(Nikolaus Skene / Photo: CNN / Animation: Runwayml)
What appears in the digital feeds of Facebook, LinkedIn or X is more than an exchange of opinions. It is a seismogram of collective sentiments. If you read social media across time zones, you quickly recognise this: the content differs less in its subject matter than in the attitude with which it is discussed. And this attitude reveals a great deal about the self-image of entire societies.
I do not scroll to be proved right, but to recognise patterns. Where are questions being asked? Where are things being explained? And where is there an immediate defensive reaction? Behind many strongly held opinions lies less conviction than uncertainty.
The digital fingerprint of fear
Postings from Europe often seem like closed systems. Statements stand in the room like defensive positions. The comment sections resemble trenches: nothing is explored here; it is corrected. A new technological impulse – be it AI, automation or the platform economy – is reflexively passed through the filters of regulation, morality or potential danger.
A Parisian user, Stéphane Berger (name changed), responds to a post about generative AI with the words:
“We (the human race) are so good at wasting opportunities and bad things that I don’t see a future where we don’t screw this up. Our salvation might come from the fact that we might lack energy to power these big datacenters and are forced to reduce our AI usage.”
This is not an invitation to engage in conversation, but a defensive posture. It is not curiosity speaking here, but fatigue. The future does not appear as a space to shape, but as a threat that one would preferably keep small.
This attitude is typical of cultures that define themselves primarily by what they want to preserve – not by what they might create anew. Where no possibilities are seen any more, only risk remains.
The architecture of curiosity
Social media reads very differently when you look towards San Francisco, Shenzhen or Dubai. There, postings are less often judgements and more often tools. I organise so-called “Conferences on Wheels” in these regions; reading the feeds from there is part of my research.
In Silicon Valley, a language of experimentation dominates. One researcher writes:
“AI assistants and AI agents represent two distinct categories of artificial intelligence, each crafted with unique purposes.”
The reactions to this are not counterarguments, but continuations: praise for clarity, additions, ideas for applications. Discussion does not arise from contradiction, but from the ability to build on what has been said.
In China, particularly in Shenzhen, the tone is even more matter-of-fact. Postings report what has already been implemented: robots in hotels, automated kitchens, AI-supported logistics. The follow-up questions are not “Is this good?” but “When will this come to us?” Information serves here as a basis for decision-making, not as an occasion for forming opinions.
Europe under constant stress
Europe appears tense in this comparison. Not knowing is quickly seen as a weakness, and questions as indecision. Added to this is a self-image that still draws heavily on the successes of the past – while overlooking the fact that this success is not a state of nature.
Sovereignty is not demonstrated by always being right. It is demonstrated by being able to ask questions without fear of losing control. Those who feel secure do not need to dominate. Those who are insecure defend themselves.
If posting cultures are viewed as a mirror of the collective psyche, Europe appears like a leader shortly before retirement, Silicon Valley like an eternal student and China like an architect in the process of building.
Social media is not a space of noise. It is a thermometer. It shows how capable of facing the future a society is. Perhaps it is time to defend fewer opinions and allow more observations. Because in the end, it is not those who were most loudly right who prevail – but those who asked the better questions.
(Nikolaus Skene lives and works in San Francisco. He runs his own company there. www.nikiskene.com)