Hank: content platforms will be seen as as significant a shift as the printing press (2021)
prediction · status: unresolved · last event: repeated (2024-11-22) · owner: Hank
In January 2024 Hank said the future would see content platforms as a shift as significant as the printing press. In November 2024 he argued again that the world was fractured by circumstances unseen for more than 500 years.
About: social media, printing press
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-10-07 | predicted | Hank used to think his belief that the social internet was as big a deal as the printing press was irrational; now he thinks it entirely rational, even common. | We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong 00:04:44 |
| 2024-01-05 | predicted | Hank believes the future will see the advent of content platforms as significant a shift as the printing press, though he might be wrong. (hedged) | I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts 00:03:58 |
| 2024-11-22 | repeated | Hank argues his eight-year-old son, probably alive in 2100, will have a historically weird life in a world fractured by circumstances unseen for more than 500 years. | Populism, Media Revolutions, and Our Terrible Moment 00:00:29 |
What is said about it
10 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank thinks the most disruptive human technologies are communications technologies, not weapons: radio was great for the Nazis, and the printing press fractured the Catholic Church. — 00:04:26
- 2024-01-05 · I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts — Hank says humanity's biggest shifts come with shifts in communications technology (speech, storytelling and plays, radio, the printing press), and such revolutions always bring societal upheaval. — 00:03:58
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank says platforms, viewers and he himself are all bad at this: it is a revolution in human-to-human communication and a baby, with no systems yet for many-to-many decentralized communication. — 00:04:55
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — ask: Hank says some thoughtful people need to engage seriously with social media, and viewers may be among them. — 00:05:47
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank was impressed by Frances Haugen's congressional testimony and the questions, which showed deeper understanding; maybe useful conversations are starting. — 00:05:56
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank says it is easy to say Facebook sucks, which he does all the time, but much harder to imagine how to make it better. — 00:06:16
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank says Facebook is going to keep existing; Zuckerberg pulling the plug would be a 'hundo P baller move' but seems unlikely. — 00:06:23
- 2021-10-07 · We're Thinking About Facebook Wrong — Hank says Zuckerberg has many incentives to believe Facebook does more good than harm, so he will probably believe it whether or not it is true, which Hank does not know. (hedged) — 00:06:37
- 2024-01-05 · I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts — Hank says the pandemic left many people socially isolated for a long time, and social isolation is very bad for people. — 00:04:42
- 2024-01-05 · I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts — Hank's optimistic take: considering those huge twin shocks, most people have actually handled them fairly well, and there are signs we may be healing a bit. — 00:04:42