MGS.
1) You don't need digitalisation to preserve misguided and false information. There are all kinds of dumb theories, ethics, traditions and whatnot that have been preserved for centuries or decades, such as phrenology, geocentrism, hedonism, bullfighting, homophobia, etc., and many had access to them and were influenced by them after their origins.
Even nowadays or right before digitalization.
The difference in any case is that nowadays anybody has quick access to alternative, more consistent and better theories, explanations and/or can be quickly confronted publicly in any digital social context if he/she expressed antiquated and illogical theories outside the mentioned small circle/social group where all the individuals of the same group confirm their own BS.
In any case, long term preservation of info =/= lack of selection. These don't go necessarily together, and preservation also helps to improve from individual or collective mistakes.
For instance, flat Earth theories still influence people, but they are a tiny percent compared to the amount of people who don't believe in them (for logical reasons). And it's not internet's fault if some countries have an atrocious educational system (not saying it's the only factor).
2) The historical selection of theories, mentalities, social norms, art, etc., has been always biased by the relative isolation and/or estatus of different social groups, especially when they had more power. Such is the case of the preservation of the many religions and the historical difficulty of expressing theories and evidence that contradicted them.
Digitalization in any case has increased the amount of interactions per unit of time, accelerating the normative selection in the symbolic interactionism, which is still obviously not linear and will always have ups and downs... But still with an overall positive tendency.
To see this you can't look only at what has happened in your life-span (and it would still work in most aspects), but rather social and cultural evolution throughout centuries.
3) Analogously to genes (ironically) and biodiversity, a bigger variety of opinions and systems of beliefs isn't negative to the selection. Quite the opposite, unless you are dogmatic regarding your own beliefs, which would be another issue.
When I commented on Twitter how dumb are most people's opinions (in general) I mainly complained about how unelaborated they were, even if both (dumb and unelaborated) are related. It's not the disagreement and diversity the problem.
And while this may be boosted by digitalization, because thanks to internet one has access to a big public pretty much at any moment of the day, which reinforces quick superficial interactions to a certain degree, it's not exclusive to the era of digitalization.
Dumb interactions and conversations where little to no evolution takes place are as old as humanity. Social transformation has been always slow (at most it's faster now) because of many factors, especially confirmationism as natural default epistemology.
This was explained partly in my text about social norms, but it's in Spanish and I am definitely not translating it for this (I don't mean this in a rude way).
Ask yourself how the very first heliocentric theories where even before Christ, yet heliocentrism wasn't properly accepted by the big majority until many centuries later. It was even mocked.
Now think about your life span, and how would you perceive social evolution if you lived in that era (assuming you were conscious yourself about the nonsense that barely changes). And, again, it would definitely not be internet's fault.
Same goes for people who think nothing has been achieved because racism still exists. The fact that there is still a lot to be achieved doesn't mean nothing has been achieved, it's actually quite the opposite, but such people don't bother to check how things were some decades ago and feel frustrated because an aspect of society doesn't change as fast as they want.
It's not only false that nothing has been achieved, despite the repugnant recent event and its relevance as evidence/one more example of a big flaw in the system... It's even atrociously inconsiderate with what many activists achieved in the past, and currently the same people who complain enjoy in their every day life.
Yes, there is still a lot to do. But decades ago black people couldn't even sit in the same part of the bus as white people or drink water from the same fountains.
4) Contradictory internalization of social norms and cultural values is inherent to the nature of the symbolic interactionism, as they are related to interactions of an individual among different social groups and not a deep introspective/well thought method to select consciously and strategically norms, or elaborate your own. If social groups keep opposed internalized norms regarding other social groups, individuals who interact with several of them will internalize contradictory norms, making individuals themselves contradictory.
While this isn't exclusive to the digital era, I can agree that is boosted by it. Yet again, as I said in 3), diversity helps selection, even intraindividually. What I mean by this is that individuals may be even more contradictory in the current social context with mediums based on internet, with more disconnected opinions (etc.), however, this increases the chance of a cognitive dissonance precisely because of the big variety of internalized norms. Basically, it makes people more likely to perceive the contradictions in their constructs because of the bigger contrast.
A cognitive dissonance doesn't necessarily translate into a positive change, but sets a good opportunity for it. This is how veganism is growing relatively fast despite the mentioned confirmationsim of our design (and yes, also thanks to internet, like the many educational YT videos about nutrition and ethics).
5) While I can agree that the investment in weaponry is contradictory with other values, the part about poverty and investing money for the preservation of species is nonsensical.
The first and most obvious is that one can care about both, and secondly, poverty isn't necessarily more important than the preservation of species. They are 2 very important and very different problems that need attention, and the real problem regarding poverty isn't mindlessly investing money to treat its symptoms (even the same could be said about endangered species).
As for why the preservation of species is so relevant, I won't explain deeply the importance of ecosystems and the speciesm behind that part, as it should be obvious.
What's more, this could be applied in any other context using the same fallacy appealing to relative gravity.
I could be your boss and not pay your corresponding salary 1 month. You may come to me complaining and I could say: why are you so invested complaining about this, when there are actually people sleeping on the street because of poverty...
Conclusion:
Yes, internet and digitalization have some side-effects/are attached to some negative tendencies when interacting with other factors, such as bad education.
For example, people are more prone to be dogmatic and cocky on the internet when expressing their opinion because:
a) A bigger public could mean a more significant perception of win or loss, and admitting you are wrong is still normative-wise (currently) perceived as a weakness by the big majority. This makes many discussions and interactions more of a dick-contests than positive mutual enrichment.
b) It's more efficient to catch others' attention, which is crucial to feel valued or at least relevant in a social context.
Yet the advantages of digitalization, internet, etc., are far better and more important for social evolution, even if their effect seems frustratingly small and even negative when looked only from close, without taking some distance to see the big picture and tendencies.
It's easy to see how dumb are people's opinions, but it's hard to see how much (even) dumber they would be without internet (and were).
And as side-note, Twitter is especially bad because of its design with short character limitation (making people even more prone to show themselves cocky and hyperbolic to catch attention in only a few words); because of the like/RT system encouraging populism; the follower system making pretty much impossible for elaborated opinions to be heard if the person isn't popular and doesn't use Twitter as frequently as others (an alternative could be for example a system of promotion of elaborated tweets, regardless of how many people follow the author), etc.
But Twitter being one of the worst apps doesn't deny all the mentioned benefits (and others that haven't even been mentioned).
Even nowadays or right before digitalization.
The difference in any case is that nowadays anybody has quick access to alternative, more consistent and better theories, explanations and/or can be quickly confronted publicly in any digital social context if he/she expressed antiquated and illogical theories outside the mentioned small circle/social group where all the individuals of the same group confirm their own BS.
In any case, long term preservation of info =/= lack of selection. These don't go necessarily together, and preservation also helps to improve from individual or collective mistakes.
For instance, flat Earth theories still influence people, but they are a tiny percent compared to the amount of people who don't believe in them (for logical reasons). And it's not internet's fault if some countries have an atrocious educational system (not saying it's the only factor).
2) The historical selection of theories, mentalities, social norms, art, etc., has been always biased by the relative isolation and/or estatus of different social groups, especially when they had more power. Such is the case of the preservation of the many religions and the historical difficulty of expressing theories and evidence that contradicted them.
Digitalization in any case has increased the amount of interactions per unit of time, accelerating the normative selection in the symbolic interactionism, which is still obviously not linear and will always have ups and downs... But still with an overall positive tendency.
To see this you can't look only at what has happened in your life-span (and it would still work in most aspects), but rather social and cultural evolution throughout centuries.
3) Analogously to genes (ironically) and biodiversity, a bigger variety of opinions and systems of beliefs isn't negative to the selection. Quite the opposite, unless you are dogmatic regarding your own beliefs, which would be another issue.
When I commented on Twitter how dumb are most people's opinions (in general) I mainly complained about how unelaborated they were, even if both (dumb and unelaborated) are related. It's not the disagreement and diversity the problem.
And while this may be boosted by digitalization, because thanks to internet one has access to a big public pretty much at any moment of the day, which reinforces quick superficial interactions to a certain degree, it's not exclusive to the era of digitalization.
Dumb interactions and conversations where little to no evolution takes place are as old as humanity. Social transformation has been always slow (at most it's faster now) because of many factors, especially confirmationism as natural default epistemology.
This was explained partly in my text about social norms, but it's in Spanish and I am definitely not translating it for this (I don't mean this in a rude way).
Ask yourself how the very first heliocentric theories where even before Christ, yet heliocentrism wasn't properly accepted by the big majority until many centuries later. It was even mocked.
Now think about your life span, and how would you perceive social evolution if you lived in that era (assuming you were conscious yourself about the nonsense that barely changes). And, again, it would definitely not be internet's fault.
Same goes for people who think nothing has been achieved because racism still exists. The fact that there is still a lot to be achieved doesn't mean nothing has been achieved, it's actually quite the opposite, but such people don't bother to check how things were some decades ago and feel frustrated because an aspect of society doesn't change as fast as they want.
It's not only false that nothing has been achieved, despite the repugnant recent event and its relevance as evidence/one more example of a big flaw in the system... It's even atrociously inconsiderate with what many activists achieved in the past, and currently the same people who complain enjoy in their every day life.
Yes, there is still a lot to do. But decades ago black people couldn't even sit in the same part of the bus as white people or drink water from the same fountains.
4) Contradictory internalization of social norms and cultural values is inherent to the nature of the symbolic interactionism, as they are related to interactions of an individual among different social groups and not a deep introspective/well thought method to select consciously and strategically norms, or elaborate your own. If social groups keep opposed internalized norms regarding other social groups, individuals who interact with several of them will internalize contradictory norms, making individuals themselves contradictory.
While this isn't exclusive to the digital era, I can agree that is boosted by it. Yet again, as I said in 3), diversity helps selection, even intraindividually. What I mean by this is that individuals may be even more contradictory in the current social context with mediums based on internet, with more disconnected opinions (etc.), however, this increases the chance of a cognitive dissonance precisely because of the big variety of internalized norms. Basically, it makes people more likely to perceive the contradictions in their constructs because of the bigger contrast.
A cognitive dissonance doesn't necessarily translate into a positive change, but sets a good opportunity for it. This is how veganism is growing relatively fast despite the mentioned confirmationsim of our design (and yes, also thanks to internet, like the many educational YT videos about nutrition and ethics).
5) While I can agree that the investment in weaponry is contradictory with other values, the part about poverty and investing money for the preservation of species is nonsensical.
The first and most obvious is that one can care about both, and secondly, poverty isn't necessarily more important than the preservation of species. They are 2 very important and very different problems that need attention, and the real problem regarding poverty isn't mindlessly investing money to treat its symptoms (even the same could be said about endangered species).
As for why the preservation of species is so relevant, I won't explain deeply the importance of ecosystems and the speciesm behind that part, as it should be obvious.
What's more, this could be applied in any other context using the same fallacy appealing to relative gravity.
I could be your boss and not pay your corresponding salary 1 month. You may come to me complaining and I could say: why are you so invested complaining about this, when there are actually people sleeping on the street because of poverty...
Conclusion:
Yes, internet and digitalization have some side-effects/are attached to some negative tendencies when interacting with other factors, such as bad education.
For example, people are more prone to be dogmatic and cocky on the internet when expressing their opinion because:
a) A bigger public could mean a more significant perception of win or loss, and admitting you are wrong is still normative-wise (currently) perceived as a weakness by the big majority. This makes many discussions and interactions more of a dick-contests than positive mutual enrichment.
b) It's more efficient to catch others' attention, which is crucial to feel valued or at least relevant in a social context.
Yet the advantages of digitalization, internet, etc., are far better and more important for social evolution, even if their effect seems frustratingly small and even negative when looked only from close, without taking some distance to see the big picture and tendencies.
It's easy to see how dumb are people's opinions, but it's hard to see how much (even) dumber they would be without internet (and were).
And as side-note, Twitter is especially bad because of its design with short character limitation (making people even more prone to show themselves cocky and hyperbolic to catch attention in only a few words); because of the like/RT system encouraging populism; the follower system making pretty much impossible for elaborated opinions to be heard if the person isn't popular and doesn't use Twitter as frequently as others (an alternative could be for example a system of promotion of elaborated tweets, regardless of how many people follow the author), etc.
But Twitter being one of the worst apps doesn't deny all the mentioned benefits (and others that haven't even been mentioned).
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