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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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It's cyclical, so I don't think this is the last hurrah of fascism.
Additionally, when everyone has a phone in their pocket with access to confirmation bias, it was inevitable that this would be the result. Social media has amplified echo chambers to levels never seen before, and it's made even worse by the fact that those social media sites use algorithms to keep users engaged as much as possible for increased ad exposure. Unfortunately, those algorithms will show you inflammatory content, as that's been shown to grab users' attention the most: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2024292118
We have seen this unfold in virtually real time over the last decade or so. The result is an ever more divided and radicalized society that becomes more and more exploitable by populists.
I find it difficult to look at the breadth of recorded history and see anything cyclical about it. Never saw people flying through the sky in machines until pretty recently, or communicating instantly across the globe.
Regarding social media, yes, that is a major concern. I think we need to wreck the market locks of the major tech giants. Which is why I picked a Fediverse service and not any of the other reddit competitors.
When people say that history is cyclical, they don't mean that it is literally repeating itself verbatim. They're referring to human nature/behavior. There's been numerous cycles in that regard that haven't varied that drastically. One only needs to even examine the last 150 years and see that we're once again experiencing a modern version of the Robber Baron Era (in the US at least for this one), the rise of fascism and populism, an increase in xenophobia and demand for isolationism, etc.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
It's rather go down the spiral, but yep, that what it ususlly means.
I think you are mixing up technological and social development here my dude.
What do you perceive the important difference to be?
Look at human history, on a global scale technological development has been constantly increasing over time. Locally there are plateaus and even valleys like the middle ages but those have always been temporary and afterwards canceled out when development went back to going up again. Overall the technological knowledge of humanity has always been increasing and it seems like a trend that is almost impossible to stop. Example for directional technological progress : pointy stick -> bow & arrow -> sword -> cannon -> rifle -> tank -> nuke -> drones
Social development of societies on the other hand seems to be oscillating between several poles instead of having a general direction. Examples for social oscillations:
authoritarian rule <-> individual freedom
capitalism <-> socialism
aggressive expansionism <-> peaceful cooperation
Germany is a good example for this oscillation process, it went monarchy -> democracy -> fascist authoritarian dictatorship -> democracy -> today the AfD (neo nazi party of Germany) has the best polls ever, so the direction is changing again.
I see what you're saying, I noticed similar things in my youth. As I studied more though, I realized I was simply cherry-picking, and filling in the gaps with pop culture misconceptions.
The plateaus and valleys you describe, for instance, are some of these misconceptions, stemming from old schools of thought. Modern scholarship points how how progress in many arenas continued through the dark ages and medieval period. You could look at the history of something like military fortifications and see this progress very clearly, in a situation where we have a great many old examples to study.
Regarding this social oscillation you describe, I think it's fairly cherry picked. With the whole data set, this starts to become more clear. How about the history of Denmark or the UK? How about Chinese or Japanese history? These will all break your hypothesis.
Sure, I am not a scientist, I never claimed to be one. Obviously what I wrote is just my opinion based on my personal view. Chill, my dude.
We can talk about these things, it's completely okay. You did nothing wrong and neither did I, we're just two people having a conversation. We're all good here man.
Cool, that´s what I assumed!