Will our rejection of other ideals lead to self destruction? The main focus of Influencing Machines by Brook Gladstone and Josh Neufeld is informing the reader on how the internet cultivates homophily: the instinct by which humans tend to group themselves with likeminded individuals. Because of this, people narrow their worldview and their ideals grow more and more extreme. Some would disagree with this notion because the internet presents a vast amount of information in a wide variety of fields, and no matter where you search on the internet there is enough permeation from other bases of information and ways of life that it could not cultivate extremist ideals. I disagree for the following reasons and real life events: the vast majority of
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The world is just as permeable as the internet. In some ways more, in some ways less. The Taliban started as a group of people sharing similar ideas about preserving their culture. They would not allow western civilization to corrupt their way of life. Here we see that all permeability can and will be consciously avoided. The Taliban allowed another group of similar minded individuals refuge in their country by the name of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is by far more militant than the Taliban and over a period of years, they began to refine their ideals into a more extreme design and into the organization known now as ISIS. Groups of people never stay the same for long. They transform and morph into completely new beings, either for the bad or the good. The good is not the common …show more content…
I had no knowledge that the nation was so split in its ideals. If a house divided cannot stand, we as a country have some serious problems on our hands. Based on the data given before, in one more generation or less, America will be as split as a butt crack and make assholes out of all of us. Right now, we could be on the brink of civil war, and the only way to avoid it is to open our minds to other truths and intelligently debate without bias. We have to step out of our situation and look at it from a new perspective, rather than wallowing in it and blaming anyone who disagrees for causing the mess. There were always problems, and there always will be problems. The only way we can solve them without blood is to learn and
The world is just as permeable as the internet. In some ways more, in some ways less. The Taliban started as a group of people sharing similar ideas about preserving their culture. They would not allow western civilization to corrupt their way of life. Here we see that all permeability can and will be consciously avoided. The Taliban allowed another group of similar minded individuals refuge in their country by the name of Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is by far more militant than the Taliban and over a period of years, they began to refine their ideals into a more extreme design and into the organization known now as ISIS. Groups of people never stay the same for long. They transform and morph into completely new beings, either for the bad or the good. The good is not the common …show more content…
I had no knowledge that the nation was so split in its ideals. If a house divided cannot stand, we as a country have some serious problems on our hands. Based on the data given before, in one more generation or less, America will be as split as a butt crack and make assholes out of all of us. Right now, we could be on the brink of civil war, and the only way to avoid it is to open our minds to other truths and intelligently debate without bias. We have to step out of our situation and look at it from a new perspective, rather than wallowing in it and blaming anyone who disagrees for causing the mess. There were always problems, and there always will be problems. The only way we can solve them without blood is to learn and