Binary Thinking, Binary Code

Our collective thinking has become binary.

We’ve entered an era in which social pressures are increasingly pushing us to choose from one of two sides on social and political issues.

In this climate we must choose between progressing the BLM movement or supporting the police.

We must side with preventing COVID or preserving the economy.

We must welcome all immigrants or condone caging children at borders.

It is black and white. It is red and blue.

The truth, however, lies in the nuance. Solutions are found in the middle.

This shift toward binary thinking has occurred during a stretch of time in which technology has embedded itself into our lives. The foundation of this computer processing is binary code- at its most elemental level nothing more than 0s and 1s.

A correlation therefore exists between the rise of binary code and the rise of binary thinking.

Is this correlated relationship in fact one of causation too?

Can the current climate of binary thinking in fact be attributed to the recent rise in technology?

Examining the Facebook and Google algorithms that shape our thoughts and conversations, there are reasons to believe this might be true.

We stand in 2020 more divided than we’ve been in decades. Could this division have simply grown from the numbers 0 and 1?