Does the Internet Propagate Bombast, Polarity, and Cognitive Dissonance?
On one hand Google promises to predict “where you will go next”. On the other hand, for individuals who want to be heard, the internet is so vast their voices easily get lost. Although people who once held a prominent platform of authority seem most anguished in their reactions to this, public discourse in science, politics, economics, immigration, foreign policy — anything — now turns to YELLING, goes polar, spirals downhill, and gets crazy and scraped of tempered reason. Some people wonder if the web is to blame for the rumor cacophony. But strangely, some of the same people who have focused on the internet’s role in incivility, have in fact been most falsely and most viciously maligned, not on the internet, but by talk show hosts with daily audiences in the millions — Cass Sunstein by Glenn Beck, for instance. In his latest salvo Glenn Beck told audiences that Sunstein would lead government to tax rumors. This might indeed undermine Beck’s existence, if only it were true. As I’ve
