J Bradford DeLong: How technology has corrupted discourse

Print was democratising in enabling mass communication, but the transition from TV to the internet has made the public vulnerable to manipulation, says J Bradford DeLong

Since 1900, technology and human organisation have been evolving at a blistering pace. The degree of change in just one year would have taken 50 years before 1500. War and politics used to be the meat of human history, with technology and organisation unfolding very slowly — if at all — in the background.