Human Sacrifice and the Digital Business Model

In the sacrificial rituals of ancient societies, the priestly class engineered moments of what sociologist Émile Durkheim called “collective effervescence” as a mode of social control. The priests harnessed the violent impulses that can erode social cohesion when left unchecked, and channeled them into shared experiences that unified the community. Today, the equivalent of these priests are the engineers who lure us into virtual Skinner boxes and use trivial rewards to induce us to mimic brutal ancient rites.

Like their archaic counterparts, these modern priests grasp that “collective effervescence” is a powerful force that needs to be channeled and circumscribed. But the essential goal of today’s priests is not control, although that is an effect. Nor is it social cohesion and the greater good of the community. It is profit. The gamified mechanisms that precipitate us toward indignation against enemies also drive our continued use of the platforms. The more of us that are transfixed by spectacles of victimization, the greater the revenue the platform brings in. Like a bloodthirsty god, the platform business feeds off of sacrifice.

What’s become apparent lately is that the offline world is increasingly subordinate to the ravenous appetites of this god. The recent wave of cancellations of figures both prominent and obscure reveals the degree to which the online logic of gamified sacrifice has taken hold of institutions, and not just cultural ones. The latter may be a leading indicator because their mostly deskbound denizens are more glued to screens than others, but the automated logic of sacrificial resolution is determining outcomes in spaces far less integrated with platforms. Supporters and critics of “cancel culture” alike would agree that journalism’s Twitter-facing culture was a key factor in the recent ouster of several newspaper editors, most prominently The New York Times op-ed page’s James Bennet. But the same mechanisms that empower media workers to take down their bosses also enable anonymous civilians to enact mob vengeance against other anonymous civilians, as the San Diego Gas & Electric case indicates.

The Harper’s letter signatories fear that horizontal policing will dampen debate, and that the chilling effects of the punitive digital environment will induce intellectual uniformity. But for the platform god, this would be an undesirable outcome. If the fear of mob vigilantism made everyone conform to the standards of their group, there would be no more sacrificial immolations to keep people captivated by their screens. The god needs such spectacles to live.

TL;DR - Twitter/Instagram/etc are instruments of Moloch and should be shunned by anyone who wants to be happy.