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Adding Twos

Sobering read on the future of western democracy. The ending captures the essence of what ails us:

..in the future, as we cease to relate to each other according to the grand narratives that once held society together, we may be unable to share a “common reality”.

“That may well be when democracy dies,” according to Zuckerman. “If we have a sufficiently divergent fact pattern that we can’t agree on a single reality to try to collectively govern.”

What applies to society at large scale is manifesting itself in smaller scale units like family, school, workplace and so on. Not everyone in your family sees the same version of political reality and at some point that divergence seeps into other areas of your life leaving you feeling disconnected from each other. The same is true for larger units of people who traditionally shared common ties. 

You now have to to seek out those who are wearing the same style of blinders as you are so you at least see the same things and have some common foundation. The more long-tail the choices grow the fewer people one can hope to find with the same answer to what is two plus two. It is no longer an expectation that it will be universally four. If I am three kind of person, I want to be around other three-ers not six-ers and five-ers. There can be infinity of lies and with it as many problems. 

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