the techno-social environment

It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters

An electorate that has lost the capacity for long-form thought will be more tribal, less rational, largely uninterested in facts or even matters of historical record, moved more by vibes than cogent argument and open to fantastical ideas and bizarre conspiracy theories. If that sounds familiar, it may be a sign of how far down this path the West... See more

Opinion | Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good

We are entering the post-information age. The barrier is no longer knowledge. It’s intention, self-regulation, and courage.

Sari Azout • Figuring it out, again and again

Despite the archival riches and the decentralized architecture, the net’s emphasis on the light-speed transmission of data for commercial gain, combined with our all-too-human hunger for diversion and distraction, has given rise to information empires of unprecedented scope. Our new emperors give us all the information we can consume but starve us... See more

Nicholas Carr • The Tyranny of Now

How to combat the worst aspects of the Internet, that parallel universe in which important information and total garbage coexist, side by side, with, apparently, the same levels of authority, making it harder than ever for people to tell them apart? - Rushdie

The internet flattens information into one endless stream

From, The Master Switch. Mid-century TV networks were probably the most powerful, centralized information system in history.

It seems distant now, but once upon a time the Internet was going to save us from the menace of TV. Since the late fifties, TV has had a special role, both as the country’s dominant medium, in audience and influence, and as a bête noire for a certain strain of American intellectuals, who view it as the root of all evil. In “Amusing Ourselves to... See more

Chris Hayes • On the Internet, We’re Always Famous

The network is less a tool than a habitation, less an apparatus than an environment. We don’t just use it to get things done. We are, as Adorno foresaw, incorporated into it as components. We’re nodes, continuously receiving and transmitting signals. The ethos of the system is one of documentation and representation. We’re all jointly engaged in... See more

All the Little Data

When looking at the Mirror World, it can seem obvious that millions of people have given themselves over to fantasy, to make-believe, to playacting. The trickier thing, the uncanny thing, really, is that’s what they see when they look at us. They say we live in a “clown world,” are stuck in “the matrix” of “groupthink,” are suffering from a form of

Naomi Klein • Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World

Bespoke realities are made for—and by—the individual. The collision of the propaganda machine and the rumor mill gave rise to a choose-your-own-adventure epistemology: some news outlet somewhere has written the story you want to believe; some influencer is touting the diet you want to live by or demonizing the group you also hate. Other people,