It feels to me like the historical case for this thesis ought to be visible by mere observation to anyone who watched the quality of online discussion degrade from 2002 to 2017.
My impression is that politics is more prominent and more intense than it used to be, and that this is harming people’s reasonableness, but that there’s been no decline outside of that. I feel like I see fewer outright uninformed or stupid arguments than I used to; probably this has to do with faster access to information and to feedback on reasoning. EA and AI risk memes have been doing relatively well in the 2010s. Maybe that’s just because they needed some time to germinate, but it’s still worth noting.
My impression is that politics is more prominent and more intense than it used to be, and that this is harming people’s reasonableness, but that there’s been no decline outside of that. I feel like I see fewer outright uninformed or stupid arguments than I used to; probably this has to do with faster access to information and to feedback on reasoning. EA and AI risk memes have been doing relatively well in the 2010s. Maybe that’s just because they needed some time to germinate, but it’s still worth noting.