Editing Openai/696b7614-10bc-8006-b70d-5688055cda78 (section)

==== Here’s the tough claim (that I think your intuition is circling): ====
the open society might be “true” in principle but fragile in human psychology, and digital life pushes on its weakest joints.

===== 1. Cognitive overload - Too much information → people outsource thinking to identity cues. =====
# Attention markets - The system rewards what spreads, not what’s correct.
# Tribal signaling - Belonging beats accuracy when social stakes are high.
# Asymmetric warfare - A tolerant system must follow rules. - An intolerant actor uses the rules as weapons.

That can make liberal societies feel like they’re bringing norms to a knife fight.

===== Because “liberal openness” isn’t one thing. It’s a bundle of design choices: =====
* what you incentivize
* what you regulate
* what frictions you add
* how you teach epistemic habits
* how you structure institutions

A 21st-century Popper would probably say:

: 

That points to procedural fixes more than content-policing:
* authentication/provenance (reduce forged reality)
* transparency (who is speaking, with what reach, funded by whom)
* limits on automated amplification (don’t let bots simulate a “people”)
* friction against virality (slow down contagion)
* strong local institutions (places where reality is shared face-to-face)

This is basically building epistemic public health.