Wednesday 21 December 2016

Reading Assignment. Spoiler Alert - Not Festive

Time for a bit of theory to temper some of the heated comments that are flying around BTL recently here at C@W.  Ordinarily these things are for the Weekend Reading slot - but not this time, Scrooge, not this weekend.

Rather sobering, this review of an edifying and salutary thesis that links social media with some of the fundamental dynamics of society: inward-directed violence and how it is subliminated; sacrificial victims, scapegoating, monarchical regimes, monopolies, Trump, Twitter ...

Told you it wasn't for the weekend!

ND

20 comments:

Sackerson said...

The writer is another "wordsmith". Summarise in < 250 words, none of them having more than 2 syllables.

CityUnslicker said...

really good article. It is OK until the end. It would be good to explore one of the aspects that is undoubtedly true; that the internet allows for global communities - whether these be sharing cat-pictures or disseminating terrorist propaganda, communities are now formed globally in a way not possible in even the relatively recent past.

Throw mass immigration into the mix...interesting!

Nick Drew said...

sackers - challenge accepted (but not just at the moment ...)

(and not @ the weekend either!)

Sackerson said...

I like the internet's potential for ending the monopoly of information - it's a second Gutenberg revolution.

Disadvantages: concentration, control and subtle suppression of inconvenient truths and alternative views (Google, FB, Twitter etc); group-think, with raised emotions, disinformation etc - look at how chatter traffic behaved in the EU Referendum and the US Presidential race - you see how things could fall apart in the French Revolution, Rwanda/Burundi etc - everybody his own propagandist; the possibility for intelligence services to identify and ultimately close down more serious thinking networks (see what happened the the London Corresponding Society).

Anonymous said...

CityUnslicker - More like global echo chambers.

It's become so easy to only hear and get involved in the things that suit your own world view.

This can then easily lead to radicilsation of that world view - whether that be religion or quasi-religions like climate science or feminism (and this is true for those on both sides of the fence).

Live in this bubble for so long, then meet someone who's lived in the anti-bubble and so is diametrically opposed to your world-view and then you have the perfect recipe for violence.

It's why I like coming here, different opinions are tolerated (and challenged), discussions can get heated but it doesn't end up at the petty level you find in most other on-line discussion forums.

Blue Eyes said...

"different opinions are tolerated"

Oh no they're not!

Well, it is nearly Christmas...

Charlie said...

The reason that debates in most online fora so quickly descend into childish points-scoring is that they are a written medium where the words are chosen in haste, but dissected at leisure. I can think of no other communication platform that shares this peculiarity. What are ostensibly throwaway missives are pored over and dissected for non-existent subtexts and potential to offend a particular group.

The www is a fantastic thing, but, as usual, people have ruined it :-)

Anonymous said...

Charlie - I agree, to a point.
I wouldn't dare speak at work about Brexit being a positive thing or how Donald Trump being elected could potentially be a better option than if Hillary was.

The majority of people would feel the need to "educate" me on why my opinion is wrong and I'd be labelled as appropriate and that label work against me in the future.

dearieme said...

"The first human communities formed themselves around acts of collective violence against arbitrary victims". I have a general rule that I take seriously no theory predicated on our having useful knowledge about how our early ancestors thought.

CityUnslicker said...

Anon - well the commentators here are a fair bit smarter than the contributors so we have to stand to be corrected most of the time!

rockbd said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Blue Eyes said...

"The www is a fantastic thing, but, as usual, people have ruined it :-)"

A bit like France.

Anonymous said...

And Canada.

Timbo614 said...

The www will be a fantastic thing it's just not there yet.

We all forget how young this technology is...

Thud said...

You are on a roll BE, the panto beckons.

andrew said...

It isnt the french, it is the parisians.

Dick the Prick said...

Not read all the comments - soz! Happy Christmas and shit.

Boys - it's weird having my country back without realising it was on the table. Cheeky very muchly.

As always xx

Dicky

Electro-Kevin said...

Happy Christmas, Dick.

Two great nations reject entrenched Leftists on both sides of the water and it's now we get articles about 'scapegoats'.

"What went wrong ????" The academics wail.

There's nothing 'mimetic' about outsourcing factories (which is fine), teaching the Chinese how to make Gillette razors (which is fine, if it makes them cheaper but it hasn't) and then importing millions of poor people just as the locals are struggling with the realities of globalism.

Scapegoating or blame where it's due ?

There has been absolutely no credit given to the people for not attacking migrants but directing blame at the establisment - where it should be -instead.

Anonymous said...

A pretty good read, with some thoughtful concepts. The scapegoat is a concept I'm aware of historically but never thought to put into context in the modern world, but it does fit nicely with a lot of things I've seen online over the last couple of decades.

And if the author is correct about Thiel and Trump, then they're playing with fire that is far more likely to burn them. Trump is positioned perfectly as some modern Green King, where even the party he represents is ready to sacrifice him.

As for Thiel's view on monopoly, well he's verifiably incorrect. And given his position in Silicon Valley, he should surely be acutely aware of one prime example - Internet Explorer. For a period in the early 2000's it was king, until Mozilla started to challenge it. And whilst it was king it was left to rot, only when competition kicked in and threatened MS dominance was it invested in. Had that monopoly stayed, most of Silicon Valley's pet businesses wouldn't have had a usable platform.

Monopolies are great for the autocrats, who are in business to 'elevate' the great unwashed and *will* invest, but for businesses whose aim is to provide growth and value, why reinvent the wheel, or even incrementally improve upon it? So they don't, unless forced to by competition.

Nick Drew said...

Don't get me started on monopolies ... If i was at my desk i'd give you several links

but the 'zero'one' (vs 1-n) is an interesting concept: Enron, the greatest monopoly-buster of modern times, and the epitome of zero-one, was itself a (subtle) monopoly of a different (benign) kind

New paradigms (enron, microsoft, etc) tend to be monopolies to start with - because they are doing something entirely new - and, for a while, get the monopolist's benefit of being able to do whatever they want including - at least in the early stages - innovate