1962 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Image:_A_Guide_to_Pseudo-e... predicts that television performers will eventually overtake and outclass conventional politicians
1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media Marshall McLuhan predicts that 'television' will displace the 'Gutenberg Galaxy' of print but it could do it in the form of ABC/NBC/CBS but take the same (physically, later functionally) screen attached to an image synthesizer and versatile communication network and you get YouTube, which does.
1971 The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media by Ben Bagdikian reports on studies at the RAND corporation predicting that something like the WWW would come online in the early 1980s -- and technically it did in the form of services like Compuserve and The Source. Bagdikian pitched this vision to leaders in the media industry and was roundly rejected and was the origin story that led to his famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian#The_Media_Monopo...
In the 1970-1995 period the development of communication networks lagged behind all predictions because incumbents didn't want to make investments -- had they done so, Google, Facebook, Amazon and such would have been strangled in their cribs. The WWW seemed to take over so fast because it was actually delayed ten years and the technology to realize it had been sitting around latent and underutilized.
1975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) by Jürgen Habermas outlines a conflict between "expertise required to make decisions concerning complex science and technology" and "public participation" that he sees no way to resolve.
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The "legitimation crisis" is the immediate crisis that Fukuyama sees, but connected to it is a long term breakdown in community pointed out by the likes of Nisbet and Putnam which manifests as a breakdown in household formation. We're pressing the panic button right now to save children who are halfway through school but... boy we are in trouble.
Not so sure about this point: IIRC modem development was going on in a big way during the initial growth phase of the WWW?
Thanks for the pointer to "Legitimation Crisis"; 'a conflict between "expertise required to make decisions concerning complex science and technology" and "public participation"' sounds like the fundamental problem of anarchism as well.
As for household formation, I think the root lies deeper: take a look at "Democracy in America": https://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm#link2HCH... ; my experience has been that the voluntary associations described (thus forming a "felt", not a "fabric" of society) are way more alive on this continent than I recall them being, back across the Atlantic in the Old World of America.
Gemini offers https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EC%A0%95#:~:text=After%20fig...
And
https://aims.education/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/amanah.jpg...
[oh, wait, according to LC the W and L are supposed to be different legs of an antisymmetric vertical, not a symmetric horizontal, relationship. So that's probably not appropriate at all?]
Re: H&A, I guess we could update GKC: "The Enlightenment ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."
We all love LLMs; would their advice be even more likely to be followed if there was a hardware device to issue smoke ("bells and smells") alongside their pronouncements? https://www.ancientsculpturegallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
https://archive.ph/2025.12.29-080655/https://www.independent...
("Taxes & Loyalty")
Does it get more anarchic with age? https://www.rsm.global/switzerland/en/service/tax-and-legal/...
Think about the "legitimation crisis" through the narcissism lens? Radio (and somewhat WWW up till fiber-era postMaBell) suffered no "legitimation crisis" because it is non-narcissistic ("Goldmund")? See other thread.
What would be the regulatory trajectory of "Co(s)mically narcissistic tech"
Eg nuclear fusion in MMM, rnatech in XXX..
Charitably to PH (:), I would consider mechanosynthesis co(s)mically narcissistic
For CH, managed narcissistic aspect of guns without going through LC?
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1pd8eea/swiss_se...
("Welfare & Steering": JH's 1973 "relative success of the welfare-state compromise" may be a bit dated? I get the impression that ever since 1980, and distinctly accelerating since 1992, the Old Country's politics has, on average, been reducing both outputs: welfare and steering)
For CH, I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjlT4BME2aE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgYJ5V2HYy4 captured the difference in vibe well. (one detail SwissBloke didn't go into the weeds on: the army asks dozens of people to leave each year, on grounds largely ranging from far left extremism through fundamentalist islamic extremism to far right extremism, and a consequence of that is that one has to return one's service rifle. Part of having a hunting license[1] is being a member of a hunting club, and presumably they too will kick you out should you start to seem too crazy to associate with)
[0] it'd be a bit more difficult to game, but as far as gun ownership by foreigners is concerned, it's max(home country, CH), so there could be up to 195 potential venues involved, and I have the distinct impression that, having come from the States, I would have only hit the limit at local[2] law.
[1] another example of difference in vibe: in the US, folks complain bitterly if the exam for a hunting license takes more than 1 day; in my old part of CH, the process took 2 years, involving classroom time, community service, and practical, written, and oral tests.
[2] the cantonal police got a call about an old nutter in my first few years here. I was impressed, because apparently they just went out, talked with him, and left him all his legal weaponry, but took the full auto weapons, grenades, and other explosives with them when they left. I imagine in the Old Country that kind of visit might've been closer to a Waco?
Reflection: there's the societal vibe difference, and then there's not having an expansively interpreted 2A. Our constitution dates all the way back to 1999, because we believe in cleaning up the legacy cruft.
I sort of think Fukuyama was at least as close if not closer, in this famous quote. The issue isn't just screens and the virality of it all, it's the soft men making hard times problem, just more weirdly than we expected,
> But supposing the world has become "filled up", so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10161514-but-supposing-the-...
There's so many imagined threats everywhere. Insane conspiracies about Jade Helm or mind control contrails. People have flocked to absolute ridiculous delusional nonsense, in order to believe they are under attack, in order to let themselves feel oppressed. Anything fabrication for a just cause against the too peaceful state.
Or look at the anti-woke Buchanan invented in 1992 idea of the Culture Warriors. Even 30 years ago it was a need to instill a sense of strife, to frame it bad. Reagan before, terrifying the population of the state. All so silly. DEI is the big boogeyman now, the fear machine. But looking hard at the numbers, we find it really didn't actually cause a loss of opportunity for white men! Their numbers were fine. https://bsky.app/profile/iansociologo.bsky.social/post/3matx...
It's all such cowardice. Being afraid of spectres, being easily stirred by the dark side emotions. No matter how nonsense. And the media & opposition have all given up trying to steer this ship of fools.
