Is it safe to say...

out my morning tea!

I never really thought of it that way but yeah, you got a point there.

Stop that!

It makes my thinky meat hurt.

Every important advance has it's problems. I, for one, would NOT want to be without the information I now have at my fingertips.

For those of us with critical thinking skills, it's gone incredibly well. For the angry and under-educated, having all of that "information at your fingertips" is like a toddler playing with matches.

The Revolutionary Era, starting in America and spreading to Europe, was enabled by the mass production of printing presses and their proliferation.

In the 20th Century, it was film and radio that was exploited by Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler to seize power. Mussolini had a background in journalism and used his familiarity with the new technologies to good effect to get into office and then to turn the gov't fascist. Hitler modeled his campaign to take over Germany after what Stalin and Mussolini did.

Trump merely mirrored the totalitarian's handbook, using the tools of the internet era.

.. the net result has been progress and advancement.

OTOH, if it had actually been "planned" we might have foreseen what has happened and did something to alleviate the worst of it. But, as usual, we're playing catch up.

and being completely clueless of how it might actually turn out, I was pretty sure even back then that it wouldn't go quite as planned.

it's social media that turned out to be a disaster

the anonymity has always allowed for anti-social behavior.
every chat room had it's disrupters and hucksters.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dickwad_theory

.... DU in the social media category?

Difference is mostly Celebrities drive social media. FB twitter Insta etc. So the reactions can be quite broad because of such high profile people present. If there are celebrities on DU and probably is, they are not known. Social media they are known. Key difference.

.... that precipitate the disastrous consequences? How does that happen?

What about the 8chan style image boards where the Q creeps hang out? I don't think there are any celebrities there.

In Texas, school kids just won’t need that information and they are being discouraged from using it. "Current and Controversial Events" are not to be discussed in schools. They are concentrating on the basics, I guess. Like football. Disclaimer: I like watching football more than the next person.

when his neighbor used the same rock to crush someones skull...

Every technological advancement will get misused over time, that is the nature of humankind.

I really don't get why, after thousands of years of recorded history, people still shit out these "KIDS THESE DAYS" comments like their current lot in the annals is somehow unique.