The invention of the stirrup--enabling armored knights to fight on horseback--changed history. The modem has done much the same thing. It has supplied millions with a weapon that allows them to fire instantaneous opinions through the air like tracer bullets and thus engage in daily cultural warfare on a scale never seen before in history.
You can argue this as a wondrous stimulation and expansion of democracy. On the other hand, the hair-trigger modem, wired directly to the adrenal glands and needing only a finger twitch to hit SEND, encourages a certain violence of opinion--impulsiveness that hardens more quickly than before...
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