“News” is a very nuanced thing. Any news report already biases the facts, often without trying: different newspapers can state the same event in unique ways. And memes completely remove the nuance. So they are no longer “news”, they are a one-off joke about some complex thing in real life.
Don’t get me wrong I am the same as you, many news items I first hear via memes. But this is no way to learn about the world. I worry that our ability to digest and understand nuance is atrophying, at least in North America where I’m from.
I would say our ability is being digested by current tech, specifically LLMs, and that disengaging from/relating to one another more directly is a crucial first step in slowing or reversing that process
Agreed. Small talk seems insignificant but it’s real. Meeting folks who are different than you and seeing how they view the world is important. The public square and all that
“News” is a very nuanced thing. Any news report already biases the facts, often without trying: different newspapers can state the same event in unique ways. And memes completely remove the nuance. So they are no longer “news”, they are a one-off joke about some complex thing in real life.
Don’t get me wrong I am the same as you, many news items I first hear via memes. But this is no way to learn about the world. I worry that our ability to digest and understand nuance is atrophying, at least in North America where I’m from.
I would say our ability is being digested by current tech, specifically LLMs, and that disengaging from/relating to one another more directly is a crucial first step in slowing or reversing that process
Agreed. Small talk seems insignificant but it’s real. Meeting folks who are different than you and seeing how they view the world is important. The public square and all that