Since 2010, when social media took over the internet, the hyped new technologies—think cryptocurrency, self-driving cars, the metaverse, the whole gig economy—have generally turned out to be scams. Social media are not high technology in any meaningful sense: they are mid-twentieth-century behaviorist manipulation done at scale. They hinder scientific thought. Elon Musk’s version of Twitter is anti-evidence and pro-conspiracy, proposing a new dark age of charismatic leadership and magical thinking. The idea of technology itself has to be rescued from the cycle of propaganda-driven investment
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