Of course colloquial conversations weren't brilliant in another time.

My point (from experiences in the educational world) is that our most pervasive methods of communicating (short form; uncritical; bolstered by valueless follower numbers, or degrees from paper mills) are reshaping the way we engage with thinking. How people communicated in the past is different; the medium isn't the value, but it shapes routines of expression.

My fear is that we feel we are more informed, or are communicating better, because of our ability to aggregate content, but the quality of educational product (undergraduate work in research and writing; critical thinking and literacy) is abhorrent. I played school as an undergrad and I see a more intense version of playing school each year I'm engaged in higher ed.

I think this is, in part, because of the way we communicate and what we believe (or value) in education; which seems to be yoking the world of work to the world of school; a connection which makes no sense. The proliferation of all sorts of 'degrees' points to the ridiculous nature of modern education.

In essence, I think the ability of the masses to engage so widely, while beautifully open, has created a culture which I don't really think we have a grasp on. And to bring it back to game culture or the winners/losers paradigm, I wonder if our new forms of mass communication (online gaming, social media, 24/hr news, etc.) are obscuring reality and creating a pithier, morally-detached world.