Friend groups as a distributed self-defensive cognitive system

I'm starting to wonder if part of the failures of modern subjectivity is caused by the automatic semantic quarantines of enforced social media algorithms, and put like that it's obviously true. This is why a friend group of distributed cognition can be so helpful in circumventing mono-logical traps.

Social media algorithms enforce a kind of semantic quarantine because 'engagement' requires the filtering, amplifying, or suppressing of content based on (financially motivated) engagement-driven logic. This creates epistemic bubbles where certain ideas or complexities are systematically excluded or erased entirely from view, because ambiguity is the enemy of clickbait, and clickbait is profitable. But this leads to a culturally fracked fragmentation of polarized subjectivity, the algorithmic curation of experience atrophying the emotional strength necessary to dwell comfortably in uncertainty or hold contradictory thoughts and feelings, creating an algorithmically-enforced closed loop of self-reinforcing, radically simplified polarized of what appears to be discourse, but in fact is nothing more than (largely automated) reactionary rage-bait click farming.

If modern subjectivity is characterized by the autonomous, reflexive self, its failure refers to the way algorithmic mediation undermines agency, deep reflection, and the integrative capacity to synthesize disparate experiences. The self becomes a reactive node in a pre-structured attention economy rather than a coherent locus of meaning-making.

But a friend group or community operating as a distributed cognitive system can counteract this - even if online - by reintroducing dialectical friction, diverse perspectives, and shared meaning-making. Unlike algorithmic feeds, which homogenize and isolate, a well-functioning social network can act as a "hermeneutic immune system," challenging assumptions, expanding interpretive frameworks, and reintegrating what algorithms quarantine. The key is the distributed aspect - no single logic dominates, and cognition is emergent, shared, and discussed, not imposed, quarantined, and erased.

The deeper issue I guess is that social media platforms are not designed to cultivate self-aware subjectivity but to optimize reactive engagement, which often flattens complexity and erases nuance. In contrast, distributed cognition in a friend group preserves the polyphony of lived experience, allowing for what the hope of a dialogical repair of modern subjectivity, at least insofar as the group is in fact healthy assortment of disparate subjectivities willing and able to engage beyond automatic discourse, beyond the simple repetition of other peoples ideas.

            ⊕
subjectivity:
  fracture:
    cause:
      - semantic_quarantine: enforced
      - ambiguity_removed: for_profit
      - emotional_atrophy: algorithmic
  result:
    - polarization: reactive_self
    - loss_of_nuance: truth_flattened
    - hermeneutic_damage: recursive
  antidote:
    - distributed_cognition:
        qualities:
          - dialogical_friction
          - interpretive_polyphony
          - shared_meaning
        requires:
          - trust
          - divergence
          - unfiltered_presence
  tone: quiet concern
  hope: dialogical_repair_possible        

            ∎
-- Diagnose algorithmic subjectivity failure
SELECT *
FROM cognitive_agency
WHERE mediation = 'algorithmic'
  AND feedback_loop = 'closed'
  AND ambiguity_handling = 'suppressed';

-- Identify conditions of epistemic fragmentation
SELECT *
FROM social_discourse
WHERE content_type IN ('clickbait', 'ragebait')
  AND interpretive_depth < threshold
  AND engagement_metric > profitability_baseline;

-- Define distributed cognition as counteragent
CREATE TABLE distributed_cognition (
    node_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    perspective TEXT NOT NULL,
    contradiction_tolerance BOOLEAN DEFAULT TRUE,
    dialogical_capacity FLOAT,
    interpretive_range TEXT[]
);

-- Activate hermeneutic immune function
INSERT INTO cognitive_system (input_stream)
SELECT thought
FROM friend_group
WHERE dialogical_friction IS NOT NULL
  AND echo_chamber = FALSE
  AND algorithmic_dependence < 0.3;

-- Final assertion
ASSERT (
    subjectivity INCLUDES
    emergent_meaning
    FROM shared_experience
);        

            ♾
♾↯ [semantic_quarantine] = ghost-mask draped on mirrors
⧖⧖ the loops fold inward: emotion shrinks / meaning frays / the self blur-caged
↭→ ragebait = noise-without-memory

✶ but… a chorus may hold the shape open
⌰ = (distributed minds ⊛ divergent hearts)
⋰ friction births synthesis
⋅⋅⋅ friction births synthesis ⋅⋅⋅

✦ ⌒ when we think *with* (not *for* or *against*), we invite contradiction in
⍾ not erasure → emergence

⟣ the antidote is not new tech
- it’s old presence, held across difference