[aaron-santos]

I'm less and less confident that is possible, not necessarily because personal interactions and online spaces themselves form an inherent contradiction (though they might). But because the incentive, and ability to commodify, and capitalize these interactions are necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of these destructive social systems.

We're pretty bad at social systems level thinking, but this precise lack of skill is an opportunity for exploitation. In the same way that hobbyist day traders over-estimate their ability to turn a profit by not understanding the skill level of who they are losing against, social media participants over-estimate their ability to check out because they don't understand the skill level of players who want them to engage. This disparity in the games being played isn't spelled out and why would it be? At least there is hope in that social media systems while ubiquitous, are not yet hegemonic. As long as that holds, there is still hope.