Terence Tao: The role of small organizations in society has shrunk significantly

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I dunno. It's not at all clear what "small organizations, whose role in the human societal ecosystem has thus shrunk significantly" even means, over what time, and in what society. The post itself, as a piece of thinking, seems, charitably, a vague sentiment that might later turn into something that could be analyzed.

In general terms, in the US, in living memory, I'm not sure that large organizations occupy more space in people's day to day lives than smaller ones.

In the US, since say the 1990s, the percentage of people, say, working in small businesses are roughly the same. The number of local non-profits has exploded since over that time. The trend towards media consolidation that had occurred over the prior century would begin to be unwound, and tech consolidation would only partially reverse this. We have far more access to diverse points of view than most people did for most of the 20th century.

If there is there is shift, I suspect, it's not about where people work or interact, it seems mostly that businesses, small and large, feel free to dominate people, in a way that was considered in bad form prior to Reagan/Thatcher and the fall of communism as an alternative to the West that would be appealing to post-colonial societies.

But that's just a notion as vague as the original post.

Better yet, the 7-7-7 rule.

> The FCC's 7-7-7 rule was a 1953 regulation that limited a single entity from owning no more than seven AM radio stations, seven FM radio stations, and seven television stations nationwide to promote broadcast diversity. This rule was a response to concerns about media consolidation and was eventually eased, then replaced by the 12-12-12 rule in 1984 and later abolished by the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

If you're wondering how we got to the universe where every piece of mass media that's blasted at you is owned by So much for diversity of speech or a marketplace of opinions. Speech is actively being funneled into a single box, and the box is owned and operated by a monoculture of media billionaires.

This forum in particular wails and gnashes its teeth anytime that big tech exercises control over publishing, while turning a blind eye to this rot in trad-media - which is a thousand times worse.

If I were made king for a day, the first thing I'd do would be to break up these conglomerates. You'd either be allowed to be a media conglomerate with the GDP of a small country and a reach of a hundred million people running an agnostic platform, or you're allowed to exercise editorial control. Pick one, I don't care which, but you have to pick one.

(That this isn't a popular position among people seeking to maximize speech and diversity of ideas is perhaps revealing of their real values - the promotion of the monoculture pushed by trad-media.)

It's called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. Through taxes it can be done imperceptibly over time.

Monopolies are better for shareholder value. They destroy competition and the fair market, but shareholder value is all that counts nowadays. So here we are. And the worst offenders are probably in the IT industry and startup world.