Why The Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

Before proceeding with the details, just a reminder of the following

• everyone who hasn't previously attended will be required to show proof of full vaccination (2 shots) + booster (3rd shot).
• Masking is Optional. Since we'll be outdoors (see photo) and everyone will be vaccinated and boosted, it's up to each person to decide whether or not they want to wear a mask.
• in RSVPing, you are agreeing to follow the "rules" as described in the What we're about section of this meetup group

Feel free to bring along food and/or beverage as you wish (and there are several good bakeries and cafes within short walking distance).

Similar to our last event, the title is lifted directly from a recent featured and widely read and discussed piece in The Atlantic. It opens with the following:

"What would it have been like to live in Babel in the days after its destruction? In the Book of Genesis, we are told that the descendants of Noah built a great city in the land of Shinar. They built a tower “with its top in the heavens” to “make a name” for themselves. God was offended by the hubris of humanity and said:

> Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.

The text does not say that God destroyed the tower, but in many popular renderings of the story he does, so let’s hold that dramatic image in our minds: people wandering amid the ruins, unable to communicate, condemned to mutual incomprehension.

The story of Babel is the best metaphor I have found for what happened to America in the 2010s, and for the fractured country we now inhabit. Something went terribly wrong, very suddenly. We are disoriented, unable to speak the same language or recognize the same truth. We are cut off from one another and from the past."

...and then...

"Babel is a metaphor for what some forms of social media have done to nearly all of the groups and institutions most important to the country’s future—and to us as a people. How did this happen? And what does it portend for American life?"

This is what we'll discuss.

Prior to the event, please be sure to either read the article or listen to it as a podcast. Both are available here (let me know if you have any trouble accessing it)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

Much looking forward to this!