Friday, March 31, 2017

Internet - a key to unenlightenment?

Key of a medieval church in the area of Aspropotamos, Greece

The internet promotes consumer freedom. It gives us all the information we want. Unfortunately it can also suppress the freedom of the citizen, by limiting exposure to the full range of information citizens may not want — but absolutely need. The ability to customise our informational environment, delivered by social media, makes it less likely that citizens will come across information that would change their minds or have chance encounters with perspectives different from their own. The epistemic prisons we build for ourselves do worse than lock us into the views we currently have, while protecting our dumbest ideas from revision.

Robert Armstrong [The age of unenlightenment, Financial Times, 24 March 2017]

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