And it is good to reconfirm that when it comes between democracy and vaccines you will side against democracy because you think it trolls Republicans. But we already knew that about you.

The highest-value comments are worthy of blogging, and so tend to be actual blog posts on other blogs.

My gut instinct is to think public discourse is a bit like a feedback loop. In this case the quick-but-soft combination is a good thing: control systems are more stable if they have short time delays and no more amplification than is needed.

But I except that speed is no help if the feedback has the wrong sign. E.g. tweeters one-upping each other to display outrage would be an example of that kind of positive feedback loop.

But maybe not a perfect idea. I’ve noticed that people can get incredibly wound up emotionally just by exchanging a few emails. You’d think almost empty screens with a few lines of text would promote cold rationality, but for reason it fails. I can recall being absolutely furious with people on various academic e-lists back in the 1990’s, convinced that my justified rage would last forever … and then regarding the same folks as friends and allies a few days later when some other tempest blew up. And I recall being warned — not entirely facetiously — that people could fall in love over the internet in a couple of hours.

My suspicion is the very lack of interaction with others — our inability to hear their voices and see their expressions — screws up our ability to decipher their written words. Which perhaps explains why informality has become the internet norm. We NEED all those emojis and screwed up punctuation and misspellings to convey the nuances of our conversations. Who knows, we may even need Friday Feline Fotos!

It’s intriguing to wonder how life might have gone if back in the 1960’s the communications industry had pushed video phones rather than email.

Better reporting. please!