Τhis is a terrifying picture of a culture that is trapped in powerful vicious circles and loops that lead to further cultural stagnation and make cultural progress more and more difficult
In another
interesting interview to Russell Brand, Adam Curtis describes a
certain phenomenon in social media. He speaks about how the web and
the social media are creating loops that actually isolate certain
groups of individuals with common characteristics and interests.
Curtis supports that this is a form of power which essentially
prevents real progress.
As he says:
If you have
something like Facebook, which in its news feeds increasingly gives
you what it knows you like and what you hear is what you like, then
that's incredibly powerful.
Those who
run social media will say 'this is efficient'. They are not
ideologists. They are not saying we must tell them this, and in fact
it's the algorithms that are doing that. Of course they design the
algorithms, but the algorithm's function is to give you more of what
it knows you like because that's efficient.
But look at
what that means: that means that you only know what others like you
know, and then there is another group over there who know what the
others in their group know, and they never meet.
There is a
fascinating quote of the day after Brexit from a social media
activist who was a Remainer. He wanted to remain, but he wanted to
find out what the other lot felt like, who had that triumphant that
day. And he went onto Facebook and he tried to find through the
custom feeds people like that. He couldn't do it! And he was actually
shocked. It's a man realizing that there are two halves of the world,
now so separated from eachother, that one half can't actually go and
find out what the other half is feeling. Now, that's called power.
I don't
think that in facebook there is anyone saying 'this is the world we
want', they are saying 'this is efficient'. But look what that
efficiency is: it's a conservative world that holds things stable.
And implicitly, what that means, is that things aren't going to
change. And what that means is that those who are in power, remain in
power.
The
description is impressive because it shows that even those who design
the algorithms are occupied with a specific way of thinking that
diffuses throughout societies. It is a type of thinking that is based
not in morality, or other principles, but rather in a kind of
mechanistic perception that dominates the minds of individuals and
their activities in everyday life. In capitalism, this is translated
into one thing: endless chase for profit.
Essentially,
this is a terrifying picture of a culture that is trapped in powerful
vicious circles and loops that lead to further cultural stagnation
and make cultural progress more and more difficult.
Well,
stagnation leads to degeneration, and degeneration leads to death ...
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