{"id":3535,"date":"2025-05-10T14:05:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T21:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/?p=3535"},"modified":"2025-05-10T17:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T00:48:20","slug":"fixing-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/fixing-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWhen angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry a hundred.\u201d Thomas Jefferson.

\u201cMove fast and break things.\u201d Mark Zuckerberg<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, I explain how to fix social media, the internet, and the polarization of America. To be clear, I don\u2019t expect the fix to happen, not without divine intervention that I am not presumptuous enough even to hope for. But I do hope I can show that the \u201clike\u201d button is pernicious. I don\u2019t especially like ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence, but they are only a symptom of the underlying problem with the computer network, the so-called Internet, that has become the nervous system of our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My argument requires a long introduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was one of the constructors of the ubiquitous computer network that connects nearly everyone today. I played only a small part, but I think my attitudes were shared by almost everyone on the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had one goal: connectivity, to connect every programmable computer to every other programmable computer on the planet and share all their resources\u2014 data, programs, storage, and sensors into the \u201creal world.\u201d When we on the eastside of Seattle saw the level of a pot of coffee in a lab at MIT in real time, we declared a triumphant milestone. In 2025, we are outdoing ourselves. We are now developing interplanetary computer connectivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to say the greatest mistake of the 1990\u2019s was ignoring security. Using computer connectivity for malice, fraud, and theft never occurred to us. Cybercrime is rampant today, but so is the computer security industry. I\u2019m not as worried as I might be because they cancel each other out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I think that our greatest failing was lack of attention to humanity, the engine that ultimately drives the computer network. Of course, the computer network can be no better than the people who use it; that should be obvious. I think we in the 1980s and 90s realized this, but shoved it to the back of our desks. What did not occur to us, at least not to me, was that the network had the capacity to make humanity worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karl Marx said that changing relationships between workers and the means of production deeply affected society, which is the basis of his economic determinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s about as far as I go with Marx, although I used to soothe our infant daughter to sleep by reading Das Kapital<\/em> to her in German. I don\u2019t have my copy anymore. She may have thrown up on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes to the means of dissemination of knowledge are even more significant than changes to the means of production. I quote Phil Christman from another context<\/a> in which he says that improvements in communication are not all good: \u201cpeople panicked over television (Fox News alone proves them right) and that people thought radio would rot your brain (it rotted Germany\u2019s) or that print would kill memory (which it did, that\u2019s like Media Ecology 101).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, let\u2019s get down to exactly how the computer network has made humans worse. I still believe connectivity is good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I, an engineer without special resources, can broadcast my thoughts to anyone who cares to listen. This post on Vine Maple Farm<\/a> and my Substack<\/a> is an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I, and everyone else, have greater freedom of speech than any previous generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As little as twenty years ago, this freedom did not exist. Today, anyone can post on social media like Facebook or Bluesky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet why has our free public discussion become so crabbed and polarized? Is it simply an example of \u201cone bad apple spoils the barrel\u201d? The computer network puts more bad apples in the world\u2019s barrel and therefore there is more spoilage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s oversimplification. Growing up on a farm, I recall that a bad apple spoils a barrel of apples but a bad walnut does not spoil a bushel of walnuts and a bad potato does not spoil a  sack of potatoes. The difference is that spoiling apples produce a gas, ethylene, that spoils any fruit in its proximity. No gas, no spreading spoilage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spoiling gas of the computer network is thoughtless propagation. The easiest and most thoughtless propagation is to hit the \u201clike\u201d button. \u201cSharing\u201d is a close second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have to stop and think long enough to type out a comment like \u201cI agree! Chopping up starving children in poor countries for pet food is a grand idea, \u201d and signing your name. Instead thoughtless \u201clikes\u201d and \u201cshares\u201d seep out like ethylene from a bad apple, perhaps not as egregiously as my example, but each thoughtless propagation is a missed opportunity to add another morsel of humanity to the message, and that is the tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of a vast community, each member adding to soaring cathedral choir, the computer network promotes thoughtless, sterile, and soulless anonymity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry a hundred.\u201d Thomas Jefferson. \u201cMove fast and break things.\u201d Mark Zuckerberg In this post, I explain how to fix social media, the internet, and the polarization of America. To be clear, I don\u2019t expect the fix to happen, not without divine intervention that I am … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Fixing Social Media”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,362,410],"tags":[447],"class_list":["post-3535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-future","category-government","tag-internet-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3535"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3545,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3535\/revisions\/3545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}