really interesting article linked here, which talks about pages and posts, particularly in social media, that don't have hyperlinks being both dead and blind, incapable of connecting in a conversation with others.

I find this really important. More and more, as a faculty member teaching philosophy, I find myself wondering whether teaching students mostly how to write academic essays is really doing them a deep service. It helps them if they are going to write other academic essays, or go to grad school, or teach kids to write academic essays, but what other skills might we be emphasizing instead or alongside?

I'm trying to understand the part about including both of the sources from fivethirtyeight and Fox News. This sentence suggests that savvy readers will be able to filter through the bias in both of those. But not all readers will be that critical. Is it better to try to link to sources that are less clearly linked to (quoting from above) "emotions that exert some influence over the reader's interpretation of what follows ..."?

Wow, this is intriguing. I still remember vividly as an undergraduate learning about hypertext in the context of fiction. A grad student co-teaching a class I was taking on literature (don't remember the exact course) was telling us about this idea of fiction writing through hypertext and taking you down twisted paths that may be different from the paths other readers take. And it seemed utterly magical. That was around the late 80s/early 90s. How far we've come that the hyperlink now seem mundane.

I love the idea of revisiting the potential of the humble hyperlink!

the cynicism and polarization we see today

Interesting that these moves are mostly about credibility of sources. Though this one checks credibility not by staying on the page of that source, but by looking outwards and asking other credible sources about the source's reliability, etc.

Isn't this part of the question, though? Determining a reputable source? That is one category of the questions in ESCAPE, above. But I suppose there are some sources that are fairly generally agreed upon as reputable, even if all sources are prone to some bias or other.

Really interesting; I hadn't thought of this but it makes a lot of sense. Once you answer all those many, many questions, then what do you DO with all that information? How do you take it all in and come to some answer with that much data?

Their social reality is not the same. What about economic? Demographic?

Playing devil's advocate, how reliable was their report?

I see this as a two-way street. We want to join the conversation at the table, and to feel we will be heard. We also need to be open to listening to the opinions/ideas of the others at the table.

Yes! I find even when I know a person well, sometimes I miss tone. Just think how much worse it is when it is someone we don't know well and/or someone whose native tongue is different than ours!

What a terrible way to learn of his passing. I'm sorry for your loss.

A decade ago, when MySpace was still king, I did a research paper on social media and philanthropy. One of the interesting sources I used was the book Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. There is much I have forgotten, but one point he made that stuck with me is that "Six Degrees of Separation" has diminished to 2-3 with the advent of the internet and social media. He posited that number would shrink even further over time, which perhaps it has.

I feel like this is a two-edged sword, like most advancements. I personally am thankful to be able to keep in touch more easily with people I care about, regardless of their geographical location.

I have also found a community of other professionals whom I value on many levels - colleague, sounding board, and in some cases people I would label as "friend."

On the flip side, I am conscious of the fact that it is easy to enter an "echo chamber," where my virtual circle agrees with my opinions and I don't have to substantiate my point of view. I work to enter the lairs of other viewpoints, to keep an open mind, and to enter into civil discourse.

I think this is a great goal. Another "literacy" I work to develop in my teen students is to dive below the surface. It is easy for them to find valid surface information about a topic, and weave it together into a coherent, credible story. However, I struggle to get them to investigate further. They will report (correctly) that "B campaigned for G to happen." However, when asked "Why did B feel it important to campaign for G?" I often get blank stares. I just keep asking questions.

Agreed. So how does the highly polarized US reduce this, and begin to find common ground?

Yes! Curiosity, combined with lively, respectful debate.

I think a lot of that is happening right now with Trump. He is deflecting the American public into checking facts while the bigger issues are quietly being unattended in the background.

This is important: the idea that the internet will give voice to the marginalized is undermined by the "free speech" model being used on many tech platforms.

I didn't know this...it fits so well. In my limited experience with FB I felt like it was still a place where one was trying to be "liked" (literally).

Is there a way to use these platforms against such purposes? I have gotten off of FB because I wasn't getting value out of the algorithms (they were just annoying to me), but I still use Twitter because I think I can engage with it in a way that doesn't have to support or promote polarization or problematic discussions in other ways. Can we resist the polarization from within?

It does help that I use a Twitter app that doesn't involve any algorithms, no ads, no "Moments" (I don't even really know what those are...I just heard the name and briefly did a web search).

Still, given that these platforms only stick around if they are able to be profitable, and polarization (among other things) drives profits, the platforms themselves could never be used on a grand scale for something else; if they weren't being used as intended by those funding them, if profits weren't being made, then the platforms would cease to exist.

Been slowly moving away from Twitter to Mastodon...still stuck on Twitter sometimes though. And I don't know what else is available for videos besides YouTube!

I'm sad to admit it, but I didn't really get this until reading this post. So, I'm glad for the post, but sorry for my own previous ignorance. I think I kind of vaguely got it, but not deeply until now.

Great question and thought experiment .... I wonder that, too. As a white male, though, I would have trouble thinking through that experiment, since my observations would be my own bias.

Facebook? Or Facebook's algorithms? Or is there a difference?

And yet, we're not naive, I don't think. I think we're hopeful. (or is that just being naive with a bow tie on?).

Buying this ASAP

HEAR HEAR!

Divide and rule works in every sector of society, but education is the sector charged with reproducing the social order.

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass

http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress

I worked for twenty years in Santa Clara, California, beside people from around the world. Some bosses were conservative, some liberal, some libertarian. Some workers were conservative, some liberal, some libertarian and some were anarchist freaks like me. After five years in a four school community college district and three years attending conferences and institutes, I haven't experienced much intellectual diversity. Just lots of liberal identity groups fighting over state, corporate and non-profit resources. My education is self financed by the shared profits from the glass shops in Santa Clara where I did the most technologically advanced glassblowing in history. What does that make me? https://www.wired.com/2016/04/heads-jesse-jarnow-excerpt/

Vulture Capitalists are the segment of the NeoLiberal project that are using the technology developed in "The Valley of Hearts Delight" to destroy democracy and hollow out all financial institutions. Attributing their behaviour to "Silicon Valley" disappears the true entrepreneurs (and the military industrial complex and the human potential movement) and the workers that created the technology, the majority of whom were Hispanic and Asian women.

As are every institution in America; including Colleges and Universities.

Hi Chris

One good anecdote deserves another. ;-)

"Ben Gross is a legendary civil rights and union activist in San Jose, California and the surrounding Silicon Valley.<br> ... In 1948, Gross left Arkansas for the first time when he was inducted into the U.S. Army. After his discharge a year later, he moved to Richmond, California, and went to work for the Ford Motor Company. In this capacity, he joined UAW Local 560 and immediately became active in union politics. In 1950 he became the first African American elected to Local 560's bargaining committee. In that capacity he was responsible for handling grievances at Ford’s Richmond plant. Gross’s success in this position led to UAW President, Walter Reuther appointing him as Local 560’s housing committee chairman in 1954. Gross was responsible for making sure that Local 560 workers—regardless of race—had comfortable and affordable housing when Ford relocated its plant from Richmond to Milpitas (near San Jose) in 1955. To ensure that goal, Gross and other union leaders created the Sunnyhills cooperative development, the first planned interracial community in America sponsored by a labor union. By the 1950s Gross extended his union activism into the civic arena. In 1961 Gross, with UAW backing, became the first black city councilman in Milpitas. His election received national attention when he was profiled in Look and Life magazines. Then in 1966 Gross was elected mayor and reelected again in 1968. At the time he was the only black mayor of a predominately white town in California."

Sources: Herbert G Ruffin II, Uninvited Neighbors: Black Life and the Racial Quest for Freedom in the Santa Clara Valley, 1777-1968 (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Publishing, 2007); and “Sunnyhills and the Life of Ben Gross” (Unpublished interview conducted on December 11, 2008 at UAW headquarters, Detroit, MI); Robert O. Self, American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Sunnyhills United Methodist Church, Sunnyhills United Methodist Church: A History, 1957-1982 (URL: http://www.gbgm-umc.org/sunnyhills/history.htm).

from http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/ben-gross-1921

From local newspaper's timeline:

1953 - Ford Motor Co. announces plans for a new 160-acre, $50 million-dollar assembly plant employing 4,000 in unincorporated Milpitas. The plant opens in 1955 and will produce such cars as the ill-fated Edsel, the popular Mustang, the subcompacts such as the Pinto, Comet, Falcon and Escort, and pickups. The factory closes in 1983 after producing 4.7 million vehicles.

1954 - In an effort to stave off annexation by San Jose, the community votes to incorporate Jan. 26, 1954.

Construction of four new subdivisions begins: Sunnyhills, Milford Village, Sylvan Gardens and Milpitas Manor. To accommodate the housing needs of Ford’s multiracial workforce, Sunnyhills becomes a model of residential development.

New business construction boom on Main Street: bank, appliance store, medical center and restaurant.

1961 - San Jose’s efforts to incorporate Milpitas is soundly defeated at the polls by a vote of 1,571 to 395. The 1776 Minutemen symbol adopted by the anti-incorporation movement will become the city seal.

1962 - The community’s early ethnic and racial diversity will be reflected in the election of public officials. Milpitas elects Ben Gross, one of the first African-American city council members in the county. Gross will also serve as mayor.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2007/02/06/milpitas-a-look-back/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Politics_(book)

divide and conquer. Currently reading The Iron Heel, which describes similar strategies, based on profession rather than race.

History, sociology, psychology, philosophy - all of these lenses are important. Engineering and economics without humanities leads to Skynet.

Six years later, do we worry less or more? At what point does it become structurally unfixable?

Improving society could improve the internet. Whichever ends one approaches it from, the effort to improve has to be active and intentional. A laissez faire approach accentuates the negative as much as the positive.

I'm not sure that monetization was something that the creators of the internet were considering. It's at the heart of capitalism certainly, but that's something that came to the web later.

On one hand, transparency lets us see what's wrong. On the other, bringing the dark and underground out into the open changes the nature of what is considered acceptable speech.

A telephone is a personal device, or in the case of the old school landline, a family device. We get to exercise some control over it, although it can also be used to spy on us. Online social spaces, mostly, are something different. They are not our spaces, under our control, but environments built so others can profit off of us. Where we can be "happy, and controlled."