> Some would think it would be great, some would see it as dystopian, but neither would be right.

No, the people saying it’s dystopian would be correct by objective measure. Bombs are nothing next to Facebook and TikTok.

▲ godelski 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't blame people for being optimistic. We should never do that. But we should be aware how optimism, as well as pessimism, can so easily blind us. There's a quote a like by Feynman

  The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

There is something of a balance. Certainly, Social Media does some good and has the potential to do more. But also, it certainly has been abused. Maybe so much that it become difficult to imagine it ever being good.

We need optimism. Optimism gives us hope. It gives us drive.

But we also need pessimism. It lets us be critical. It gives us direction. It tells us what we need to fix.

But unfettered optimism is like going on a drive with no direction. Soon you'll fall off a cliff. And unfettered pessimism won't even get you out the door. What's the point?

You need both if you want to see and explore the world. To build a better future. To live a better life. To... to... just be human. With either extreme, you're just a shell.

▲ ghostofbordiga 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You really think that Hiroshima would have been worse if instead of dropping the bomb the USA somehow got people addicted to social media ?

	▲	tines 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yep. Look around you. The bomb leveled a city; Facebook killed a country. We are but the walking dead.
	▲	rightbyte 15 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Well they got both I guess?
	▲	KerrAvon 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Really crude comparison, but sort of. It would have taken much longer, and dropping the bombs was supposed to bring about an end to the war sooner. But in the long run social media would have been much more devastating, as it has been in America. The destruction of the American government today are a direct result of social media supercharging existing negative internal forces that date back to the mid 20th century. The past six months of conservative rule has already led to six-figure deaths across the globe. That will eventually be eight to nine figures with the full impact of the healthcare and immigration devastation inside the United States itself. Far worse than Hiroshima. Took a decade or two, but you can lay the blame at Facebook and Twitter's doorsteps. The US will never properly recover, though it's possible we may restore sanity to governance at some point.