Cultural authority got decentralized over centuries, from church to bible to traditional media to new media, where everybody can be an author and become an authority, gain a fellowship.
Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival, it makes the surrounding society and feedback from a society more predictable.
Online bubbles are often subcultures that predate the web, what changed is that many of them became more attractive or commercially viable through independence of location, new viable markets linked to a return of investment, which of course motivates virtual landgrabs and people defending their territory.
It's not a suprise that most online communities have their own authors and authorities, stores, books and conferences, their own terminology or language, their own culture/church basically. It's even obvious within niches like programming. Coming up in such a community is linked to wealth. If you're seen in church and competitors not, churchgoers will likely buy from you.
Abolishing cultural independence would lead to a China 2.0, cultural authority in hands of the state. Likely less innovation caused by a lack of cultural diversity, less motivation to invest into land that's already been grabbed by others.
How can the problems that are likely caused by cultural independence be solved without fully centralizing cultural authority? Can something like a driver license for the web even be possible or be fair?
this reminds me of an interview i saw on the news with an elderly british voter who was adamant that she will vote Tory as they are bound to win. it's almost like she saw her vote as a bet and she wanted to get it right.
this interview moved me significantly towards being sceptical of current democracies
Most people don't care about politics that much, they vote more or less for a continuation of what's currently going on with an occasional minor course correction one way or another.
I imagine that was the case with that lady, didn't care about politics, wanted things to be more or less the same, votes Conservative and when put on the spot doesn't really have a good explanation as to why.
The most useful thing about democracy is the ability to kick people out, not necessarily choose the best person for the job.
We could do a bunch of rounds of elections where we all vote against someone (or some party) Big spending attention whores would be eliminated in the first round.
That sounds like a cultural artifact of a Spoils System sort of corruption from US history - being blindly followed while forgetting that there even was a purpose because it was a cultural norm.
I am aware of literal feudalism version in the UK but I am unsure if they historically had a similar thing - it wouldn't be surprising personally.
A "driver's license for the web" is an interesting thought, but I certainly wouldn't model it off of our actual driver's licenses; as they appear to me to be more a form of identification than licensure in that pretty much anyone can get one with no training or display of skill.
I love the internet, but I agree that it has created many realities; sustaining those that would have traditionally burned out in the head of the thinker due to repeated exposure to other people's subjective realities and a lack of confirmation for their own.
>How can the problems that are likely caused by cultural independence be solved without fully centralizing cultural authority?
You identified the problem earlier in your post:
>Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival
What separates human beings from other animals is our ability to reason and not defer blindly to instinct. The issue is obedience to authority, not that people are simply listening to the wrong authorities. We should do our best to teach our children skepticism and critical thinking skills. We should urge Socratic Dialogue and, over time, move people towards being less susceptible to faith-based dogmas and conspiracies.
> We should do our best to teach our children skepticism and critical thinking skills. We should urge Socratic Dialogue and, over time, move people towards being less susceptible to faith-based dogmas and conspiracies.
gets brought up a lot during online discussions about digital communities and the well educated affluent antivax parents always comes to my mind
Peoples obedience to authority didn't change much in general, it's an instinct for survival, it makes the surrounding society and feedback from a society more predictable.
Online bubbles are often subcultures that predate the web, what changed is that many of them became more attractive or commercially viable through independence of location, new viable markets linked to a return of investment, which of course motivates virtual landgrabs and people defending their territory.
It's not a suprise that most online communities have their own authors and authorities, stores, books and conferences, their own terminology or language, their own culture/church basically. It's even obvious within niches like programming. Coming up in such a community is linked to wealth. If you're seen in church and competitors not, churchgoers will likely buy from you.
Abolishing cultural independence would lead to a China 2.0, cultural authority in hands of the state. Likely less innovation caused by a lack of cultural diversity, less motivation to invest into land that's already been grabbed by others.
How can the problems that are likely caused by cultural independence be solved without fully centralizing cultural authority? Can something like a driver license for the web even be possible or be fair?