cody on Nostr: When I think social media balkanization I think demarcation, along echo chambers like ...

When I think social media balkanization I think demarcation, along echo chambers like Parler, Truth Social, etc. Idk if that is good - but I don't think that's what's you're getting at. The creation of those channels highlights how information follows entropic forces more than just sociopolitical ones. Information, whether true/fake/political/etc. just wants somewhere to go. From that perspective, scale within a closed system is inherently unstable because entropy augers toward chaos. The fragility of those systems is exacerbated by forces like profit interests, political interests, safety concerns, etc. What's going on right now feels to me like a way to allow information to be channeled in a more stable way without the fragility created by the weight of those centralized interests. In the aggregate, these more balkanized platforms are still creating the infrastructure for information/media to scale as much as it is allowed.

Sociopolitically speaking, I think efforts to do things that further decentralize social media access are good for people who live in worlds where these more fragile systems distort reality (however you want to define that, but basically I'm just saying people should be on the same page), or where they're dispossessed of the information or means to really live in an equitable and free society. 


But if my original assumption about information entropy is correct, continued balkanization toward individual sovereignty over information isn't really a question of good or bad, because it feels like it's inevitable. What's good or bad is going to be determined by what people do with the freedom to create information, and that's a much bigger discussion imo.