You can take out Zuckerberg and it would change things only at the margins.
People are constantly trying to figure out how to be attractive, and they constantly look out for who is attractive around them. The embers to produce social media websites like Facebook are already there, Zuckerberg was only the match.
Zuckerberg not creating Facebook doesn't change the fact that we're in an era where singers and socialites are celebrities, as opposed to the previous era, where society was more enamoured with intellectuals like Einstein and Haber, or the era before that where people looked up to generals like Ulysses Grant for unifying the nation.
Facebook is a product of today's decadence, rather than the other way around.
Would Facebook fit in a society with attitudes from (my take):
1. 1700's England? Nope, people are too serious back then.
2. 1000's Baghdad? Yes, in a world singers and celebrities and everyone wants to be attractive.
3. 800's Baghdad? Nope. You'd lose your head.
4. 300's Rome? Why yes, breads and circuses everywhere, why not another distraction?
5. 200BC Rome? Hardy people don't use Facebook much.
Here's a nice short book talking about these cycles.
"1. 1700's England? Nope, people are too serious back then."
I found the perspective in your post interesting, but I have to suggest that you research 'coffee shops' in London in the earlier 1700s. They declined towards the end of that century for reasons that could be quite interesting.
You can take out Zuckerberg and it would change things only at the margins.
People are constantly trying to figure out how to be attractive, and they constantly look out for who is attractive around them. The embers to produce social media websites like Facebook are already there, Zuckerberg was only the match.
Zuckerberg not creating Facebook doesn't change the fact that we're in an era where singers and socialites are celebrities, as opposed to the previous era, where society was more enamoured with intellectuals like Einstein and Haber, or the era before that where people looked up to generals like Ulysses Grant for unifying the nation.
Facebook is a product of today's decadence, rather than the other way around.
Would Facebook fit in a society with attitudes from (my take):
1. 1700's England? Nope, people are too serious back then.
2. 1000's Baghdad? Yes, in a world singers and celebrities and everyone wants to be attractive.
3. 800's Baghdad? Nope. You'd lose your head.
4. 300's Rome? Why yes, breads and circuses everywhere, why not another distraction?
5. 200BC Rome? Hardy people don't use Facebook much.
Here's a nice short book talking about these cycles.
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/...