Arnold Kling, at his blog, askblog, talking about, and with, Martin "Fifth Wave" Gurri:
1. As I see it, Martin’s view is that the relationship between the elite and the public has fundamentally changed. Thus, the contests between competing elites will be unlike anything we have seen in the past.
2. One way I think of this is that in the past the elite and the public operated in separate spheres. I call these the super-Dunbar sphere and the sub-Dunbar sphere. Referring of course to the Dunbar number that marks the boundary between small-scale society and large-scale society. The public operated in the sub-Dunbar sphere. You were concerned with your own family, friends, and co-workers. The elite managed in the super-Dunbar sphere, running government and large organizations, including mass media. The public knew that the elites were out there, but the public felt no direct connection to the elites. When elites contested with one another, the public were largely bystanders.
3. But new media have caused these two spheres to collide. The public feels itself on the same playing field as the elites. Anyone can comment on Twitter. So people who never used to think much about the super-Dunbar world are now trying to take part in it.
4. Meanwhile, the elites, who are used to having exclusive jurisdiction in the super-Dunbar world, cannot understand why the public no longer defers to them.
James Cham, a bit later responding to both Gurri and Kling:
I’m one step removed from the actual elite in Silicon Valley so this is just speculation. The tech elites are still figuring out what it means to have this power, and they are often still hoping to get the “blessing” of traditional sources of power. Can you imagine any tech elite (other than Peter Thiel) flat out saying that they are competing against DC for the influence of the public?
I think that’s how we actually got Donald Trump: a bunch of tech elite realized they had incredible tools for creating trust and relationships with the public. They just weren’t really willing to risk using it and instead let someone else do it.
(Now it is possible that the tech elite actually think this way and just don’t want to confront traditional elite directly but I haven’t heard that in my conversations.)
The whole conversation is worth a look.
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