Thread by @wolfejosh

1/ My friend Jon Haidt @JonHaidt has written the MOST important article you can read today...

"Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid––it's not just a phase"

2/ He begins by analogy to parable of Tower of Babel

Noting THEY were fragmented by different languages

While WE for causes he diagnoses are...

"disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past."

3/ Haidt describes what I like to call
a "directional arrow of progress"

of EVER more cooperation at EVER larger scales

He invokes excellent must-read Robert Wright book NON-ZERO @robertwrighter (also author of Moral Animal) which reminds me of (Sims') Will Wright illustration

4/ Here is Haidt on this directional arrow of progress toward non-zero cooperation

5/ Haidt notes
"The high point of techno-democratic optimism was arguably 2011, a yr that began w/the Arab Spring + ended w/ the global Occupy movement. And when Google Translate became available on virtually all smartphones making '11 the yr humanity rebuilt the Tower of Babel.

6/ Haidt notes in the BEGINNING social media helped maintain social ties (and was virtue)––but THEN

as people felt comfortable sharing with strangers + co's––it became performative signaling + amplifying and exploitative.

7/ "This new game encouraged DISHONESTY and mob dynamics"

"We might have just handed a 4-year old a loaded weapon.

8/ "It was just this kind of twitchy + explosive spread of anger 😡that Madison had tried to protect us from in drafting the Constitution. The Framers were excellent social psychologists. The KEY🔑was to build in mechanisms to slow things down, cool passions, require compromise"

9/ Haidt then turns to the EROSION of TRUST

He invokes @mgurri the ex CIA analyst who predicted our fracturing (even without Russian + Chinese agents making it worse"

10/ Haidt then turns to the importance of NORMS + INSTITUTIONS for error-correction

+ the ease today of tribes silencing not just critics but their own members from dissent––creating echo chamber + bubbles of homogenous belief–– & diversity breakdowns

11/ Haidt again quoting Gurri

"The digital revolution has shattered that mirror, and now the public inhabits those broken pieces of glass. The public is highly fragmented + it’s basically mutually hostile––mostly people yelling at each other + living in bubbles

12/ Haidt notes both the LEFT + RIGHT in different ways have been handed darts making each side STUPIDER

and leading to
CANCEL CULTURE +
DEPLATFORMING +
SOCIAL DEATH

for anyone who doesn't self-censor or silence to as @pmarca would say "support the current thing"

13/ Haidt cites awesome work from @noUpside Renée DiResta on DISINFORMATION

We already know Russia + China have exploited social media as a weapon turning our own technology + open systems on OURSELVES (the way hijackers turned our own planes on our own buildings)...

14/ SO WHAT?

What do we DO about it?

@JonHaidt gives several prescriptions––

some touch on continuing phenomena he + @glukianoff first identified in "Coddling of The American Mind"–– on Gen Z not knowing how to resolve conflict, needing authorities + needing to just get OUT

15/ Here is full MUST-READ piece by my friend @JonHaidt on democracy after our disintegration...

how it gets worse before it gets better

and whether you want to continue to be part of the PROBLEM––or part of the SOLUTION...
theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…