= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
passive_fist comments on Open Thread, May 4 - May 10, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (215)
It seems odd to me that you'd think that way. Surely, before the internet there was radio, television, newspapers, books, and numerous other ways to say "Hey everyone, here's why Bob is wrong and evil."
I suppose the internet might have had a more democratizing effect where ordinary people can broadcast their opinions to the world. But I'd be curious to know how much that actually matters. It seems to me that it's still the case that if you're a 'regular nobody', nothing you post on your facebook is going to have an impact beyond your immediate circle of friends. At the end of the day there's only a finite amount of supply of attention.
Maybe the internet has had a 'reallocation of attention' effect where people who used to recieve more attention previously (such as honest journalists) cannot reach as an wide audience as they could, and vice versa. But then, the question becomes: Who is getting more attention nowadays, and what effect are they having on people?
The difference is that now the Bobs can organize and start saying why clique of Alices in traditional media are the really evil ones. Of course, unlike the Bobs, the Alices isn't used to being called evil so they completely flip out and start going after everyone, even each other, who appears to show the slightest deviation from the perceived party line.
How about Twitter? That's where the problem is worst, and that's where people are constantly in "talking to the crowd" mode.