Hi Urs!

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us!:) 

Your literature professor had a really nice approach to teach the students. It seemed like he cared a lot about his students and wanted them to become critical thinkers. 

I agree with your point that every coin has two sides. The same argument could be made about fire: when our ancestors discovered fire, it allowed them to cook food but also burn settlements of their enemies. And most subsequent discoveries like the wheel, print, steam or internal combustion engines brought about positive and negative aspects to life.

The current state of technology allows us to do many amazing things like connecting with people from all over the world, learning without going to school and so on. But it also makes us more tribal, lazy and angry. 

What's different about this most recent change however is that for the first time in history a small group of rather smart people is able to control the minds of millions using machine learning algorithms all for the sake of feeding this insatiable beast that is the advertising industry. The ads business model requires that users spend as much time on websites as possible. ML algorithms drive users into echo chambers by offering content to the users that suits their views but doesn't challenge them. There's a really good documentary on Netflix "The Social Dilemma" that describes the problem beautifully. 

Another problem is that modern technology is very efficient at providing people with dopamine kicks. Using fire, reading books or printing pamphlets and driving cars requires at least some effort, but watching mindlessly endless videos on Tiktok doesn't.. It seems like people are "amusing themselves to death" as Neil Postman put it once. For the first time in history, people are overwhelmed with so much entertainment that it makes them content in the short run, but makes their life meaningless in the long run..

I really hope that this will change and we'll start realizing that this way of life leads to nowhere. Perhaps, small platforms like Keenston will be uniting groups of people around some distinct meaningful goals and the influence of large platforms that use ads business models will gradually wane...

Sasha