Blockchain Revolution

Technology and Democracy: Not a Happy Story
How has technology affected democracy? Surprisingly, the story is mixed at best.
Television arguably degraded democratic discussion, turning what Al Gore called “the
marketplace of ideas”
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into a one-way dialogue. Add equally toxic cable news—
where talking heads win ratings by attacking opponents rather than discussing ideas—
and you’ve got stupefying battles of extremes. As the fictitious news anchor Howard
Beale in the film Network said, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this
anymore!”
So far the Internet hasn’t changed democracy for the better. If anything, with
increased surveillance and infringement of privacy on the pretext of national security,
democratic governments are behaving more like authoritarian regimes. We’d like to
focus on three particular challenges.
1.
Fragmenting Public Discourse
Al Gore hoped the digital age would reverse the tide of negativity eroding our basic
institutions. “The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible
marketplace for ideas is the Internet.”
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He was not alone. We have long argued that
as the Web extends in usage, resources, and connectivity, increased access to factual
information would improve the quality of public discourse.
However, the opposite seems to be occurring: balkanization of perspectives and
exploitation of the new tools by ideologues who organize into battalions. Today as
content production becomes more distributed and the sources of information and
opinion proliferate, anyone can present a certain view and attract a like-minded
audience, which may be small but may also be zealous.
The new communications and data analysis tools have also allowed ideologically
driven groups to hijack social and political debates. Both liberals and conservatives
are using them to create echo chambers that undermine the potential for compromise,
let alone consensus.
2.
Scaling Ignorance on the World Wide Web
Just as people can’t tell a person from a dog on the Internet, they can’t always discern
the truth. Conspiracy theorists popularize their antievidence views in days or even
hours,
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most recently those around the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
Consider that three in ten Americans now believe that human beings have existed

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since the beginning of time.
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And despite overwhelming scientific evidence that
carbon emissions threaten life on Earth, those with short-term vested interests have
effectively denigrated the science and blocked intelligent discussion, let alone action
plans. Those using the Web to further ignorance and denialism are outgunning
scientists and rationalists. Internationally repressive countries from Iran to North
Korea are creating private, restricted versions of the Internet for their citizens, making
the Web an ever more powerful tool to trump rationalism with ideology.
3.
Complicating Policy and Implementation
In the predigital era, enacting and enforcing policy was less complicated. Policy
specialists and presidential advisers had strong command of the issues. Today they
can barely keep pace with defining the problems, let alone crafting the solutions or
explaining them to the public. So bad is the problem that President Obama signed into
law the Plain Writing Act of 2010 requiring federal agencies to use language the
public can understand.
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Today, many unforeseen issues arise between elections. No government can
credibly assert that it has a voter mandate to take specific actions on all pertinent
issues. Moreover, governments lack sufficient in-house policy expertise on many
issues. So even if a government commissions an opinion poll to discern the public’s
view, the polling process doesn’t tap into the wisdom and insight that a nation’s
citizens can collectively offer.