Here's Kevin Munger in his #eacl2023 keynote, asking the big questions, including: "Why do humans communicate?"
Vilem Flusser:
"Communication is an artificial, intentional, dialogic, collective act of freedom, aiming at creating codes that help us forget our inevitable death"
More on the digital future of discourse and dialogue, with extra Flusser boosterism here
https://kevinmunger.substack.com/p/the-discourse-is-the-cybernetic-event
"The only durable spaces of communication must therefore remain uningestible by the machines"
Twitter's spectacular conflagration both entrances and illuminates. We shouldn't assign any meaning to the random sparks. Breathless attention to Trump in 2017 was understandable (if ineffective); breathless attention to Musk in 2022 is embarrassing.
Tom Stafford