Eliezer says that the quality of internet discussion has degraded from 2002 to 2017.
Not sure what kind of research there is on this topic, I have been online for over 20 years, and inane arguments have always dominated public forums. Constantly being online is a new phenomenon, though, and it might be changing how people interact, probably a mixture of beneficial and detrimental effects, depending on what one values. For example, it’s easy to find a suitable online community/subculture, but there is also more self-segregation since one doesn’t have to interact as much locally with those different from them. Whether either of those is a good thing or not depends on one’s point of view.
It always pays to compare with similar technological events in the past. Some examples are the proliferation of books, the industrial revolution with its rise of big and dense cities, telephone, automobile… All were hailed as interfering with general intelligence at least by some contemporaries. And maybe it has and the smarter people didn’t survive to tell the tale, but it seems unlikely.
Not sure what kind of research there is on this topic, I have been online for over 20 years, and inane arguments have always dominated public forums. Constantly being online is a new phenomenon, though, and it might be changing how people interact, probably a mixture of beneficial and detrimental effects, depending on what one values. For example, it’s easy to find a suitable online community/subculture, but there is also more self-segregation since one doesn’t have to interact as much locally with those different from them. Whether either of those is a good thing or not depends on one’s point of view.
It always pays to compare with similar technological events in the past. Some examples are the proliferation of books, the industrial revolution with its rise of big and dense cities, telephone, automobile… All were hailed as interfering with general intelligence at least by some contemporaries. And maybe it has and the smarter people didn’t survive to tell the tale, but it seems unlikely.