the real failure is in our collective intelligence — our ability to think together.
Collective intelligence requires ternary logic: a flexible, context-aware system of sensemaking that can hold multiple perspectives and still arrive at a consensus.
But in Western democracy, competition flattens this into binary choices: votes, sides, battles. Then social media adds a second competing voting algorithm, further compounding the collapse. Now we have two binary systems, both collapsing, both trying to manage a complex world that demands nuance. Binary systems cannot sustain collective intelligence unless limited through voting.
Voting is not transparent.
Voting, contrary to popular opinion––is not a transparent method for consensus building in a collective intelligence. Voting can hide reasoning or thinking behind the vote, the influence to actually cast the vote. It doesn’t matter that the vote can hide the identity (which is should!), it hides the important part, the influence.
Today, thousands of political influencers from across the spectrum are all — knowingly or not — participating in the same democracy-collapsing exercise. The content doesn’t matter. The political position doesn’t matter. The game is the same.
When enshittification hits the fan, what’s actually splattering is the failure of our collective ability to think together. Everything gets amplified under competition and conflict, with no mechanism for resolution.
Collective intelligence requires ternary logic: a flexible, context-aware system of sensemaking that can hold multiple perspectives and still arrive at a consensus.
But in Western democracy, competition flattens this into binary choices: votes, sides, battles. Then social media adds a second competing voting algorithm, further compounding the collapse. Now we have two binary systems, both collapsing, both trying to manage a complex world that demands nuance. Binary systems cannot sustain collective intelligence unless limited through voting.
Voting is not transparent.
Voting, contrary to popular opinion––is not a transparent method for consensus building in a collective intelligence. Voting can hide reasoning or thinking behind the vote, the influence to actually cast the vote. It doesn’t matter that the vote can hide the identity (which is should!), it hides the important part, the influence.
Today, thousands of political influencers from across the spectrum are all — knowingly or not — participating in the same democracy-collapsing exercise. The content doesn’t matter. The political position doesn’t matter. The game is the same.
When enshittification hits the fan, what’s actually splattering is the failure of our collective ability to think together. Everything gets amplified under competition and conflict, with no mechanism for resolution.