CrisisOfDemocracyIsACrisisOfConsensus

ThoughtStorms Wiki

Context : TheEndOfConsensus

My Twitter reply to DaveWiner's tweet :

What if journalism reported on the end of American democracy with the same zeal the reported on Facebook's depravity.

https://twitter.com/interstar/status/1468270719867965457

@davewiner I don't think you can separate them.

The crisis of "democracy" is also the crisis of "consensus" and the crisis of "authority". We have created epistemic anarchy on the web, and now, we have no way of agreeing on what "the truth" is.

And no democratic institution can survive that

Democracy is based on the idea that, at least statistically, "the people", en mass, can recognise what's right, and steer society towards it. But what happens when you lose that? When you see that "the people", fragmented into distinct filter bubbles, are no longer capable of it?

The factions can't agree, and so politics and voting deteriorates into factional infighting and scoring points off each other, without any consensus on "the common weal" or long term goals.

And so there's no movement towards that. The crisis of democracy IS an epistemic crisis.

And the epistemic crisis is ALL about social media like Facebook etc. turning "truth" into an "eat whatever you like buffet".

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