I would say that the ability of people to agree on matters of fact not immediately visible-states of affairs removed from them in space and time-ramped up from a baseline of approximately zero to a pretty high level around the time of the scientific revolution and all that, and stayed there and became more globally distributed up through the Cronkite era, and then dropped to zero incredibly quickly when the Internet came along.
( Neal Stephenson )
[ Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell ]
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