When technology advances to the point where the consumers have access to the product, they always jettison the middleman.

The internet has made it possible for all interested parties to see the documents for themselves. “Fact-checking” is an obsolete concept. The editor is a dead job. Put the documents on the web and the market will correct the errors.

This is not a fad. It is not reversable. It is, to use an over-used phrase which really does apply here — it is a PARADIGM SHIFT.   In all paradigm shifts, the old school never updates;  it always just dies off.  The new structure simply shoots up and replaces them, and they all die away,   mumbling on their deathbeds about the new magic and the way things used to be.

The traditional news organization controls quality by a central command (an editor).   That is better than anarchy, and a necessary first step until the technology appears to allow a MARKET to develop.  In a market, many parties gather to decide value by a vetting process involving the aggregate skill of all parties.   In an economic market, that value gets translated into a PRICE, which price theoretically carries with it all relelvant information and thus give every party an instant ability to avoid errors.

Continue reading “Dinosaur media” →

Technical progress yields leisure, which is liberation from the deperate pursuit of food and shelter.   Leisure makes culture possible.  Culture flourishes,  which means the heart of man elaborates itself like a seed unfolding into a tree with good and evil branches.    As culture develops, then, it’s parts are increasingly hostile to each other and in the end, the center cannot hold.  The basis for common culture disappears into plurality and the culture breaks apart and dies.