Is social media destroying politics? #shorts

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-01

[00:00:00]Is it social media that's destroyed the politics that we've known?

[00:00:04]It's a central piece of it. Maybe let's back up a tiny little bit. I think capitalism is the most glorious economic system the world has ever known.

[00:00:14]Capitalism is not the same as consumerism.

[00:00:17]And one of the things about the largess that post-1945 global capitalism has created for really rich American middle-class folks is a sense that maybe more and more consumption can make you happier, and that's definitely not true. And yet, we're really rich, and so we're distracted by consumerism. And one side effect of consumerism is pure segregation. It's I think one of the fundamental things that's wrong in America is young people don't know old people, and old people don't get to serve young people. There's a lot that's glorious about being 13 or being 17 or being 21, but one pretty terrible thing would be to be 15 or 17 and think 15 and 17-year-olds have wisdom cuz 15- and 17-year-olds don't have fully formed frontal lobes. They don't have wisdom.

[00:01:01]And one of the things 15- and 17-year-olds need is 60-year-olds and 80-year-olds in their life. And so, peer segregation is I think a fundamental sociological problem in America, and social media is like dumping gas on that, where we create incredible short-term incentives to do and think and kind of bubble yourself into something that implies only your narrow demographic cohort or identity politics or market niche is where life is lived.

[00:01:34]And so, I do think social media is one of the fundamental problems that we're dealing with right now. Right now, almost all politicians' impulses and incentives, because of social media or because of just the cheap barrier to entry to any kind of media, is to go narrow but deep and to do a lot of fan service. It doesn't encourage a lot of um self-scrutiny. It doesn't encourage a lot of humility. It doesn't encourage someone saying, "You know what? I used to believe this, but I listened to somebody else, and I realized I was wrong, and I've learned this new thing."

[00:02:05]There's There's no audience for that.

[00:02:07]You want to just say more of we're definitely right and they're definitely wrong, and that tribalism makes us pretty stupid.