My feeling is the kind of pandering a leader used to do to get into a seat of power has changed thanks to the internet and the state of info overload we live in. They are much more aware of who to target and what that group wants to hear. And since every targeted group is overloaded with info, getting/keeping their attention creates this arms race of who can be the most touching, entertaining or outrageous circus clown. Not just in politics but in every sphere I see more and more absurd attention craving characters being propped up. And I am finding it hard to see how democracy benefits.

This is not new. Huey Long is an excellent example, as is the fact that we have a word for it that is thousands of years old: demagogue.

Democracy assumes constructive attitude towards debate.

Today we are getting it's better to be wrong with our side, than right with the opponent partisanship instead.

Are you sure you just don't disagree with people and can't imagine that they'd disagree with you because you're so obviously right, so they must secretly agree you're correct, but continue with a charade? Otherwise you need to provide some clear citations to how millions of people could know they are wrong but continue with their positions out of spite.

It's not only in politics, but also in business, sales, at job, etc. Have you ever witnessed a bubble in opinions in some company, group, etc? Job's RDF was a harmless form of this :)

Many have internalized their position and they won't secretly agree. They won't even realize why they disagree, and won't consider objective facts. Some tiny minority may be aware of that, but many have economic incentive to continue their position, that mortgage won't pay itself after all. Thinking too much about it just makes it harder.

I'm trying to stay in theoretical level and not provide any specific examples except the RDF, because they could be too political/divisive/controversial, and I don't want to argue the specific cases or take sides, but point out to the phenomenon itself.

Oh, I completely get what you're saying about the irrational obtuseness of our species. My only point of contention was that it is worse instead of simply more obvious. And my point was that since it is more obvious, things are very likely better. And maybe it just feels worse because all of a sudden, all of our differences are out in the open and we're going through this cathartic jolt of confronting the faults in our long held opinions in a messy, public contentious debate. But actually, issues such as racism, bigotry of gay people, attitudes towards poverty and early access to education, unequal access to justice, have never been more positive. And they've also never been this publicly debated by so many.

Ideally democracy also assumes, for the most part, that the majority of the system is comprised of rational actors.

But it's as they say. In theory, but not in practice.

Western democracy has always been tempered (and sometimes subverted) by the control exerted by cultural elites on mass communications. Now that control is faltering, and we're seeing the results.

The real tragedy of the Internet is this:

It dramatically lowered the costs of broadcasting information. At the time, we idealistically felt that would enable people of all means to communicate, and not just the rich and powerful. It did that, especially in the early days before the rich and powerful noticed.

But it lowers the costs for everyone, including the rich. So once they clued in, it ended up empowering them too. In fact, it preferentially benefits them, because they have more money to throw at it.

There is a useful cautionary lesson here: any technology that reduces the cost of X for all users of X is not a force of equality. Instead, it is a multiplier to any existing disparity.

If you want to reduce inequality, focus on technology that does not scale up and instead is preferentially empowering to those on the low end of the scale.

For example, medicine tends to be an equalizer because once you're healthy, having more access to the same medicine doesn't benefit you much. There is a natural upper limit to its efficacy. (Of course, being able to control others' access to medicine does scale up.)

Quite the opposite. Instead, the floodgates have been opened to anyone, like the Russian government, with free access to powerful media platforms if you have the capital. Prior to that the mass media was in the hands of only a few, all based in the US. Control of the masses has been API'd. Basically, China should have bought more Facebook ads.

Looks like you both argue for the same thing.

In times before, news distribution was subject to editorial process and basic standards of journalism. Not that it wasn't without own issues, but it helped sort out outright lunacy, bigotry and conspiracy theories.

Distribution in 2010s bypasses that and mass media are now secondary to social network rumour mills. The political outcomes worldwide and deterioration of Western democracies are related to this.

Not sure they are arguing the same.

"Editorial process and basic standards of journalism" is not "cultural elitism" — it's what we had, lost, and now desperately need again.