Rumors in the age of unreason

[mmm skyscraper]

Originally Posted by Sean

Until people start looking at issues like the economy, health care, climate change, education, international relations, etc as things that need to be solved rather than as arguments to be won, I fear that we'll just keep sinking deeper and deeper into this vicious cycle of animosity and self-serving manipulation.

Follow the money. Ask this question: who benefits?

Originally Posted by Sean

We're no longer isolated societies scattered around the world, where people's actions only impact those who share their immediate surroundings.

This has been true for a long time. Ask Gavrilo Princip about it.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by mmm skyscraper

This has been true for a long time. Ask Gavrilo Princip about it.

It really hasn't been true on this broad and massive scale for much longer than, say 20 years? Anyone who's in their mid-30's or older will vividly remember all the kinds of things you usually hear from your grandparents, like rotary phones with no call waiting or caller id, remote control-less televisions that only offered a handful of channels, the advent of the first, super-expensive VCRs, absolutely no internet or email - the means of easily communicating, finding information, being aware of what was happening in the world, all of that kind of stuff was just way way WAY more difficult. I mean a forum like this where I can debate what a global society we've become with people I've never met from all around the planet was unheard of back in the '70's and early 80's. Or more specifically, just look at the fact that you threw down the statement "ask Gavrilo Princip about it". That's a name I had never heard, and yet I was able to find out all about him instantaneously and without anything more than a couple mouse clicks. That simply wasn't possible just a short, short time ago.

So when you look at the rapid development of immediate global communication in the context of our species' entire 100,000+ year history of social evolution, you'll see that it's only been available to us for a tiny fraction of a sliver of a heartbeat in time - and yet it's been a HUGE step forward. Probably the biggest individual leap in human social development ever in fact.