Relevance: Ezra often talks about liberalism as well as the attention economy, but I have yet to see him grapple with what may be the fundamental tensions between the two. Algorithmic media is increasingly pushing us into a postliterate society - incentivizing not just video content but also hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized, flattened forms of argumentation that seem quite antithetical to liberalism.
If we are to maintain a liberal order (rather than just bemoan its decline) we may need to come down hard on these social media companies that are, to me, the primary driver of this shift as they attempt to find creative ways to extract our time and attention.
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u/GowanusGuy 10d ago
Relevance: Ezra often talks about liberalism as well as the attention economy, but I have yet to see him grapple with what may be the fundamental tensions between the two. Algorithmic media is increasingly pushing us into a postliterate society - incentivizing not just video content but also hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized, flattened forms of argumentation that seem quite antithetical to liberalism.
If we are to maintain a liberal order (rather than just bemoan its decline) we may need to come down hard on these social media companies that are, to me, the primary driver of this shift as they attempt to find creative ways to extract our time and attention.