Thought-provoking. I wrote a piece on how Sport is one of the few remaining forums of common language, and why footwear brands love it for that reason. Wonder if global sports may benefit economically as they remain some of the last bastions of common ground amongst people. Wonder where we will be in 20 years on this topic.
What about combining the excitement of live sports with substantive, expert led conversations? Imagine the vibes of Sunday Night Football meets a technical debate.
Live commentary, live fact checking, lasers, and entertainment. It might serve to feed the fanaticism, but at least folks would be a bit more informed.
Power fragmented and no one rebuilt the civic glue. The loss of shared reference points. Democracy needs common facts, common frames and some baseline trust. Outrage keeps people scrolling, but trust?
The microphone is now owned by who owns the network & whoever can monetise the loudest emotions. We need a pluralistic, decentralised information ecosystem.
Thomas Paine also wrote “Agrarian Justice” in which he tried to address monopolistic land hoarding as a result of cultivation. Before cultivation a lot of UK land was Commons. You can read that piece and replace land with human IP today and the same principles apply. Discourse largely functioned as commons. Media has monetized and enclosed it to sell it back to us like the enclosures in the UK. The commons has been replaced by Content that requires diversification and specialization to create markets where there used to be the free flow of common discourse. Nothing new under the sun.
All throughout COVID I kept telling my wife, "I just wished the president would sit in front of a national audience and level with us. Just be honest and set the facts straight". (Both presidents btw). Hadn't thought that we were speaking different languages. But this puts that frustration into focus. Time to be bilingual if we want to make some progress
Can you talk about your charts and how you derived them? Because they are a bit misleading if you compare them to the nuances in your source. Your point still stands but I don't think your take on the Pew study holds up?
For example, using a bar chart the way that you did gives a visual false equivalence to Truth Social's impact. What is said is true, but the data viz implies that it's a meaningful player in the "Commons" and it's not. And you didn't include YouTube or Facebook, which are both hugely influential. I saw shorts on YouTube that commented on the viral essay. It also matters even for print media.
That's just one example - to me, you need the context. Maybe use their actual charts and interpret them instead of mix and matching your own. I get that you're making a general point, but you make your living by knowing that simplifying data doesn't really get at the real story.
I don't think you did anything misleading! But given your rightly earned reputation as being thoughtful about numbers, I think you should be careful about how you represent something that is as carefully nuanced as a Pew survey in your Substack.
Full disclosure. The reason I noticed this, is that I loved this essay. So, I sent it, with its charts to my kids, who are your age, and they both went to Pew, looked at the charts, and then roasted me for how the charts raise more questions than they answer. So, I'm just passing on my own pain to you, lol.
Ed, thoughtful piece. It brought to mind the tribal nature we all have as humans. Whether it be sports teams, music genres, political identities, and perhaps even gender identities. You make a great point that even social media breaks down into generational tribes. Politicians have capitalized on another feature of tribalism, which is vilifying the other tribe. I'll leave it to the social scientist to explain how we go about building bridges to bring us back together. It's been done before i.e. Germany, Italy and Japan, where we once sent our militaries to kill them, today we send tourists and admire their cultures. I think I just figured out that our next administration will require "post war" leadership.
I am collecting my thoughts and planning to publish an article soon about the “binary” nature of the American system. This is a bit orthogonal to your theme on isolated sources of information and exchange, but I think lack of spectrum over 250 years has played a major role in where we are today (polarized and divided, and misunderstood).
Most countries in the globe are very homogenous (small minority of immigrants over the last 1-2 centuries), or the degrees of separation within the population are narrower (sub-cultures).
Some countries of immigrants have spectrum built into their systems (social, political, etc.), and are not in denial about their DNA as countries of immigrants; including the white European colonists’ lineage. Canada and Australia maybe good examples.
A relatively-young (250 yrs) country of immigrants - USA - that has evolved without a spectrum and is deeply a binary system, is destined to face some unique challenges … as we can observe with the flawed American democracy and the inequalities across all dimensions.
However you dissect the US congress, it does not (by a very large margin) represent the US public.
Lack of spectrum is a fundamental flaw of America, and a core reason why Americans cannot see and think clearly, and cannot unite to then be able to chart their way out of the present mess.
Liberalism starts with tolerating and accepting “different”. Neither leaders of Republicans nor Democrats, mostly elites, are liberal by that definition. Both parties are highly dominated by Old, Rich, White, Male, Christian leaders. Each of those categories is around, or well-below, 50% category in the US public. The public of US believes they have a choice in their two party system.
As stated in the “Theory of Everyone” book, political evolution in the 2-party system of US and the single-party system of China occurs the same way. It is progress within the ruling party. And when you have 2 parties, regardless of how alike they may be, you get the false impression that you have a choice. “Choice” in America is up for debate, in a major way. If the American public had “real” choice, they would not be struggling with their “dignity” so much.
Spot on with multi-platform paralysis. I think you described and named a feeling I’ve experienced and noticed but didn’t know how to describe. Diagnosing part of the problem is key but I’m not seeing options or solutions that break this. Case in point: sports, one of the last unifying arenas had a moment with the US Hockey win but that unifying feeling didn’t even last for a full day.
This explains why I feel disconnected from most American culture: I went to boarding school and missed all the TV generation's shared TV references, I like OLD movies not new, and I don't follow any sports. Occasionally there is a flash of sharing with a jazz song, but much of my adult life has been like that party person wondering if anyone knows I like cycling.
Ed, thank you for pulling together the research and analysis on a topic that is, I think, only a generalized notion for most of us when referring to a country that is divided. Definitely will share your article.
Great point about the lack of a common place for people with different views. In the past it used to be that whenever you watched something on TV or on mainstream media, you could easily talk to your colleagues at work, at university or a random person. Nowadays, it's so much harder. It's like we lost something in this sea of digital space.
A well written essay, but it ignores an important element of conversations that take place face-to-face: That is the non-verbal queues we get from the other party in the conversation. Are they attentive and look to be in general agreement with what we are saying or do they have a look of skepticism, or worse yet, outward boredom, when they are no longer listening? These queues are not present in online comment sections. Much of the time we are talking past one another because of the medium in which the “conversation” takes place. The interaction lacks immediate give and take, nor are we really assured we aren't being enraged by a bot. The social rules of polite discourse are tossed aside, leaving us with enraged diatribes most of the time.
Thought-provoking. I wrote a piece on how Sport is one of the few remaining forums of common language, and why footwear brands love it for that reason. Wonder if global sports may benefit economically as they remain some of the last bastions of common ground amongst people. Wonder where we will be in 20 years on this topic.
100%
Sports and weather are two of the only things we have left. Sports often breed fanatics and that contributes to the rage and outrage cycle however.
What about combining the excitement of live sports with substantive, expert led conversations? Imagine the vibes of Sunday Night Football meets a technical debate.
Live commentary, live fact checking, lasers, and entertainment. It might serve to feed the fanaticism, but at least folks would be a bit more informed.
Power fragmented and no one rebuilt the civic glue. The loss of shared reference points. Democracy needs common facts, common frames and some baseline trust. Outrage keeps people scrolling, but trust?
The microphone is now owned by who owns the network & whoever can monetise the loudest emotions. We need a pluralistic, decentralised information ecosystem.
Thomas Paine also wrote “Agrarian Justice” in which he tried to address monopolistic land hoarding as a result of cultivation. Before cultivation a lot of UK land was Commons. You can read that piece and replace land with human IP today and the same principles apply. Discourse largely functioned as commons. Media has monetized and enclosed it to sell it back to us like the enclosures in the UK. The commons has been replaced by Content that requires diversification and specialization to create markets where there used to be the free flow of common discourse. Nothing new under the sun.
All throughout COVID I kept telling my wife, "I just wished the president would sit in front of a national audience and level with us. Just be honest and set the facts straight". (Both presidents btw). Hadn't thought that we were speaking different languages. But this puts that frustration into focus. Time to be bilingual if we want to make some progress
Ed, Pew is your source, yes? https://share.google/U0nIqXFnbxqszmlYT
Can you talk about your charts and how you derived them? Because they are a bit misleading if you compare them to the nuances in your source. Your point still stands but I don't think your take on the Pew study holds up?
For example, using a bar chart the way that you did gives a visual false equivalence to Truth Social's impact. What is said is true, but the data viz implies that it's a meaningful player in the "Commons" and it's not. And you didn't include YouTube or Facebook, which are both hugely influential. I saw shorts on YouTube that commented on the viral essay. It also matters even for print media.
That's just one example - to me, you need the context. Maybe use their actual charts and interpret them instead of mix and matching your own. I get that you're making a general point, but you make your living by knowing that simplifying data doesn't really get at the real story.
I don't think you did anything misleading! But given your rightly earned reputation as being thoughtful about numbers, I think you should be careful about how you represent something that is as carefully nuanced as a Pew survey in your Substack.
Full disclosure. The reason I noticed this, is that I loved this essay. So, I sent it, with its charts to my kids, who are your age, and they both went to Pew, looked at the charts, and then roasted me for how the charts raise more questions than they answer. So, I'm just passing on my own pain to you, lol.
Long live Monoculture !! (not really) We now have our own Tower of Babel
Holy cow man! Shockingly well put. Ironically enough I definitely felt like you were speaking my language lol
Ed, thoughtful piece. It brought to mind the tribal nature we all have as humans. Whether it be sports teams, music genres, political identities, and perhaps even gender identities. You make a great point that even social media breaks down into generational tribes. Politicians have capitalized on another feature of tribalism, which is vilifying the other tribe. I'll leave it to the social scientist to explain how we go about building bridges to bring us back together. It's been done before i.e. Germany, Italy and Japan, where we once sent our militaries to kill them, today we send tourists and admire their cultures. I think I just figured out that our next administration will require "post war" leadership.
Nice article Ed, and very interesting data.
I am collecting my thoughts and planning to publish an article soon about the “binary” nature of the American system. This is a bit orthogonal to your theme on isolated sources of information and exchange, but I think lack of spectrum over 250 years has played a major role in where we are today (polarized and divided, and misunderstood).
Most countries in the globe are very homogenous (small minority of immigrants over the last 1-2 centuries), or the degrees of separation within the population are narrower (sub-cultures).
Some countries of immigrants have spectrum built into their systems (social, political, etc.), and are not in denial about their DNA as countries of immigrants; including the white European colonists’ lineage. Canada and Australia maybe good examples.
A relatively-young (250 yrs) country of immigrants - USA - that has evolved without a spectrum and is deeply a binary system, is destined to face some unique challenges … as we can observe with the flawed American democracy and the inequalities across all dimensions.
However you dissect the US congress, it does not (by a very large margin) represent the US public.
Lack of spectrum is a fundamental flaw of America, and a core reason why Americans cannot see and think clearly, and cannot unite to then be able to chart their way out of the present mess.
Liberalism starts with tolerating and accepting “different”. Neither leaders of Republicans nor Democrats, mostly elites, are liberal by that definition. Both parties are highly dominated by Old, Rich, White, Male, Christian leaders. Each of those categories is around, or well-below, 50% category in the US public. The public of US believes they have a choice in their two party system.
As stated in the “Theory of Everyone” book, political evolution in the 2-party system of US and the single-party system of China occurs the same way. It is progress within the ruling party. And when you have 2 parties, regardless of how alike they may be, you get the false impression that you have a choice. “Choice” in America is up for debate, in a major way. If the American public had “real” choice, they would not be struggling with their “dignity” so much.
When you talk about Trump’s new illegal tariffs be sure to have the illegality on board. Virtually all the media have it wrong.
https://popularinformation.substack.com/p/trumps-new-tariffs-are-just-as-illegal?r=2nzz7&utm_medium=ios
Spot on with multi-platform paralysis. I think you described and named a feeling I’ve experienced and noticed but didn’t know how to describe. Diagnosing part of the problem is key but I’m not seeing options or solutions that break this. Case in point: sports, one of the last unifying arenas had a moment with the US Hockey win but that unifying feeling didn’t even last for a full day.
This explains why I feel disconnected from most American culture: I went to boarding school and missed all the TV generation's shared TV references, I like OLD movies not new, and I don't follow any sports. Occasionally there is a flash of sharing with a jazz song, but much of my adult life has been like that party person wondering if anyone knows I like cycling.
Ed, thank you for pulling together the research and analysis on a topic that is, I think, only a generalized notion for most of us when referring to a country that is divided. Definitely will share your article.
Great point about the lack of a common place for people with different views. In the past it used to be that whenever you watched something on TV or on mainstream media, you could easily talk to your colleagues at work, at university or a random person. Nowadays, it's so much harder. It's like we lost something in this sea of digital space.
I'd say this is one of your best if not the best.
A well written essay, but it ignores an important element of conversations that take place face-to-face: That is the non-verbal queues we get from the other party in the conversation. Are they attentive and look to be in general agreement with what we are saying or do they have a look of skepticism, or worse yet, outward boredom, when they are no longer listening? These queues are not present in online comment sections. Much of the time we are talking past one another because of the medium in which the “conversation” takes place. The interaction lacks immediate give and take, nor are we really assured we aren't being enraged by a bot. The social rules of polite discourse are tossed aside, leaving us with enraged diatribes most of the time.
I really look forward to your posts. I wanted to share this on Threads, but there's not a way to. Curious about why not?