Philosophy 0.5

“Algorithms, fuelled by this binary logic, curate our online environments...”
I’m no philosopher. Really! But every now and then something sparks my interested and I’ll write about it because it’s important to me. This is one of those things. It relates to music, art, and almost every other creative endeavour, as well as almost every other subject imaginable. We seem no longer to think of things with a scale, but describe our likes and dislikes in increasingly polarising ways. We love it, or hate it. We are absolutely over the moon, think it’s the best darn thing ever, or it could crumble before our eyes and we just wouldn’t care.

I don’t think it’s just me who feels this either. I’ve spoken to enough people to understand that there is something to this. Others have commented on how the Internet has become a very difficult place to express an opinion. We live between the emojis of fire and poop. No one wants to hear how far past the line you are. We don’t have time for that anyway. We want to hear your loves and hates; not your likes and dislikes. The even sadder part is that I’ve seen plenty of cases where if someone doesn’t align with a group or a persons loves/hates, they are treated differently. They are not afforded the option of a tepid opinion. Bring the fire!

But how did we get here? I have a theory.

Is binary to blame?

Binary is ingrained in the digital landscape we live and breathe inside. It has slowly but surely seeped into our everyday lives, shaping the very way we perceive and express ourselves and more importantly our opinions. The very essence of binary itself, that stark contract of ones and zeros, perfectly mirrors the simplistic manner in which we now navigate the complexities of our emotions, and to a broader extent, the world.

From the inception of computing, binary has served as the foundation computation. It’s a language of absolutes, where a signal is either on or off; present or absent. This absolutism has undoubtedly influenced our cognitive processes and perhaps has assisted in conditioning us to limit our world and our emotions to those duelling oppositions: love or hate, success or failure, friend or foe.

The digital age has amplified this binary paradigm tenfold. Social media platforms often reduce human experiences to overly simplistic reactions – a like or a dislike, thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Algorithms, fuelled by this binary logic, curate our online environments, and present us with content tailored to fit within predefined categories of interest.

“the pressure to conform to binary ideologies – to pick a side and defend it with all you've got – has never been greater”
In 2010, YouTube’s decision to replace its 5-star rating system with a binary like/dislike button, for me, marked a pivotal moment in the digital era, though I didn’t know it at the time. By simplifying feedback to a binary choice, the platform inadvertently reinforced the notion that opinions must align with one extreme or the other. The subsequent removal of public visibility for dislikes further diluted user feedback, though the reasons for the decision are understandable. The psychologically damaged is real.

The impact of binary thinking extends beyond the realm of technology though. It permeates our social interactions, our political discussions, and our cultural perceptions. In an era characterised by echo chambers and polarisation, the pressure to conform to binary ideologies – to pick a side and defend it with all you’ve got – has never been greater.

It’s complicated

While I will not and cannot propose that binary is the root of all of this, it does make me wonder what would happen if we had a sliding scale, instead of a binary system. We do still get star ratings for companies and services but the reason for this is simply that it wouldn’t be fair to rank companies by how many likes they had, if we did that, only the ones at the top would ever get seen. Hmmm, funny that. It feels like this is exactly where we are in other areas of the digital landscape.

It’s also much easier to like/dislike than explain our feelings and emotions. We are pressured for time. As I write this I am staring down 15 minutes left to finish the article, publish it and try to fit in the creation of a video to post later. Not gonna happen.

I don’t have a solution to this. I’m sure that no one does either, but I wanted to challenge you dear reader. Perhaps next time you feel like simply clicking the like button on a post, perhaps consider what it actually means to you. Perhaps consider engaging with the content and the creator more. Create a connection. And bring a little bit of grey back to our digital lives.

Photo by Alexander Sinn