An Absence of Mind in the Hindu Kush

Steyn Online ^ | 5 Feb 018 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

~I commented recently on Tucker that I preferred the Internet of a decade ago to the increasingly totalitarian social-media cartel of today: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, feels the same way:

I think that the old blogosphere was superior to "social media" like Twitter and Facebook for a number of reasons. First, as a loosely-coupled system, instead of the tightly-coupled systems built by retweets and shares, it was less prone to cascading failure in the form of waves of hysteria. Second, because there was no central point of control, there was no way to ban people. And you didn't need one, since bloggers had only the audience that deliberately chose to visit their blogs.

The Internet of the post-9/11 years already seems like a lost Golden Age. Twitter in particular seems to have no purpose other than cascading "waves of hysteria". I mentioned on air both Facebook's viral snuff videos, and the suicide of a Canadian porn actress after a Tweetstorm of homophobia accusations from LGBTQWERTY types who subsequently gloated over her passing. "Social media" plays a role in more deaths than, say, America's supposedly all-powerful "white supremacist" movement. But, unlike the latter, nobody seems bothered about the former.

[Rummyfan]

[robroys woman]

I created a twitter account six or seven years ago. I tweeted a few times and haven’t been back.

[littleharbour]

My father would have never understood Twitter (I barely do). He did however once threaten to smash my Cirwin Vega “woofers and weepers (tweeters)” when I was playing Deep Purple too loudly and making his room shake. :)

[miss marmelstein]

So why do Steyn (who I love!) and Tucker Carlson rail against social media but use it every day to promote themselves, their books and their shows? Color me confused.

[huldah1776]

That’s why FREE REPUBLIC is so important.

[printhead]

Probable the same reason why Willie Horton robbed the banks
:^)