WeAreBasicallyOK

Context : GreaterInternetFuckWads

Back in the late 90s or early 00s, JaronLanier rather optimistically said :

The Internet has created the most precise mirror of people as a whole that we've yet had. It is not a summary prepared by a social scientist or an elite think tank. It is not the hagiography of an era, condensed by a romantic idealist or a sneering cynic. It is the real us, available for direct inspection for the first time. Our collective window shades are now open. We see the mundanity, the avarice, the ugliness, the perversity, the loneliness, the love, the inspiration, the serendipity, and the tenderness that manifest in humanity. Seen in proportion, we can breathe a sigh of relief. We are basically OK.

Boy was he wrong about that. He'd seen the internet when only a small portion of humanity was on it. And long before RightWingPopulists had seen the potential for spreading FakeNews and appealing to resentiment through it.

Also the more widespread ills of SocialMediaThought