I’ve been thinking about five intersecting problems: first, how the internet is built to distend our sense of identity; second, how it encourages us to overvalue our opinions; third, how it maximizes our sense of opposition; fourth, how it cheapens our understanding of solidarity; and, finally, how it destroys our sense of scale.

Real scrutiny would reveal everything that the internet has made possible: unimpeded creativity, remarkable feats of will, the unexpected easing of loneliness, the goofy precursors to solidarity, but also devastating atomization and division, overstimulation realized as constant anxiety, emotion mutilated into absurdities, attention rendered an