Our society has long passed the time during which a single person or writing could change everyone's opinions.

There was never a point in time where a single person could change even the majority of people's opinions.

Was there ever a time that this was the case?

I dunno man, i think a comedian just saved our democracy.

Thomas payne's common sense didn't change everyone's mind.

and there are people today influencing how everybody thinks with tweets and memes.

language and information is evolving, and that is absolutely changing the landscape of how public opinion is affected.

Gaza is a great example.

Israeli has been bombing hospitals and schools and extrajudicially executing Palestinians for 50 years, but now that people can see that information and hear testimony from Palestinian journalists directly, they care.

Seems a bit of an exaggeration to say everyone. The population at the time of the revolution was around 2.5 million. Of that maybe 500,000 were the land owning white male "patriots" that would support the revolution and of those maybe half read or were influenced by Thomas Payne so around 250,000. We tend to attach a lot of significance after the fact to the American revolution, and Adam's, Payne etc. Since it spawned one of the greatest empires the world has ever known but at the time it was a relatively minor tax revolt.

this isn't even a matter of the world in general was smaller back then, France at that time had a population of 28 million. Payne would go on to have less success in convincing everyone there on his ideas because the scale is just so much more massive. Same with modern day.

Hype still sells and we still idolize people though. Businessmen such as Steve Jobs or (early) Elon Musk curate an image of themselves as a "genius", which leads to popularity of their products and influences trends and opinions in specific fields.

Really though, no single person did or invented anything alone. Every well-known and highly regarded scientist, inventor, or businessman built their work as a small increment on top of hundreds of predecessors. The Upright Thinkers by Leonard Mlodinow is a good pop-sci book that carries that point throughout.

Eh. One person could be influencing in the recent past…

Walter Cronkite, declared the Vietnam war unwinnable and “people “ say that changed Americans view on it.

Today, I agree there are too many voices and too many people have their “own realities” for one person to affect the national discourse.

I don’t think is aliens landed the majority of Americans would believe their own eyes if their news said it was fake.

Idk. Some kids in Enders game were able to do it

Too bad more people didn't have their minds changed by Paine's "Agrarian Justice". What a banger.

Well good thing we have massive, well funded media campaigns!!

Who the haail, is Thomas Payne? Max Payne's older brother?