r/allthequestions • u/Small_Parfait_3027 • 7h ago

Random Question 💭 Has the internet always not valued nuance?

I'm wondering if it's gotten worse or if I've gotten older and just realized it more as I've matured.

1 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

2

u/BigDaddyTheBeefcake 7h ago

I have shoes older than the internet. What is "always"?

1

u/Small_Parfait_3027 7h ago

You think people in general don't value nuance?

2

u/BigDaddyTheBeefcake 7h ago

They never have. Not for 10,000 years.

1

u/Adventurous_West2 7h ago

Do you think people are being served nuance on the Internet?

1

u/Small_Parfait_3027 6h ago

Maybe at one point I thought it wasn't as reactionary?

1

u/Nomiknowsme 7h ago

Go to non Americentric sites or better yet non Anglo websites and it's millions of times better

It's mostly just the Americentric side of the web that has lost the ability to understand nuance and that's a response to the values and norms of the dominant culture

2

u/PersonalAnswer8664 7h ago

You mean like how certain political parties expect you to be in 100% lockstep with their dogma or else you’re a racist, bigot, Nazi, fascist etc.? Yes I too miss the days when people could just agree to disagree.

1

u/Various-Effect-8146 7h ago

People have never valued nuance. It is often too difficult to value it and much simpler to just pick one side or the other on a particular issue or topic.

1

u/SouthernSteak7254 7h ago

The internet values it, but humans dont

1

u/Massive_Shill 6h ago

There was a noticeable decline in the quality of online discourse around the time knowing how to use a computer stopped being a prerequisite for accessing the internet.

1

u/whitswhisper 1h ago

That's actually a really smart take. I've always thought the shift happened around social media going mainstream but the computer literacy angle makes a lot of sense. Makes you wonder what the next barrier removal will do to discourse.

1

u/DramaticFeed6522 🇺🇸 United States 5h ago

Popular sites and social media don't.

You often have to do your own deeper research for nuance.

1

u/hangender 5h ago

Used to be better. But nowadays people only see things black and white.

0

u/fearfulNobody 7h ago

It's gotten much worse. All the low quality information thrown at people resulted in lazy cognition. Nuance is on it's death bed.

0

u/BleuBoy777 7h ago

Welcome to the world of "gotcha." Everyone expects things to be black or white, right or wrong. 

If you figure some complex things out with 99.5% correctness... Some hero on the Internet will point out the .5% so they can "win."

There was actually a teacher that ran an experiment about this in their class. They wrote down a bunch of equations and got them all right .. Except one. The class pointed and laughed. But no one mentioned all the equations that were right. 

That right there.... Is what we're dealing with. 

1

u/BleuBoy777 2h ago

The down vote is exactly my point. Yay internet hero! You win!!

0

u/PoupeeAmora 7h ago

My high school debate team wouldn’t survive online today, no patience for anything gray.