We’re talking solely about the desirable degree of filtering. No one, including me, argues that people should just not filter their information input—their news, their forums, their discussions, etc.
It’s like I say that we shouldn’t encourage paranoid tendencies and you’re saying that if you imagine the inverse—everyone is forced to trust complete strangers all the time—it will be horrible. Of course it will be horrible. However this is not a valid counterargument to “we shouldn’t encourage paranoid tendencies”.
Filtering is normal. Filtering is desirable. Everyone filters. But.
Too much of pretty much any normal and desirable activity leads to problems. If the environment (due, say, to shifts in technology) changes so that it become very very easy to overdo that normal and desirable activity, there will be issues. The so-called diseases of civilization would be an example: e.g. the desire to stuff your face full of superstimulus food is entirely normal and desirable (we tend to diagnose people without this desire with eating disorders). But if that superstimulus food becomes easily and cheaply available, well, there are issues.
We’re talking solely about the desirable degree of filtering. No one, including me, argues that people should just not filter their information input—their news, their forums, their discussions, etc.
It’s like I say that we shouldn’t encourage paranoid tendencies and you’re saying that if you imagine the inverse—everyone is forced to trust complete strangers all the time—it will be horrible. Of course it will be horrible. However this is not a valid counterargument to “we shouldn’t encourage paranoid tendencies”.
Filtering is normal. Filtering is desirable. Everyone filters. But.
Too much of pretty much any normal and desirable activity leads to problems. If the environment (due, say, to shifts in technology) changes so that it become very very easy to overdo that normal and desirable activity, there will be issues. The so-called diseases of civilization would be an example: e.g. the desire to stuff your face full of superstimulus food is entirely normal and desirable (we tend to diagnose people without this desire with eating disorders). But if that superstimulus food becomes easily and cheaply available, well, there are issues.