(2021-03-20) Kling Shorter Martin Gurri

Arnold Kling: Shorter Martin Gurri. A reader asks, How would you encapsulate Martin’s thesis? Starting around 2000, the amount of information on the Internet doubles in a year. (Intelligence Increase)

20th-century elites and institutions relied on having a much less chaotic and engulfing information environment.

The elites cannot accept the new reality that there is so much information that they cannot control

The general public is frustrated by the arrogance of the elites, and they have the means to assemble revolts

Society requires authority. But the existing authorities can seemingly do nothing other than hope for a return to the 20th century when they had closer to a monopoly on information.

Maybe a new generation of elites and/or institutions will emerge that is more adept at dealing with technology and sufficiently humble to deal with a situation in which information is more dispersed than it was last century.