Civilization is like a giant rock tumbler that forces everyone to constantly rub against each other in chaotic, unpredictable, and frequently caustic ways. It’s messy and uncomfortable, but it ultimately helps to knock off our rough edges while retaining our essential and unique character. The bad direction Twitter was moving civilizatio…
Civilization is like a giant rock tumbler that forces everyone to constantly rub against each other in chaotic, unpredictable, and frequently caustic ways. It’s messy and uncomfortable, but it ultimately helps to knock off our rough edges while retaining our essential and unique character. The bad direction Twitter was moving civilization in was it’s attempt to impose, in the digital realm, a discrete set of rules designed to bring greater order and complicity to our normally chaotic discourse. That created three unintended problems. 1) By simplifying the rules of discourse to favor or suppress certain points of view, the rock-tumbler effect that would normally apply fairly equally and indiscriminately to everyone becomes disproportionate, knocking few rough edges off some people while breaking others to pieces. 2) As people become increasingly aware that this effect is real and intended by the elites in charge of making the rules, trust wanes and discourse becomes more bitter and antagonistic. 3) The general breakdown in civility online inevitably spills over into the real world. What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. Perhaps the greatest self-deception in the Internet age is that our online behavior somehow has no real bearing on how we conduct ourselves in the real world. As society becomes uncivil in the digital realm, so it will become in real life.
Civilization is like a giant rock tumbler that forces everyone to constantly rub against each other in chaotic, unpredictable, and frequently caustic ways. It’s messy and uncomfortable, but it ultimately helps to knock off our rough edges while retaining our essential and unique character. The bad direction Twitter was moving civilization in was it’s attempt to impose, in the digital realm, a discrete set of rules designed to bring greater order and complicity to our normally chaotic discourse. That created three unintended problems. 1) By simplifying the rules of discourse to favor or suppress certain points of view, the rock-tumbler effect that would normally apply fairly equally and indiscriminately to everyone becomes disproportionate, knocking few rough edges off some people while breaking others to pieces. 2) As people become increasingly aware that this effect is real and intended by the elites in charge of making the rules, trust wanes and discourse becomes more bitter and antagonistic. 3) The general breakdown in civility online inevitably spills over into the real world. What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. Perhaps the greatest self-deception in the Internet age is that our online behavior somehow has no real bearing on how we conduct ourselves in the real world. As society becomes uncivil in the digital realm, so it will become in real life.
The sad reality is most understand this and look the other way. It's too much fun to let the inner monster out when no one is looking.
Most? Speak for yourself.
Thanks for that.
Wow, what a brilliant, apt metaphor. Discourse as rock tumbler. I love it.
Very astute. Please put "elites" in quotes as they are far from it.