I like the post, and if you write novels like you write comments I look forward to reading yours.

Regarding my liberal college friend, my interaction with her didn't change when I deleted facebook, and it didn't change when I brought it back to use as a way to coordinate events between large groups of people. At this point I do call her friend in the same sense that one calls a person you speak to once maybe every four months on an idle bus ride and in the process you end up arguing that shame tactics are ineffective.

The large problem that I have noticed, and bear in mind I do believe I'm one of the younger members here at the age of 21, is that a great deal of people my age begin to act in the outside world like they would in facebook. I've noticed this especially when having historical arguments or arguments about technological progress.

Its a style of debate I really first noticed, and then applied retrospectively to a few other debate I have had in the past, which is absolutely infuriating to argue against, because of how it deals with information. The argument I am speaking about was about the inevitability of technological progress, a view that I disagree with based on my observations of how humanity has led its existence. My point was that technological progress is never a guarantee, that the vast majority of inventions are done as short term solutions to problems, and that when you begin to apply a model of continual progress towards a predetermined goal, you overlook the complexity of the process of invention.

The steam engine was not created in order to facilitate an Industrial Revolution or bring about wage labor, it was done to bring factories closer to cities because it was more economical. It was done because coal was becoming cheaper, and because the technology to allow for a much more powerful piston had been recently discovered. The computer was originally designed to make calculations easier for AA guns, because they had to track fast moving objects and needed an equally fast way of doing math.

The argument was specifically about electric cars, and I took up the stance that a super battery that could last 3000 miles was unlikely to occur without major changes. I still think the idea is too fundamentally different from how society functions, the travel on demand society that we live in today, to catch on, and the progression to that 3000 mile battery is still not guaranteed, and it is not guaranteed to be cheap.

The position my friend, who is smart in most other fields, took was that it would happen because technological progress happens. Because it has happened before in other cases, ergo it would happen again. Very simple logic, very hard to argue with, and easy to repeat. That is the style of facebook arguments. Simple things that can be rehashed because they are easy to understand, but contain very little depth of thought. And its hard to argue with because its so damned frustrating; its like swimming against a current, because the logic reinforces itself without use of further evidence.

This is perhaps a bit premature of an evaluation how society is changing, but I have noticed it. The evidence is anecdotal, but still, it might as well be out there.