Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There was the idea that person to person public discourse could resolve many societal problems. Nobody thought this.
Provide evidence. 2012 is pretty late to have been drinking the techno-utopian koolaid but millions of people, and IMO, maybe half of silicon valley tech workers, took this assumption as ground truth. This breathless article from 2009 [1] (found in 2 seconds by searching "tech will change the world year:2009") is a good example of what most people thought. You can find blog many posts and articles from the time sayin…
Telemedicine reaching remote villages, drone deliveries of medical supplies, mobile phones giving farmers weather forecasts, and even allowing those farmers to find more competitive buyers for their crops.
Even within the US, for the longest time technology was the only field that was not ruled by elites. Any kid who was smart enough could get their hands on a computer somehow, learn to program, and have a career ahead of them. No medical associating limiting applicants, no elitist law firms, no unions only giving membership cards to children of existing members.
A lot of poor kids in the US, myself included, got lifted up by technology.