Did we have less problems in the pre internet era?
We had WW1 and 2, Vietnam. Civil wars, internment camps, genocide.
Lots of these were approved and even celebrated by the majority of the population when all they had was broadcast media telling them what to think about.
I think it's wild how much people romanticize "traditional media." Broadcast and print media is and always has been awful.
I'm not talking about fewer issues in general, I'm talking about less of this issue: the issue that people are self-radicalizing by sorting into echo chambers where their priors are re-enforced instead of being compelled to hear someone else's worldview or a broadcaster-controlled consensus worldview.
Broadcaster-controlled consensus worldviews can be faulty. But we have not replaced those faults with the self-sorting of the listener, because listener worldviews are also faulty.
We had WW1 and 2, Vietnam. Civil wars, internment camps, genocide.
Lots of these were approved and even celebrated by the majority of the population when all they had was broadcast media telling them what to think about.
I think it's wild how much people romanticize "traditional media." Broadcast and print media is and always has been awful.