Comment by John of the 3rd Marble on Is Stupidity Expanding? Some Hypotheses. · 2020-10-17T07:22:26.692Z · LW · GW

Market forces have steered new technologies to manifest themselves in harmful ways.

With respect to food, there's an old saying "you are what you eat." In recent decades, what we've been eating is less and less healthy, as marketers, food scientists, agri-businesses, restaurants, etc have led to us to consume low-quality food that has high-profit for companies.

With respect to media, we are consuming more low-quality info. We used to have to seek out info, which we would have to pay for and which used to be better curated. But now we are constantly deluged by free info that is crafted to make us fearful and angry, which are emotional states that make it difficult to be rational.

As technology advances, there needs to be concomitant advances in statesmanship of leaders and education of the people. But corporate profitability is in the driver's seat, which is diminishing statesmanship and education.