There is a new kind of conversation happening now.
The pre-made critical conversation, where instead of throwing original ideas back and forth, as a conversation should work, there is only a repetition of previously installed narratives.
New Culture
Today it is normal for people to gather and have a discussion on deep, philosophical, important subjects. Before it was much rarer. Conspiracy theories, futurism, and apocalypse discussions seem to have become normal, but it was not like this up until recently.
This change in subject to more serious, "deep" subjects is a movement happening in media as well.
Joe Rogan invites guests to talk about subjects that were ridiculed 10, 20 years ago.
The Problem
In the past, people had conversations about matters from personal experience, traditional grandmother wisdom, some media, and some books. These were the sources informing our decisions.
This changed with mass media. The idea of making logical, rational decisions is now ingrained in our culture. How can you rely on tradition? What if it is wrong? What if it is useless? (it is not).
Today the content of these conversations is for the most part virtue-signaling1, based on what the person has absorbed from the media. (Example below)
"I declare this opinion on the subject to show you I am the sort of person that thinks like this about matters such as this one"
So the "critical" conversation around a topic will be contained inside the closed box of the narrative (may it be left or right-oriented). There is essentially a repetition of what has been explained in Netflix documentaries and podcasts.
Worse, they fit any opinion and interpret any event as being in favor or against the narrative.
If the opinion is the same throughout the group, they will signal positively and confirm their claims, what's also called an echo chamber. If divergent, what happens is a microcosm, a copy of some previously seen podcast argument. They are prepared to counterargue the usual arguments from the other side.
The person absorbs passively and if it makes a bit of sense, then she goes in the loophole of content, and little by little the narrative is installed in her brain.
"Say X if someone argues Y."
"This opinion is the opinion that cool people have on this subject. Are you part of the cool people group?"
What also happens is that they will incorporate these ideas as being their own, which is not true.
This of course is exacerbated in young people's conversation, as they are in the most signaling prone moment in their lives2 and tend to have more exposure to the media
So there is this new phenomenon of a Netflix documentary-driven opinion about the world.
But why does this happen?
Books vs Netflix
Access to information has been facilitated, but also explored for attention. It is much easier, much faster to consume a piece of documentary and memorize a couple of isolated facts (usually numbers taken out of context for shock value), and think you formed a very intelligent opinion about the subject.
Without realizing it, you end up only passing forward the ideas of someone else.
Take one very complex topic, say, climate change. What are the chances of a 40 minute documentary about it not being biased?
Books can't compete with video in a visual culture such as ours.
Books are slow and boring, while video is entertaining the whole time, you don't need to pay that much attention to it (you can check your phone the whole time, look up once in a while, memorize an isolated fact and get the idea).
I heard once:
Hey, these content creators online have to read the books and summarize their main ideas for us, why would you bother going through the whole thing?
We live in the informational revolution after all!
Well, it turns out that it doesn't work like that at all, for the online environment biases creators to produce more noise and more biased information (again, entertainment) for engagement.
By addressing deep topics in such a shallow fashion, we are killing critical conversation.
In other words, we are killing critical thinking.
Virtue signaling is always part of the way we interact but becomes a problem when you are not aware of it, and when it overwrites original thought.
Because of group selection, their biology imposes they signal themselves as being part of a group.