Things to think about #15 - Thomas Sowell & the post-literate society

I’ve been inspired—by listening to recent conversations on The Glenn Show—to delve into the writings of Thomas Sowell. It’s a daunting task, given the volume of books, articles, and essays he has authored. The Thomas Sowell Reader, however, appears to be a representative collection and a good place to start. I’m enjoying the reading experience so far. Sowell writes from a conservative and fiercely pro–free market perspective—at least in the volume mentioned above. This will inevitably put some readers off. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a better example of punchy yet eloquent, non-technical exposition on economics, social issues, and political thought. The essay on the economics of discrimination and the short tract on “unfunded mandates” are particularly feisty and enjoyable.

To hell in a hand basket ?

James Marriott’s essay on the post-literate society is making the rounds on Substack. It follows a now well-trodden path: arguing that modern technologies meant to make us smarter, faster, and more efficient—the smartphone, AI, and social media—are in fact making us dumber. People are forgetting how to think—or, more specifically in James’s article, how to read—and the consequences are grave.

“The tradition of learning is like a precious golden thread of knowledge running through human history linking reader to reader through time. It last snapped during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire as the barbarian tides beat against the frontier, cities shrank and libraries burned or decayed. As the world of Rome’s educated elite fell apart, many writers and works of literature passed out of human memory — either to be lost forever or to be rediscovered hundreds of years later in the Renaissance. That golden thread is breaking for the second time.”

I agree with the broader contours of the argument: that modern technology—smartphones, social media, and AI—has socially and intellectually deleterious effects. The writings of Jonathan Haidt and co-authors, along with insider accounts of how tech companies design their omnipresent apps to capture our dopamine-eager minds, offer valid warnings. James supports his case with additional data showing declines in literacy and numeracy, falling test scores, and a measurable drop in the overall complexity of writing. He even argues that the Flynn Effect—the observed rise in IQ over time—is now reversing.

But there’s a meaningful distinction between our current moment and the collapse of complexity that occurred as the Western Roman Empire disintegrated, or the addiction that reduces a heroin user’s world to the singular goal of securing the next fix. I call this distinction the Paradox of Silence. While I’ve not yet fully fleshed out the argument, the thesis goes something like this: jumping off the proverbial technological train—abandoning social media, smartphones, AI, and related technologies—comes with real costs. These costs are tied to the deep integration of these technologies into the modern productive economy and the creation of wealth.

This is an economy which, in contrast to the significantly less complex structure that emerged as Europe rebuilt itself through the Middle Ages, is arguably many orders of magnitude more complex than the one it is replacing. Get off the train at your peril!

A heroin user who breaks free from addiction gains everything and loses very little, save perhaps the sweet allure of the high. But a participant in the modern economy who unplugs might gain focus, yet to what end? Build a wooden cart in a world of flying cars? Such a person could also lose their link to the very economy that supports their employment and productive capacity. Network effects are crucial here. When James urges us to throw our smartphones in the bin, he’s addressing the individual, without acknowledging that any benefit conferred by such a move comes at a significant cost, unless everyone else does it too.

We’re then left with a less dramatic, more familiar economic problem. The smartphone, the internet, and AI are remarkable technologies, but their use comes with social costs that are not fully internalized—especially not by the creators whose cost functions don’t account for them. These externalities are increasingly well understood, and they’re substantial: reduced literacy and numeracy, declining attention spans, and rising mental health problems, especially among children, adolescents, and young adults. These are real and serious costs.

But I’m not yet convinced they are large enough to justify the claim that we’re entering a new dark age.