I'm glad I stumbled onto your substack. I think we probably have zero interests in common (which is a mostly good thing although you mention practicing law), but I wholeheartedly agree with your theme.
The newsletter I'm trying to start is currently in the form of stacks and stacks of legal pads, but one of my themes is that we've forgotten that we exist in the face of an incomprehensibly large amount of ignorance.
I signed up after liking a comment you posted under someone else's post. An outline of why 'Technopoptimism' seems an early contender for some words. The nod to optimism is intriguing.
Always nice to find someone you agree with ... and if they can organise their thoughts and express themselves clearly like you have that's just great!
Yup, I've heard that typically tribes go up to about 150, then something happens, like splitting. I remember moving from a school of about 120 pupils to one of about 450, and how it was qualitatively different.
There's that - the number of people you can have a relationship with, and then there's the more general problem of appreciating really big numbers. You know - the way one to three kids in distress is better marketing for a charity than 3 thousand.
This article reminds me of a thought I had in college.
I lived in the dorms freshman year and it was extremely common to drink and party 5-6 nights a week. I remember thinking that it felt so normal and ‘everybody does it’ so I got over it.
But some wiser version of me had these same thoughts along the lines of ‘my college dorms are maybe 400-800 people but it’s the same and only people and world that I’m physically aware of. And in some other world there are 400-800 people building rocket ships or studying physics of whatever that would think we are all completely insane. So maybe something is seriously wrong with my lifestyle.’
I still ended up binge drinking and partying almost every night. I do slightly regret it. No point to this post other than I agree that humans are not good at putting their sub-communities into perspective properly.
Twitter and others should publish analytics on posts, topics, and publishers that help put their reach into perspective a bit better though. It feels like there is something untruthful about people not understanding the scale of the topics and views they engage with.
This is a great post! I'm not in a headspace to express my thoughts on it well, I'll try to later, but I just wanted to express how pleasantly surprised by this! Found you through a comment on Freddie Deboer's last piece, and this much exceeds what I was expecting when I clicked on the link to your account! I hope you keep writing, I really look forward to seeing how you develop!
Humans aren't good with big numbers, definitely. But you seem to be implying that societal influence was better when most people didn't or couldn't know the things they can now find out in a few minutes. The generation most likely to assume greater influence in the activity (and fall for the most bullshit), is the boomers. Mostly don't mistake what is marketing as life. People make money on these platforms, marketing goes where the people are. Our brains aren't broken because of the internet but because of capitalism. "News" companies are only allowed to be entertainment companies because of changed laws. Influence is still relative.
Coleman Hughes discusses this in his latest podcast with Jonathan Haidt. Hughes said that occasionally people recognize him and public, and they often ask if he gets recognized a lot. He says that, nope, nobody knows who he is. It feels like he's popular if you listen to his podcast, but he's not.
It's easy to forget people like are are idiosyncratic. Most people aren't really interested in discussions of abstract ideas at all. Singal's fans and haters probably share a level of openness-to-experience well above the median American. If the average person read his Atlantic article, they wouldn't care and forget it within a week.
A good start to your substack. Interesting, and not much that I'd disagree with.
Just one little nitpick.. I think we're living on a planet with 8 billion other humans, to the nearest billion. To the nearest half-billion it's still 8. And to the nearest quarter billion, yep, it's still 8 - there really are quite a few of us :)
Also, btw, I think you were right to just start writing. I've been considering trying this myself for a while, and the question of how to to start is pretty tricky. Anything that gets you through that is good enough.
One of the things that makes it hard to understand the size of mankind is that it's hard to pick the right metrics in any given case.
Kim Kardashian has a low rated show, but she has 73 million twitter followers. So I guess she's less powerful than Tucker Carlson, but also eight times as powerful as Dave Chappelle? I dunno, it's hard to get this right.
Thank-you for elaborately delineating the inherent problems in merging man with machine. It is creating a population of "species" who are void of emotion and individual thought. It's a very Orwellian reality.
I'm glad I stumbled onto your substack. I think we probably have zero interests in common (which is a mostly good thing although you mention practicing law), but I wholeheartedly agree with your theme.
The newsletter I'm trying to start is currently in the form of stacks and stacks of legal pads, but one of my themes is that we've forgotten that we exist in the face of an incomprehensibly large amount of ignorance.
Congratulations on starting.
I signed up after liking a comment you posted under someone else's post. An outline of why 'Technopoptimism' seems an early contender for some words. The nod to optimism is intriguing.
Always nice to find someone you agree with ... and if they can organise their thoughts and express themselves clearly like you have that's just great!
Yup, I've heard that typically tribes go up to about 150, then something happens, like splitting. I remember moving from a school of about 120 pupils to one of about 450, and how it was qualitatively different.
There's that - the number of people you can have a relationship with, and then there's the more general problem of appreciating really big numbers. You know - the way one to three kids in distress is better marketing for a charity than 3 thousand.
This article reminds me of a thought I had in college.
I lived in the dorms freshman year and it was extremely common to drink and party 5-6 nights a week. I remember thinking that it felt so normal and ‘everybody does it’ so I got over it.
But some wiser version of me had these same thoughts along the lines of ‘my college dorms are maybe 400-800 people but it’s the same and only people and world that I’m physically aware of. And in some other world there are 400-800 people building rocket ships or studying physics of whatever that would think we are all completely insane. So maybe something is seriously wrong with my lifestyle.’
I still ended up binge drinking and partying almost every night. I do slightly regret it. No point to this post other than I agree that humans are not good at putting their sub-communities into perspective properly.
Twitter and others should publish analytics on posts, topics, and publishers that help put their reach into perspective a bit better though. It feels like there is something untruthful about people not understanding the scale of the topics and views they engage with.
This is a great post! I'm not in a headspace to express my thoughts on it well, I'll try to later, but I just wanted to express how pleasantly surprised by this! Found you through a comment on Freddie Deboer's last piece, and this much exceeds what I was expecting when I clicked on the link to your account! I hope you keep writing, I really look forward to seeing how you develop!
Humans aren't good with big numbers, definitely. But you seem to be implying that societal influence was better when most people didn't or couldn't know the things they can now find out in a few minutes. The generation most likely to assume greater influence in the activity (and fall for the most bullshit), is the boomers. Mostly don't mistake what is marketing as life. People make money on these platforms, marketing goes where the people are. Our brains aren't broken because of the internet but because of capitalism. "News" companies are only allowed to be entertainment companies because of changed laws. Influence is still relative.
Coleman Hughes discusses this in his latest podcast with Jonathan Haidt. Hughes said that occasionally people recognize him and public, and they often ask if he gets recognized a lot. He says that, nope, nobody knows who he is. It feels like he's popular if you listen to his podcast, but he's not.
It's easy to forget people like are are idiosyncratic. Most people aren't really interested in discussions of abstract ideas at all. Singal's fans and haters probably share a level of openness-to-experience well above the median American. If the average person read his Atlantic article, they wouldn't care and forget it within a week.
Thanks for the post. Looking forward to more.
Can’t wait to read more!
A good start to your substack. Interesting, and not much that I'd disagree with.
Just one little nitpick.. I think we're living on a planet with 8 billion other humans, to the nearest billion. To the nearest half-billion it's still 8. And to the nearest quarter billion, yep, it's still 8 - there really are quite a few of us :)
Also, btw, I think you were right to just start writing. I've been considering trying this myself for a while, and the question of how to to start is pretty tricky. Anything that gets you through that is good enough.
One of the things that makes it hard to understand the size of mankind is that it's hard to pick the right metrics in any given case.
Kim Kardashian has a low rated show, but she has 73 million twitter followers. So I guess she's less powerful than Tucker Carlson, but also eight times as powerful as Dave Chappelle? I dunno, it's hard to get this right.
Thank-you for elaborately delineating the inherent problems in merging man with machine. It is creating a population of "species" who are void of emotion and individual thought. It's a very Orwellian reality.