Capitalism, Comment Sections, and the Death of Discourse

The provided text is an essay from a socio-political philosophy blog titled "Philosophics," which critiques modern capitalism and the degeneration of public discourse, particularly on social media platforms like LinkedIn. The author, Bry Willis, argues that modern capitalism commits a form of procedural violence, killing through "forms, policy, and plausible deniability" rather than overt brutality, a critique he found was met with aggressive but uninformed backlash. The core assertion is that social media users exhibit "discourse dementia," where they react reflexively to keywords like "capitalism" without actually reading the original content, resulting in a predictable set of apologetic or argumentative responses. The essay concludes that this transactional, automated form of online communication mirrors the mechanistic, depersonalised nature of modern capitalist thought, turning engagement into compliance.👉 https://philosophics.blog/2025/11/10/when-nobody-reads-capitalism-comment-sections-and-the-death-of-discourse/