So first the internet was the
cause of our memory problems
, now we're not thinking creatively either? :faint: Is this blowback against changing paradigms of information sources, or a real problem?
Neal Gabler writes today that we no longer care much about big, exciting ideas, the kind that we used to hear from Albert Einstein, Reinhold Niebuhr, Daniel Bell, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould. "We are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé."
I was almost on the verge of nodding along to this, but then Gabler unloaded his big idea:
it's all the internet's fault
. In effect, we are living within the nimbus of an informational Gresham’s law in which trivial information pushes out significant information, but it is also an ideational Gresham’s law in which information, trivial or not, pushes out ideas.
In any case, the alleged decline of the big league public intellectual is usually dated to the 70s and 80s, a decade before Mark Zuckerberg was even born. So the rise of TV is at least plausibly a culprit, chronologically anyway, for the decline of big ideas. But Facebook? I don't see it.
For what it's worth, I do think that the rise of the media omnivore is changing the way we think, in some ways for the worse. But it's hard for any of us to really understand what's going on because we're still in the middle of a huge transition...
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
I read this article and have to agree. I hardly ever post political thoughts on my FB account but I will things I agree with politically like Ayn Rand, etc.
And I never noticed but now it seems like most of the posts I read from friends tend to be right wing. And a lot of the ads are from right wing groups and similar likes.
My wife ins't political at all on her FB so she still gets political stuff from all sides.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
I question this. Really how interested was your average working Joe in Einsteins theories? If anything I believe the internet has made big ideas more accessible and understandable to anyone who is interested.
I'm not sure if this is related, but here is something I noticed.
Post a topic or question on here with no background information or reference link, and most people have few creative or original ideas or participation. Ask "what should be done to create more jobs" or what should tax reform look like, what rates, what deductions?
But link to an article with some pundits' opinion, and alot of people will jump in and agree or become expert critics.
Not much original or out of the box thinking online.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
It's easier to throw bombs and I think people fall into the habit on certain types of forums. If you post on a single interest site I think you'd find the posts to be very collaborative and introspective. This site went hyper partisan/political so fast that that type of rhetoric has muddied all the areas. We could change that if we wanted to. I've been told that this is what is fun for most of the posters so.....
things I agree with politically like Ayn Rand, etc.
