Industrial media (second wave technology) generated consensus, or at least promulgated an appearance of consensus that the people could live with and didn't revolt against. Democracy can only function with some kind of consensual consensus.
What the third wave is missing (right now at least) is functioning conflict resolution for (re)newly discovered gaps in the consensus, beyond litigation and guns, just as the article says. If we don't figure out a way to resolve conflicts in world views, and come to some kind of consensus on what is, there's a risk laws and force will be used instead.
I'd ask people to read articles sympathetically rather than keyword-trigger on their current bugbears, but it's pretty much impossible in political topics.
It might be possible to mediate between groups who are at odds, but this seems to require a world-class diplomacy at a grassroots level.
I too can not see how centralized government can survive without a centralized source of truth. But what to do about it? It should be possible through other means to arrange public services, public works, and other things required for civilization to survive.
After a sympathetic reading of your comment, I cannot grasp this apparently contradictory sentence:
"Democracy can only function with some kind of consensual consensus."
After reading that sentence unsympathetically, I think that you mean that democracy cannot survive without an official priestly class mediating truth for the masses. Is that too cynical?
citizen A thinks roglob is gree
citizen B thinks roglob is purp
all citizens need to know what roglob is in order to function(live/make money/sleep/whatever) and to a certain extent have the same 'understanding' of roglob
So a "consensual consensus" means citizens A and B agree that in order to function(live/...) roglop starts with prue... the rest of the letters will be decided 'later', and that's enough for all citizens to function. (later being not fully specified out)
Implications are: A and B have to change the way they live, a bit, based on the "consensus" roglop.
And of course, it assumes that A and B accept to be 'a society' and accept that having a single roglop is good. (which, in itself, is another roglop,... it's roglops all the way down)
What the third wave is missing (right now at least) is functioning conflict resolution for (re)newly discovered gaps in the consensus, beyond litigation and guns, just as the article says. If we don't figure out a way to resolve conflicts in world views, and come to some kind of consensus on what is, there's a risk laws and force will be used instead.
I'd ask people to read articles sympathetically rather than keyword-trigger on their current bugbears, but it's pretty much impossible in political topics.