[linuxhansl]

> Wrong the way it would be wrong to predict that if you set your kitchen on fire, the result will be a renovation.

This might be favorite metaphor ever, and one I'll quoting in the future! :)

I think the author conflates social media with other inventions like a portable GPS device, an electronic map, a music player, or indeed a cell phone.

As far as social media goes the author is (IMHO) spot on. You do not have to look far to see how that is at least harming democracy around the globe. For democracy to flourish you need reflective voters who can entertain multiple viewpoints and make informed decisions. That is what social media - in its most common current form - discourages and rather optimizes for attention-time (which is money).

And of course (some) anonymity paired with global reach would not bring out the best in people. Anger and flames spread faster than conciliatory messages and get you more dopamine posting those.

Just my $0.02.

[boredhedgehog]

I stumbled over that metaphor. Isn't it true that a consequence of setting your kitchen on fire will be a new, better kitchen?

[thinking_cactus]

Well, as a secondary consequence maybe, but then you could not set your kitchen on fire and still renovate it. Supposedly the first step you think of when renovating your kitchen isn't "Let me set my house on fire!"?

[wallst07]

Two ways to think of this:

1) Sometimes a incident is the best way to get a project done. Working in FAANG I've seen a project get done in 1 day during an outage that was projected to take MONTHS during normal business.

2) Sometimes that renovation would never happen due to reasons. Sometimes you need some kindle to start the fire [pun intended].

[pdonis]

As long as you can convince your insurance company that you didn't do it on purpose to get a renovation, I guess. :-)

[bethekidyouwant]

When was democracy good? was it was it in the 50s when we were all immune to propaganda?

[bilbo0s]

Isn't the old adage that democracy was never good, it was always just better than all the other forms of government. It got more done. It advanced economies more. Etc etc etc.

Then we torched it at just about the same time as the Chinese came along with a new form of government that I'm not sure the world has as yet even given a proper name. (I guess we can call it Communism? But everyone kind of knows that it's nothing like.)

So to global generations that have grown up viewing all these changes, democracy by comparison to what they have in China has started to look not so all powerful. To many of the planet's young people the assertion that "democracy is the worst except for all the others", is by no means obvious. That change in view is going to have profound implications on the world going forward.

[krapp]

>Then we torched it at just about the same time as the Chinese came along with a new form of government that I'm not sure the world has as yet even given a proper name. (I guess we can call it Communism? But everyone kind of knows that it's nothing like.)

I think the term is "state capitalism." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism)

[flomo]

This term was how 'true leftists' would separate themselves from the Soviet Union and 'old communism'. So imo, China is something else. (Or as Chomsky says, USA is also state capitalist, so could be anyone!)

[krapp]

>This term was how 'true leftists' would separate themselves from the Soviet Union and 'old communism'.

Soviet communism is different from Maoist communism, which is different from Juche. Every political model has variations in terms of ideology and execution, and they do evolve over time. It is correct to differentiate between Chinese communism and Soviet communism just as it's correct to distinguish between European and US capitalism.

>Or as Chomsky says, USA is also state capitalist, so could be anyone!

I think an argument can be made that the US is headed in China's direction in that regard, yes.

Rigid political taxonomies tend to lead to thought-terminating cliches, which is why they get deployed in propaganda. Reality tends to be more subtle. Socialism can exist within capitalism, and capitalism within socialism. Communism can be authoritarian, and it can be so egalitarian that it collapses (as happened with many communes in the 1960s.) Communists can be ideological enemies in the same way as Christians, Muslims and Jews, despite ostensibly having the same origin. And plenty of self-described free market capitalists would love for America to have free economic zones like Shenzhen.

Whatever China is, it does seem to be more capitalist than communist to me.

[YurgenJurgensen]

China’s ‘new’ form of government is basically their old form of government with some communist rhetoric sprinkled over it.

[nothinkjustai]

Democracy was better when the only viewpoints we were exposed to were from corporate media outlets? Are you sure about that? Better for whom?

[danaris]

I know it's (genuinely) hard to believe in this day and age, but pre-2000, and especially before the founding of Fox News in 1996, the news you got was much, much more likely to be genuine, with real investigative reporting that wasn't heavily interdicted by powerful and moneyed interests.

This is not to say there was no bias, nor that the powerful and moneyed interests had no influence—but it was much less than it is today. There was much more of a social norm of news being honest, factual, and relevant.

[vrganj]

Who do you think decides which media the algorithms show you now? It's all corporate, just more addictive and less accountable now.