There is a growing genre of tech writing that studiously pretends that a sort of ironic apathy towards technological literacy is the same thing as magical belief systems. It is not. This is an example of this genre.http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/in-2029-the-internet-will-make-us-act-like-peasants.html …
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Believing in this kind of neo-medievalist reading of the modern human condition is a bit like believing visitors to Disneyland actually believe in fairies and princesses and large anthropomorphic rodents named Mickey, just because they might wear some larping costumes.
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If you've actually met people with literalist magical thinking beliefs, there is no way you'd be confused about this. There's no way my ironic messing around with horoscopes is anything like my grandparents sincere reliance on horoscopes for major life decisions.
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Basically, this so-called postmodern peasant is simply someone who has some mix of laziness, indifference, and lack of curiosity about, how modern technology works, and a rational assessment that they're probably not smart enough to understand most of it.
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This does not of course preclude belief in specific superstitious ideas and conspiracy theories, but the general, default epistemology is not magical thinking for most people. It is simply a kind of rational laziness that can look like it under certain behavioral lenses.
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Original magical thinking was part of general knowledge trying to explain the world with the best they had; postmodern magical thinking is an answer to the realization that current academics think themselves to be Merlins, but still there are lots of unexplained phenomena
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