The Discourse is Broken Beyond Repair
Decided to clear the marketplace of ideas by adding one more thinkpiece about Twitter. I actually like Twitter for the most part for a couple of reasons: there’s not a lot of easy ways to yell at powerful people, like if I went to Mitch McConnell’s house and yelled about how he is trying to take away healthcare from people that I know, the media would take his side. But if I say “more like bitch McConnell” in a reply to his tweet, at least some empty soul in a suit will see it. It also is a good way to connect to other people in your field, being able to keep up with other organizers and see how their life changes is great!
But, on Twitter, everything disappears by the end of the day. The constant need for new content makes everything forgotten. And even then, curated timelines mean nobody receives the same information, so everyone is constantly receiving different information. And the goal of timelines isn’t for everyone to be informed, it’s to keep you on the timeline and interacting. Basically everyone who gets news from online (62%) is brain poisoned.
Even worse, is there’s no alternative. Cable news is just completely awful to watch. One moderator with a bias plus one left leaning person and one right leaning person about a topic that is so warped in punditry language that has no substantial meaning on society. Not only is it awful to watch, you don’t even learn about what’s happening. It has a heavy bias towards coastal $150,000 income suburbanites who have too much time. Anything is more useful. Who cares about what the latest political strategist without a job thinks about COBRA or how Donald Trump saying 9/11 was good will help him in 2020.
And none of these conversations matter! Donald Trump will say repulsive things, media host will say “was that good or bad”, and Mrs. Democrat will say it’s horrifying and America will not like it (she hasn’t talked to anyone making under 30k in 8 years), and Mr. Republican will say it’s what all of America thinks (he hasn’t talked to anyone making under 30k in 8 years).