On Politics and a Paradox of the Internet
The good folks over at O’reilly radar point out an interesting paradox of the Internet:
More access to information doesn’t bring people together, often it isolates us.
In citing some recent work by Cass Sunstein, they conclude:
The Internet is becoming a vast petri dish for the group polarization phenomena. As Sunstein puts it “The most striking power provided by emerging technologies,” is the “growing power of consumers to ‘filter’ what they see.”
The consequences of this are becoming more and more obvious in our nation’s political discourse. Citizens can organize their entire flow of information so as never to encounter someone with an opinion different than their own.
That strikes me as dangerous.