culture, spin

[this post is handicapped by the fact that I can no longer find the articles I have in mind, which is a problem]

"article"

The article discusses how increasing mobility is leading to more homogeneous neighborhoods. Republicans live with Republicans, because people like to live with like-minded people. As a result, contact between those with different opinions, leading to a diminished marketplace of ideas.

"article"

The article discusses how individuals with rare tastes and passions are using the internet and modern communications to form communities. That is, I might be a little weird, but there are a thousand other weird people out there and we can all get together (on the internet) and talk about our weird interest. This is pretty cool; it decreases the homogenizing pressure to conform.

The point: both of these articles are basically about the same thing. Modern technology / mobility enables people to seek out like-minded others. One article presents this as bad, the other good - and both in terms of diversity of opinion. So consider the following distinction: "subjective diversity" is the diversity of thought that the individual is actually exposed to, "objective diversity" is the diversity of thought that is actually out there / actually accessible. In these terms, the first article laments decreasing subjective diversity, while the second article lauds the increase of objective diversity. Of course, the two feed back on one another: if each of us lives in an echo chamber, little new thought (perhaps) will be produced, leading to increased ossification of ideas and decreased objective diversity.

(Related discussion)