←back to thread

102 points crescit_eundo | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.26s | source | bottom
Show context
karaterobot ◴[] No.42742964[source]
> The internet and its associated gadgets stir reactions remarkably like those once directed at the press. In some quarters, futurist technophilia; more commonly, alarm at the social, political and cultural impact of these innovations, combined with neurotic dependence upon them.

Note that the article is not taking the simplistic position that, because 19th century French writers decried the emergence of the newspaper, and 21st century contemporary thinkers decry the dominance of social media, that the latter should be dismissed. It's more nuanced than that, and it's really mostly an accounting of how those Modernists thought about newspapers, with a little bit of "let's consider a modern example..." at the end.

One thing I'd like to point out, though, is that very common argument by which one waves away concerns about social media today because, in the past, Socrates said reading is bad, and Mallarmé said newspapers are bad, is really a canard for two reasons.

First, because the social media is not reading, or newspapers, it's a different thing altogether, and in any case what happened in the past does not strictly determine a new case in the present or the future.

Second, because I'm fairly certain Mallarmé and Proust and Baudelaire would probably look at the world newspapers created, and say "I was right about newspapers all along". It did create yellow journalism, it did create tabloids, it did redefine truth, and recalibrate leisure, and it did create doomscrolling, and make people think in different—and not necessarily better—ways. Technology changes the world, and people adapt to it. After the fact of that change, the world normalizes, and new generations can't conceive of any prior alternative way of being. But, that does not mean the change was an improvement.

As a consequence, it may be categorically incorrect for us to even try to evaluate these historical positions from our modern perch. Maybe all we can do is listen to what people living through that change said, and take it as read, pun intended.

replies(2): >>42743105 #>>42744948 #
pembrook ◴[] No.42743105[source]
To me this comment reads like a lot of bending over backwards to try to the justify a gut feeling of “yea but for sure this time is different right??”

Tech elites on HN worrying about the moral fortitude of the unwashed masses in the face of the technological changes they themselves have brought about…it’s all a bit too “self-important loathing” imo.

Everything’s fine and going to be fine.

replies(1): >>42743313 #
immibis ◴[] No.42743313[source]
Everything's not fine, hasn't been fine for at least a decade, and it's not at all certain that everything is going to be fine.
replies(1): >>42743689 #
1. mvdtnz ◴[] No.42743689[source]
Everything has never and will never be completely fine. Things are better today than ever and continue to improve. Get offline and look around the real world for a while.
replies(3): >>42743727 #>>42743924 #>>42745382 #
2. karaterobot ◴[] No.42743727[source]
Things are certainly better overall, but that improvement is not universal, and not evenly distributed. Clearly. Otherwise, we would simply say "everything is as good as it can practically be," which is something few people are doing. One of the ways in which the world is imperfect is that our media—and our relationship to that media—could be better. Anything in that to disagree with?
3. immibis ◴[] No.42743924[source]
By most metrics, things were better about a decade ago. We're on a downward trajectory now. Except by GDP.
replies(2): >>42744061 #>>42745206 #
4. reissbaker ◴[] No.42744061[source]
What metrics do you think were better in 2015?
5. mvdtnz ◴[] No.42745206[source]
What metrics? Do you think the millions of people lifted out of extreme poverty in the last decade would agree?
6. tolerance ◴[] No.42745382[source]
What real world?