burnout world / evil is in

Social media incentivized more extreme views at the same time that China began to develop an entirely different internet that, unlike the Western internet, was built on the values expressed by the state.

The west had “won” the Cold War and now a global consensus had halted the march of historical change as everyone settled into a unified global liberal economic, political, and social order.

The only way to be good today is to operate under the surface of the current media, on your own infrastructure, articulating what “good” is for your community. The doom of pervasive evil is not outdone by hope, but by the curiosity and boldness to do something on your own terms.

Going dark is one strategy of the savvy and privileged.

This is as much a problem of platform logic as it is of political economy: Reactionary outrage begets clickrates, which begets attention and reach especially when the people running these media platforms are themselves largely sympathetic to reactionary beliefs.

The censorship and state control of media the West once alarmingly criticized China and other countries for, is now strikingly similar to their own strategy but with different values - China’s internet being more Orwellian and the West’s being more Huxleyian.

It all started with the advent of social media in 2004: once audiences had the ability to comment, post their own content, and form their own communities online, the pressure on both brands and governments to be more inclusive rose.