This.
"Only a stubborn technology utopian can now argue that social networks, playgrounds for rage and virtue signalling, have elevated political discussion. Personally, I think they have been catastrophic for rational debate, hollowing out the middle ground."
Yes. Oh, so much. Forget about the swarm intelligence, the democratization of everything through digital whatevers. Compromises, discussions, diplomacy, all these things are positively absent. Not only in social media, but also in article comments (m'kay, sort of social-media-ish, I guess). ElReg is mostly an exception - except when it comes to politics (only recently, please for the love of $DEITY, stop it), or OS choices with the overzealous Linux-evangelists, the fanbois, MS slavedroids (I'm used to that, usually ignore it, sometimes read it for entertainment).
Lucky me: heading for the official drinking soon, need that. What a week.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
