[00:00:00] Katherine Druckman: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Reality 2.0. I am Katherine Druckman. Doc Searls and I are talking to Sean Powers again today, this week, and we have some interesting stuff to talk about. We might even get a little controversial, but that's okay. But before we get into it, I wanted to remind everyone to visit our website at reality2cast.com.

That's the number two in the URL where you can find all of the links to the various episodes. You could sign up for our newsletter that we occasionaly send out. You could potentially support us on Patreon and we want to thank everyone who does. And yeah, so that, with that, I will get into it. So today the starting point of this conversation is actually an article and a video, which I will link to by Jonathan Haidt, who is a social scientist and researcher, and he has some really interesting observations about why we are so dumb. We'll get into that. Um, but the, the, in a nutshell, Technology has provided a massive proliferation of communication tools, but yet today we seem less able to communicate than before those tools were available. So let's talk about why that might be.

But really quickly, I wanted to read the title. Of one of the, the, well, the article that also inspired the video that I will link to. But, but, um, the title of the article that started this whole conversation offline that led to this episode is why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid.

And, um, yeah, so Doc Draw drew our attention to this. So I'll let him give it a little bit more background.

[00:01:37] Doc Searls: Boy now I have not looked at, at that in a week and a half. And given the, the rapid decay of knowledge in an online world, especially when you're not looking at online, I was actually completely offline for, for some of the last week and a half. Um, But, but he dates it like from about 10 years ago and in the rise of social media.

And I think, I mean, I have my own angle on it. I dunno if you want me to go straight into that and have people just read, Jonathan I'll speak of as his first name as if I know him. I don't. He's, he's at NYU. He teaches at NYU. He's a really good writer and, uh, and a good talker. He was on the long now at Stuart Brands Long Now podcast with Kevin Kelly, who's a, Those guys I know, uh, pretty well and are just really great, great, great guys as well as really and talkers and writers.

Um, but I, I, my own take on it is that now have We have a zillion media. It's not, there's no such thing as the mainstream media anymore that, that doesn't exist. There. There are many streams and we'll call some of the main and some people on, I mean, there are people who complain about the mainstream media that have 50,000 readers a day, right?

Or 50 million or some other gigantic number. But it's all stories and, and narratives. We, we don't, we no longer even talk about stories so much. We talk about narratives and. I learned as a, a, fledgling journalist back in the early seventies that stories like a managing editor would say, What's the story here?

You know, that that is set in newsrooms back when there were newsrooms forever. What's the story? What's the story? What's the story? Well, what's the story? Story has three parts. It has a, a character, a protagonist. Could be a ball club, could be a political party, could be an individual. Um, it's, but it's a character.

And it doesn't have to be when you love, it could be when you hate. I mean, one reason that couldn't stop watching Killing Eve on one of the, one of the subscription channels because the most interesting character, and it was, this was a, serial assassin. He just, she, she just killed everybody. She got a thrill out of it.

But she was an interesting character. Not sympathetic, but interesting. So you have a character and you have a problems, and then movement toward a resolution. And what we have now are many, many different streams that are caring about characters, where the character on one side is the enemy on the other.

So on the left, the character and the right. Is easy to hate is Trump. And on the right easy to love Trump because he is a character, He's a very strong character. And, and who do you hate on the other? Oh, he hate Biden. And you, before that you hated Obama. Before that you hated the Kennedys and, and, and Hillary.

And you find somebody to ha hammer on. Scott Adams said it's, uh, in one of his many tweets. Facts don't matter. It's about who you hate. And that's a very cynical way of putting it, but I think it's a good cynical way to put it because it's actually what's going on right now. And I don't know a way out of it, but I do know that if you sit entirely on one side, you're being stupid.

I think that's part partly where he's going. You're not seeking facts from the other side. In fact, there shouldn't even be sides on a lot of these things. The national budget. There's lots of economic you can make about that. There are arguments you can make about immigration. Um, are arguments that, that you can make about abortion that are rational where there are two sides, there are arguments you can make about capital punishment, um, or about amending the constitution and debate, you know, debates in high school and in college where there are people who get on a debate team and the debate one side or another.

are, there are really legitimate sides there, There are arguments to be had. There is no national dialogue right now. There is a frozen conflict. It's like and, and Palestine at or guns. Guns are a frozen conflict as well. There's no, there's not much dialogue going on there. There are two sides and they don't like each other or they don't like each other's arguments.

I think, know, could be friendly just as long as you don't talk politics, but it's tough. I don't, I don't see an easy way out of this, or if there even isn.

[00:06:05] Shawn Powers: It's largely because the, you know, when, when we see the opposing view, for lack of a better frame of reference, um, it, it's, it's doesn't seem like there is any possible halfway point have a conversation, Right? I mean, if, if I say, um, I, I have liberal views, you say all liberals. Uh, support pedophilia.

do, how do we have a conversation? I mean, if, if that is your, know, that's the starting point for your I'm, I'm not sure how we, how we can go there and, and, you know, cause the other way too, if, if I say, you know, I, I disagree with. if somebody says, You know, I, I like that we are, uh, allowing so many immigrants in, and the other side says, That's because are a racist and, uh, everything that, uh, you believe is that anybody who's not white as human trash or what I mean, I.

It's difficult for me to frame the other side because I'm, you know, I'm liberal, but I'm trying to be fair in that it goes both directions in that we, we, turn each other into monsters. And so I, I, it's difficult to compromise because the, the, I think when we picture the idea of a compromise, we are giving up, uh, something that we think is right and, uh, accepting something from the other side.

But when the other side. In our side or in our views, unreasonable in every aspect. It's hard to find a middle ground. It's almost like the only way to have a conversation is to say, Okay. What third thing can we agree on? Because these two things, I think that's where the difficulty is. You know, and that's where the, you know, the radicalization of both sides and spreading politics further to the right and to the left.

don't. don't see the and this feels like, uh, an old school, Sean, on Reality 2.0 where, we just talk gloom with no hope.

[00:08:20] Katherine Druckman: Oh, Sean

[00:08:22] Shawn Powers: glad to bring it back full circle for I have no suggestions on how we fix this going forward.

[00:08:28] Katherine Druckman: Well, I think so. So going back to Jonathan Height, and I know apologies for eventually I'm gonna get his name wrong and call him hate, and I'm so sorry for that. Um, but one of, one of, you know, one of the things he, he puts out there, he points out is that obviously the, the social media communication tools, what I mentioned before, tend to favor extreme.

Uh, conversation. They, they favor and amplify the conversations that tap into fear and anxiety the most. And it, it, he, he also, you know, among other things, he mentions the psychological impact of younger people who went through their awkward years growing up with social media and how it they've developed in a different way than people our age.

but the point being is that when you start the conversation from a place, This deep, deeply held belief that is rooted in fear. How do you go forward? Because you've started such a disadvantage on both sides that it's so hard to come out of that. And I found myself, and this is interesting, I, I noticed while I was reading and uh, his article in the Atlantic and while I was listening to the YouTube video that I will link, I noticed that I even felt my own anxiety.

Digging my own positions into my brain. , I felt like a visceral reaction when he talks about having a reasonable conversation about covid precautions, for example, because I had strong feelings. I have a chronic illness that made me more vulnerable. And when you start talking about, well, you know, maybe kids should have been in school.

Sooner. And you know, and there's no evidence that that young children masking, you know, improved outcomes. And, and I understand that and I'm totally willing to read it, but viscerally I say, Oh my God, keep those filthy children away from me because I don't want them to kill me. So that, and I realize that's maybe not a reasonable position, but that's where my mind goes at some level.

And, um, It is awkward to admit that, that, and I, and I promise I'm willing to have a reasonable conversation, really. But yeah, so that, and that's where we're all coming from in some way. And, you know, and I, I wonder what we do now with, with the, our tools of communication being as they are, uh, doc mention something, you know, you, you have to maybe pick and choose who, who to follow and who, who to avoid, uh, to maintain your sanity.

I don't know how y'all, y'all feel about.

[00:10:55] Shawn Powers: yeah. Two, Well, I, I wanna interject things. Um, one, example think is an example of, a highly, uh, Conversation that could actually happen, right? Because you see the, some value, or at least understand the notion that perhaps children being in school was very beneficial to them.

So at least that's a position, right? I mean, you, and you that conversation and I think that you being like, Well, no, it, it's, you know, I'm gonna die. I think at, at least in that case, it's a conversation that could happen. know, that maybe you're not willing to compromise much in that regard, and

[00:11:36] Katherine Druckman: Right. But I'm willing to

[00:11:37] Shawn Powers: but, But at least the other side makes sense.

Or, Or has a,

[00:11:41] Katherine Druckman: Yes. Yes. And, and their, their hearts are in the right place. They're looking out for the interest and mental health of their children, and I completely understand that as well, and I respect it. I may never leave the house again, but That's okay.

[00:11:52] Shawn Powers: But that's different than, than the, the conversations that occur social media. And I think maybe one of the biggest issues is that, you know, we, we talk about how, how much we communicate with social media, but it. But the communication aspect of social media is almost like a, a side effect, right?

I mean, social media does not exist to help us communicate. Social media exists, to attract our eyeballs to whatever social media wants us to see and engage with so that we can make money for people. I, I think that, you know, it's almost like I could shovel my driveway with my flame thrower and. It would technically clear my driveway, but the collateral damage so severe that it's hard to consider my flame thrower, and I know audio podcast, but it's literally on the wall

[00:12:43] Doc Searls: a great, it's a perfect image.

[00:12:45] Shawn Powers: Yeah, and it's, um, you know, I can hardly consider my flame thrower a snow removal device, but that's kind of how we treat social media, uh, when we talk about it as a communication device because it's barely that. I mean, yeah, we use it to communicate, but it sure isn't what it's do. designed to attract our

[00:13:06] Katherine Druckman: was a.

[00:13:06] Shawn Powers: get us sucked in and.

[00:13:07] Katherine Druckman: Yeah, well it was a re originally, just a way to quickly share your status message. It was a stream, a feed of status messages from your friends. What are, what are you doing right now?

[00:13:19] Shawn Powers: Twitter in

[00:13:19] Katherine Druckman: definitely not overthrowing the government

[00:13:22] Shawn Powers: Yeah. Twitter, I, I remember Twitter had no, uh, no financial model. They had no, they did not make any money and they had at first no way to make money there. They just built a platform and then once they had everybody, Hooked, then they monetized. So

[00:13:39] Doc Searls: Well, they started in 2006, as did Facebook, and I remember. Both of those in different, in different ways. I mean, it, uh, Twitter started and I remember being introduced to it by E Williams who was, had been at, he started blogger with some other guys and not just guys. And then sold that to Google and was working at Google.

And then he left that and started something called Odio, I think it was with, uh, some other people at Biz Stone and, and Jack Dorsey, I guess. And, and the big thing was this, wasn't Twitter. Twitter was a side thing. It was just basically this messaging thing that they'd come up with. And. And it was simple and uncomplicated.

That's one reason it took off. It was only because they kind of gave it away or kind of it a little bit at South by Southwest and then it kind of took off from there. But he showed it to me before that they had no ambitions about it. It was not even the main thing they were doing. On the other hand, with Zuckerberg, Facebook spread from Harvard to just other universities and I was.

Um, doing something at U C S B at the time in Santa Barbara. so my first Facebook account was when I could only get at a university. I had it at, uh, U C S B. And then also in 2006 I had this thing going at Harvard also as a guest kind of. But I, I had access to I Ida Harvard email address so I could get in, cuz I had a Harvard email address and it was only for universities.

Then he decided, Or his team decided, no, they're gonna be for everybody. But I actually think they lucked into what they were doing as well. fact, they were against advertising. That was the big conflict between Zuckerberg and Eduardo, whatever his last name was, that was sort of immortalized, if you can call it that in the movie, uh, the social network.

And, but you know, to some, some degree, these guys, you. You know, just somehow landed on third base and somebody hit a single and he had a home run. You know, it's just, they, they lucked into it to some degree. And I say that with a great deal of respect, especially for Ev cuz he is a really good guy. I don't know Zuckerberg at all.

Um, so I can lose less love on him for sure. But, um, you know, there, I mean, William F. Buckley once said of another of a politician that he was destiny's. As a destiny's toddler. And I think, I think to some degree, you know, Zuckerberg is that, um, something that, Jonathan Height says about this. He compares, He compares, and I'm remembering this now, compares to what happened in 20 12, 20 13 to the tower of babel and that, that's what we have now.

We have a lot of babblers in many different languages as it were, who we're not communicating with each other. But I think it's been going on for a while. George Packer wrote a book called The Unwinding and Inner History of the New America, and this was back years ago at least, maybe farther, about how it's falling apart.

And he just basically tells about six stories in it. he's a great writer. Um, that's, kind of shows it as well. We're there's, I think there's a level of unhappiness. I'm gonna'. Pull age rank here in a way. Cuz this is not it's, just You know, I was born in 1947, right after the war.

My father was in World War ii. I grew up in a place I think everybody did, where everybody's dad was a soldier in World War II. Or was in the Merchant Marine or some other thing was involved in the war. Mothers also were involved in the war, and before that, they lived in a depression where they walked to school 20 miles uphill in both directions.

Right. You know, and had nothing but stories about that for which you could never top them because they'd been through shit you'll never, ever go through in your life. And we had, know, I mean, was no distance between anybody on certain things. Everybody agreed. The war was the right war. They all agreed that big was good because they were all employed by it in one way or another.

They agreed. I mean, this is the America that Trump wants to make great again. Is that, is the, the, the, It's not just mythical. There was a unity in the country at that time. You could go camping and there could be You know, from, from of a different race or from a different town or whatever next door, and you were gonna talk about the war, you're gonna talk about what, who were you with?

Where did you serve? And there was no, you know, everybody had hard times. You know, the, the depression was something to effect that almost everybody a bad way. And all, everybody had that experience. And we're two or three generations past that now. And there is no. Experience that we have now. The common experience is maybe the internet, but the internet is a place that's fractured us and put us all in this tower of Babel and made us stupid.

[00:18:50] Shawn Powers: So

we need an alien invasion. can unite around a global, uh, force to battle. Uh, so maybe, uh, we'll, we'll start a, a fake war of the world's thing to get everybody on board with, uh, you know, shooting Jupiter. I don't know, , and I don't to make light of it, but the, um, Yeah, I. I wonder, I wonder, Doc, you know, you talk about everybody was, um, on the same page.

I wonder, and I don't know if there's any way we can know this, is that true or, or did just the lack of, uh, easy, widespread, instant communication, did it mean that pockets of people were. You know, the smaller villages. I mean, two weeks ago we talked about, you know, like society been able to scale well.

was it just that everybody was in their own smaller groups that had some homogeny in, uh, worldviews that, uh, that made the difference?

[00:19:51] Doc Searls: No. and no. I think obviously everybody was, Everybody live in neighborhoods and you know, and in of various kinds, schools, um, There, there, but there were some just hugely major common experiences. Um, newspapers mattered and, you know, every city, every region had regional newspapers.

They had, mean, with television, I, I used to work in and, and, um, we worked with broadcasters who, who were every radio a TV station worked in something called an area of dominant influence in Adi Adi. All the counties that primarily watched television stations from here. know, it was for, it was the, the Richmond market.

It was the High Point, Winston Salem Market, the Spartanburg, Greenville, Asheville Market. and Greenville aren't that far apart, but Asheville is over a bunch of mountains. But they were in one, uh, area of dominant influence cuz they all watched Channel 13 from Nashville, you know, and this.

This was part of, you know, and, and for that matter, a more local area level, they wa they read the same newspapers. They all went and watched the same fireworks. They all rooted for the same teams. Um, and the rivalries were friendly. You know, you, you know, you were, you were for University of South Carolina, you're for Clemson.

But it was okay, know, I mean, you'd kinda root against the other team, but there was a friendliness to it. Um, I'm glad we still have sports, cuz you could still be friendly about that. But, we don't have, you know, everybody watched the CBS Evening News. Everybody not only listed Walter Cronkite, they, they watched, um, and Brinkley on nbc, you K Smith on abc. And that covered a fox was, didn't exist for most of that time, you know, and in many smaller markets, like in Santa Barbara, you had one TV station.

I was in, I was years away from the Santa Barbara at that time. But, so all got something like truth from one place and there was agreement on some big things. Even if we, you know, I, I was in the South for, in the sixties for the civil rights movement. There was gigantic disagreement about that stuff, but there's some things you did agree about and you had to watch this stuff.

You don't anymore there. The main, the mainstream media is complete myth. There was doesn't exist.

[00:22:18] Katherine Druckman: So I think, uh, that's actually a good point because I, I'm pretty sure this is mentioned in the, the Atlantic article, but the, the conversation around so social media or attributing a lot of today's problems to the rise of social media is actually predated by cable news. So, so there was another shift before, before the introduction of Facebook and, and Twitter, and that was a 24 hour news cycle cable dedicated cable news channels that didn't exist before.

When I, I am old enough to remember the days when we got our news at five and 10 or, or whatever it was, and 10. Um, and, and you got it in small doses and, and my parents' generation were the first. And yours was the first to see a war played out on TV over, over dinner where that was a completely new thing, but it was still in smaller doses than it is now.

The, the rating system was a bit different. You're, you know, it wasn't a bunch of dedicated news channels competing for ratings, and that, that of course shifted the the conversation quite a bit and, was maybe the, the instigator of a lot of the silos that then, um, social media has amplified, I think.

[00:23:24] Shawn Powers: And, and I think social media has almost like upped the horribleness, you know, in order of magnitude. But Doc, I, I think that what you, what you described is actually a fair. Representation of, and I'm, I'm going back ways before it ended up being, you know, what I, what I considered just pure evil. But, uh, like back in 2015 when goodhearted people were, were talking about Make America great again, I, I think that that picture that you said, I think that was the, what they imagined and, I.

Unfortunately, uh, you know, for a lot of people it was, it was a great time, but it was also, nobody ever talked, you know, I mean, there were also gay people then, and there were also transgender people. They just, that was not acceptable to I think that it was

[00:24:19] Katherine Druckman: living in fear.

[00:24:19] Shawn Powers: yeah, and, and I think that that's part of the big frustration with the, the idea of it used to be so great.

Well, Not if you didn't

[00:24:30] Katherine Druckman: not if you weren't a white dude affluent white at that.

[00:24:34] Shawn Powers: and, and I think that Doc Fairly, you know, said like, you know, it did go across, you know, like he talked about like, you know, you camp next to somebody who's a different race and it, and it wasn't, you know, this us and, and them thing, but I think that there was a lot of under, um, under their radar, uh, misery that nobody talked about.

You know, that it just, it existed. It was just not part of culture because it was, Taboo and sort of thing, you know? So I, I I don't, mean, we certainly couldn't go back to that exact picture.

[00:25:04] Doc Searls: No, we can never,

[00:25:06] Shawn Powers: And, I'm not suggesting that you, that you think that like Wal just, I I mean clearly I, I, you know, I know who you are and that's not what you're talking about, but I, I think, I think that's part of where somebody sees the, the good things that uh, back then, and.

Think that, and then it builds into how can we get there again? And unfortunately, uh, to get there again, to, to make the make America great again, quote unquote. Uh, well, it turns out we can, and it would be horrible if we tried. And unfortunately that's been proven, you know, if you try to make that happen, it means that, you know, like no more brown people, no.

You know, more, no more immigrants, no more, uh, you know, there's only two genders. All, all the things in here is where we get controversial, Sean. But, um, Yeah, I don't know. But I think that you, make a fair point that cable news was different because it didn't just re cable news. The 24 Hour News Network doesn't just report news.

It, it hypes. It hypes tragedy horror and badness and evil and, you know, its excitement nonstop. And once it's no longer excitement, that's no longer reported on, even if it's important. And then social media kind of upped the ante again and said, Not only are we going to, you know, do all this, you know, the things that are exciting and horrible and, and you can't look away from, but we're only gonna show you the things that we're only gonna show you, that we're only gonna show you the things that get you riled up and, ugh.

[00:26:32] Doc Searls: I, I wanna say a couple things real quickly. One is, I wanna be clear cause I think I wasn't clear enough that I do not by believe by any stretch that the idealized world of the fifties, and earlier or even later, that, um, is sort of behind the MAGA-myth. Um, Ozzy and Harriet, uh, Mayberry, um, You know, the, the, the big things that everybody agreed about in some ways were not all good things.

My point is not that that was good. My point is that there was, there was a lot more that everybody agreed about was a version of the world that, I mean, I, there were, there were people who were protestors in World War ii. My ex father-in-law was a conscientious objector a pacifist who sat.

And, and was terribly um, treated World War ii cuz he did not wanna fight. it, it wasn't entirely uniform, but there was general agreement about a lot of stuff. Um, the other is, I, I wanna give props to Ted Turner. What he tried to do with CNN in the first place with, with cable news, there was, there was an attempt to have, like, it was good to have 24 hour news I loved, um, Uh, headline news when, when CNN started with, with h, would, would, you know, headline news is now called h n or something like that, which is absolutely horrible now, at the beginning it was just like, Okay, just what the headlines is headline news.

And it was, I wouldn't call it great, but it was at least tried to be, neutral is not even the right word. Just you know,

[00:28:14] Shawn Powers: Informative.

[00:28:15] Doc Searls: useful and informative, and it just turns out that there's just a lot more in having. You know, talking heads and that are mostly on one side. You know, it's just tough,

[00:28:28] Katherine Druckman: Yeah,

[00:28:29] Shawn Powers: people to watch 24 hours a day, it has to be nonstop to the point where you

[00:28:35] Doc Searls: Right. It's all about

[00:28:36] Shawn Powers: gonna miss out on the end of the world, you know? And, and that makes, you know, happy and yeah, it's, everything seems to, uh, go to entropy, right? I mean, it, it, yeah.

[00:28:48] Doc Searls: And I like the idea of an alien innovation, by the way. I think that might, might bring us together. But then there was a, I thought that the, um, the, the don't look up movie from last year was great. And, and like I like the point

[00:29:01] Shawn Powers: horribly, wonderfully done.

[00:29:04] Doc Searls: Yeah. Is I,

[00:29:05] Katherine Druckman: depressing.

[00:29:06] Doc Searls: McKay is really good at that stuff.

And, and, um, but the, You know, I mean here, you know, the world could get together to deal with something that was world threatening, um, and, uh, and didn't , you know, and, and

it was really well done and just not respected. But it was, it was and, and, uh, I'm. And I, I, I'm depressed about that, but I, I have to say I'm, I'm act actually optimistic in the longer term.

I, I think that the, I think that sooner or later facts do matter. I think facts do win out. I think things that are beyond dispute, um, do help in the long run. And I do think, example, We still need government. You can hate the government all you want. We still need it. We need it. We need it to make things run.

We need We need business to, you know, we need, we don't necessarily need higher taxes. You know, there, there, there are economic facts that we can, there may be small in here and there, but we can find them to agree on there are, you know, regulatory frameworks that, that can work. Um, so I mean, I sooner or later that.

[00:30:28] Katherine Druckman: So speaking of regulatory frameworks and things that might work, I wondered if we could spend a lot, a little bit of time talking about, well, some of, some of Haidt's, proposed solutions, but also maybe some of our own. But I think it's interesting,

[00:30:42] Shawn Powers: invasion. That's

[00:30:43] Katherine Druckman: Alien Invasion. Okay, so that's, that's number one.

So he, he, he throws out a couple of things and, and one of them, Regulating social media and, and I would throw in so far the, the attempts at regulating social media have largely just been to protect against quote unquote censorship. And mostly just to ensure that certain right wing voices continue to have a voice, uh, with, with the laws.

And, well, Texas has one. I can't remember who else. Um, And, you know, I, I don't necessarily think they're addressing any problems. I, I, I don't necessarily think yet that they have made anything worse either, but, um, or so far, but I, I also wanted to, to mention something. That he brings up, which is something we've talked about before, and that is user authentication.

So, you know, he, he draws a comparison between banks and, and other industries that have know your customer rules.

[00:31:42] Doc Searls: Yeah.

[00:31:42] Katherine Druckman: so that people are forced. Yes, exactly. So, and we talked about this with Dave Huseby in particular because he has some ideas about how you could authenticate while still maintaining some anonymity.

Because I actually, you know, I agree with Dave that anonymity is also key to preserving democratic ideals and, and appropriate conversation and, and, you know, the conversations that move things forward instead of, you know, becoming stagnant. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think, I think, I think those are possibly worth talking about because disinformation bots and, Yeah,

[00:32:17] Shawn Powers: outside the U I think the, the privacy issue was a huge, uh, outside of the us I mean the US

its war. I mean, it's important here, but I mean,

[00:32:25] Katherine Druckman: So the examples that, that Dave used, and we've talked about this before, but the, the important ones are, it all boils down to the fact that political change and political progress in many cases has evolved out of safe spaces, right?

Protected private spaces where people can hash out political ideas, controversial idea. These sorts of things, and you have to have the privacy to do that, the privacy to, to, um, to make progress. I think, you know, people on, all, on both sides of the aisle would agree you we're, we're not going, we didn't get to the point where, We had marriage equality Without having the safe spaces to debate these things, we didn't get, you know, to the point of even forming our country, uh, without having the ability to anonymously publish controversial ideas.

However, the proliferation of disinformation bots obviously has exacerbated the problem of amplifying extreme and potentially harmful ideas. You know, you, you, you find the most extreme. Harmful, let's say, uh, vaccine disinformation and, and. You have the phenomenon of social proof when people, people are, uh, they have that idea reinforced when they see John 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, uh, tweeting, you know, retweeting misinformation, and then suddenly you're like, Well, I'm, I'm seeing it all over Twitter.

It must, you know, these vaccines must actually have 5G microchips in the, you know, so, so yeah, those are, that is a problem that could potentially be addressed by user authentic.

[00:33:58] Shawn Powers: I don't know if it would be completely dressed. I, I, I know that the bot's. Things along. But I, I also think that, um, just human beings would,

[00:34:09] Katherine Druckman: Well, so that's,

[00:34:10] Shawn Powers: efficiently, but also make those things happen.

[00:34:13] Katherine Druckman: exactly. Yes. It doesn't remove

[00:34:16] Shawn Powers: 5, 6, 7, it would be, you know,

[00:34:17] Katherine Druckman: an actual human. Yeah,

[00:34:19] Shawn Powers: My Aunt She, uh, Whoa. Shawns Aunt Bertha. Did you know that? And, he's trustworthy cuz he has green hair, so, yeah.

[00:34:30] Doc Searls: I don't, I I'm getting so I wouldn't recognize you without it, Sean. So there's an issue right there. You can , I'm not kidding. As like Sean is the green hair guy,

[00:34:38] Shawn Powers: Yeah, I think that's gonna be my thing. It used to be, you know, spiky hair, but now my hair's too thin to be that way. So now it's just gotta be green

[00:34:46] Doc Searls: And it's funny, we're, are close to getting a house here in, in Bloomington and it is in has, it happens it's like three narrow, lots in the middle. These are really small lots, but it's just sort of interesting. Has a pool in it. It is the only pool, so it's known as the house with the pool. Now this is not much bigger than a wading pool, quite honestly, but it's built in and it is a pool and everybody in the neighborhood knows that Oh yeah, it's the pool with the house of the pool.

The house of the pool. We're not sure we'll keep the pool, but as one's got the pool, so there you go. Distinguishing characteristics, which is off whatever topic you were on. What was that topic?

[00:35:23] Shawn Powers: don't even know.

[00:35:24] Katherine Druckman: Oh, well, a, I started with

[00:35:26] Shawn Powers: are more efficient at spreading this information, but I think will be able to do it even if we do have like, you know, the, uh, proof that it's an actual person, privacy or not, but, But I mean,

[00:35:39] Katherine Druckman: are charismatic.

[00:35:40] Shawn Powers: the, the bots it happen more, right?

I mean, more more ferociously, more targeted maybe. I don't know. I, I think that the, we talk about, uh, regulating, uh, social media and I, think, yeah, that's largely been on, you know, what is free speech, what is hate speech? And, you know, trying to regulate what can and can't exist on social media, uh, but.

I still think that there's a, there's another layer of that. Maybe it's addressed. But I think that the, the other layer of regulation would be to somehow make it not about, uh, a communication tool has an ulterior motive in and of itself, right. In and of itself. It wants us to stay there and engage with ads and, and all of that stuff.

And if we don't, If regulation doesn't fix that, I don't know how we stop it from, uh, skewing communication. Like, I mean, it's going to change how, uh, we send and receive information from each other the, the motive is not to help us communicate, but to, uh, manipulate us into spending money. Mic drop,

[00:36:48] Doc Searls: Yeah.

[00:36:49] Katherine Druckman: No that was good

[00:36:50] Doc Searls: Well, I'm not, I'm not sure. That every, you know, that everything is all about trying to make us spend money. I think, mean, I mentioned earlier that neither Twitter and our Facebook knew what their business was before they went into it, but that matter, nor did Google. I mean, I, I wrote a, I think a Linux journal story about this, that when I found out, I mean that I was, I visited Google at the time that they had just four geeks in a room who would come up with the idea The kind of advertising they started out with, which is like this all text thing on the right side of the page where, um, you know, the, the, the, the readers would vote on 'em by clicking on them and they would also auction them in a different kind of way at the same time. And, and it was kind of like they were at a point Where do you think we can make money with this?

You know, well now it's become the entire thing and they own a huge part of the entire ad tech stack, um, and infrastructure, and it's a very different system and it's not good. And there was a, there's a rocky there's a slippery slope. They went down on that. Um, but it didn't start there. They started with let's organize the world's information.

I think a difficult thing, going back to the identity topic that you brought up, Catherine, is that we have a lot of tacit understandings in the physical world around manners. For example, we're not, you know, and I've often brought this up on a broken record on this one, but where, you know when you never reach inside somebody else's clothing to plant a tracking beacon on them or try to invade their private spaces, but we could signal each other in in.

In gentle ways that are understood without being very But in the digital world, we have to program things and we have to be explicit. The tat works in the physical world, we don't have the tat very much in the, in the, the digital one. We have to have explicit things and that makes it hard.

That makes it hard to respect the stuff that's really subtle. That's, you know, like for example, that. The person who just flamed you is actually just somebody who would, if you met them, would be your neighbor or when you, or you might treat people online, Not you personally, anybody here, but a, I mean, in a third person way.

I, I, in fact, I know people who are just, who can be flames online and that's not how they are. But it's easy for them online. Right. And it's in part because in this weirdly world where they could get away with it. And. And they, they could get a cheap thrill out of that, that they don't get in the physical world, where that's a vulnerable human being with real expressions and flesh and blood breathing the same air you are and going to the same stores.

Um, and we, and I think it's gonna take a long time to work that out, but we will, logic, I don't know what it's gonna, what it's gonna take, but it'll be.

[00:39:44] Katherine Druckman: Yeah Yeah I I I think we will too I think that I think there are enough smart people out there that realize that there is a problem and you know there is something wrong with the way that we communicate right now and that there are actual consequences I think whether it's going to be content moderation or changing the way that that the the interfaces work or the algorithms work in order to change the way we interact for the better Something will work and some somebody will will find it in an incentive for for improving it That that's the real thing

Once the companies that that design these these platforms are incentivized to make it better they will

[00:40:27] Shawn Powers: I'm optimistic in the long term as well because, um, uh, we're, we're extremely adaptable. You know, human beings are amazing. I mean, you know, I talked about war the worlds earlier. if we go back to there, you know, that was radio and people were, they believed it, right? They believed it was actually happening.

It was a phenomenon or whatever. Um, that wouldn't happen. I mean, you know, on the radio, wouldn't I mean, if, if it was on the radio

uh, you know, we, there wouldn't be corroborating and that sort of thing. I just mean that, uh, you know, that that was the point where we were, where it technology had gotten a little bit ahead of us.

Uh, and I, I think that's where we are now. You know, I mean, I, I think that even, even what I see as the most evil, horrible view points, um, are. Due to a, a misunderstanding or shortsightedness or, um, fear or reasonable fear that has been, you know, taken, precedent and yeah, and, and kind of removed a person's, empathy, you know, for other human beings.

I'm optimistic long term. I think that it, it might, it might be rough for quite a while, but I, I think that we're gonna come out either side and, uh, we will, you know, our empathy and our, our humanity will, catch up with a technology. I'm trying to be optimistic.

It's unlike me in this podcast.

[00:41:55] Doc Searls: I, I, second that motion. I think it, yeah.

[00:41:57] Katherine Druckman: Yeah I like it We're smart We'll figure it out

[00:42:02] Shawn Powers: Or aliens will come, in which case

[00:42:04] Doc Searls: the aliens will come

and 

[00:42:05] Shawn Powers: and yeah, and shoot 'em with space lasers.

[00:42:10] Doc Searls: That sounds like fun.