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If it makes you feel any better, when I was young, I thought the Internet would bring the world together since you could sit and have a conversation with people all over the world with different perspectives, and befriending those from different walks of life would help break us out of small-town small-mindedness where everyone “not like us” is scary…
Yeah, I might have been a bit too optimistic with that one.
I think it could serve that purpose (and honestly has to some degree), but the big thing that I didn’t consider when I was young was that a lot of people just want to hate (or to convince others to be focused on hate), and will find spaces to spread and amplify that hate. I underestimated the capacity and drive of those that would spread fear and anger.