanitation are significant upgrades to what we were doing "for tens of thousands of years".

State of nature isn't inherently good. It's bloody, smelly, dirty, and only incidentally nice, by virtue of evolutionary path dependence.

[toyg]

Oral transmission of complex culture is one of the things that separates us from "the state of nature". As we lose it, we move further away from the beasts that conquered the planet and closer to the squirrel.

[TeMPOraL]

Transmission of complex culture is what separates us (and enables this complex culture in the first place); oral medium is merely one way to do it. Being the first one, it's probably not the best.

[toyg]

Considering it's the only medium that needs literally nothing but ourselves to work, I disagree with your statement. But to each its own.