A:
So, all day I've been researching the stimulus package, and recovery.gov and all of that.
B:
Sure.
A:
And I've come to the conclusion that democracy and the internet are inherently incompatible.
B:
How so?
A:
Well, at its core, democracy requires some minimum amount of coherent conversation and debate. There doesn't have to be a lot of it, and there can be a lot of noise, but there is some lower threshold. And that threshold right now isn't being cleared. It turns out, and this was never an issue before, but it turns out that there needs to be at least the possibility of physical harm to keep people reasonably on track and sensible. Deep down, you have to know that if you say something too stupid, or too mean, or too dishonest, there is at least SOME chance that someone will walk up and kick you in the crotch. Not metaphorically, but literally, someone can actually come up and just punch you in the back of the head if you are being too stupid. And we never realized this was a constraint that people needed before, because it was just always there.
B:
But take it away...
A:
Exactly. The internet takes it away, it makes you completely disembodied, and you know at a gut level that you can say whatever you want, and nothing bad will happen to you. Nothing. There is not a small chance of some negative consequence, there is an exactly zero chance. So there's no incentive to not go completely off the rails, discussion and debate go away, and democracy dies.
B:
Thank you, Reader Comments section.