We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

A look backwards and forwards at one year

This week marks the end of the first Year of Technopoptimism. We made it! I didn’t think I’d make it this far and I never dreamed of having so many readers. So, first and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you who has read, subscribed, liked, shared, commented. It means the absolute world to me. That so many people would indulge my “big thoughts about the world and technology mixed with pop culture references” is flabbergasting. I sincerely love and appreciate you all.¹

Although I could spend 2,000 words just expressing my appreciation, that would not be a thrilling read. Instead, I want to look back at some of the pieces from the last year – particularly those from before I had readers – and what the next step of this journey may be.

It’s funny how the mind works. I spent weeks working on a “What is Technopoptimism?” piece which, once published, I hated so much I am not even linking it here. Instead, for some reason, my mind made me start off with a piece called How the Internet Breaks Our Brains. First, let’s acknowledge that I am terrible at naming things. Just shockingly bad. But this is – by far – my favorite piece I posted here and what I consider the first of the three I’m proud of. It also worked out because, instead of a bloated, meandering think-piece, this would become the true mission statement for this place.

We are in the middle of – or, more pessimistically, at the end of – a cycle of technological advancements that are unprecedented in human history. The way we interact with the world is unfathomably different from just a couple of centuries ago. And when we talk about issues in modern society, we rarely give this more than a cursory acknowledgement. Technology is not separate from people, it is created by and used by us. We integrate into our lives and although it shapes those lives, it does so like water filling a balloon. The limits of what the balloon can handle will always be decisive. And that’s what this newsletter is about.

Following a reader comment and a series of very long hikes with my dog over Thanksgiving weekend, I launched my six part (?!) and poorly named series on fighting climate change. My timing on this was interesting because it seems to have coincided with a change in the zeitgeist. Over the last year the discourse has significantly shifted towards the realization that, paraphrasing one of my favorite movies, we’re gonna have to science the shit out of this.² Unfortunately, I was so in line with the zeitgeist that my finale had to be radically rewritten at the last moment because bigger writers had almost identical pieces come out (we call this a Dan Win).³

I would note the writing is very rough, as I was still trying to find my voice after years of writing nothing but attorney work product or text messages. But it lays out three important ideas. One is the Solution Fallacy, one is the idea that the better product will win, and one is the general idea about what techno-optimism is. It is not shilling the latest tech product – although my Open Door Selling Out Policy means I will do this for money. It’s about the human capacity to use our ingenuity to create a better world. My critique of the environmental movement also feels timely.

The second – and least read – of the pieces I’m proud of is my one on phase transitions. Partially, that’s because my love of craft rewards writing a piece in two hours the night before inspired by looking around my room for things to write about. That’s skill, baby. But mainly it’s because the ideas that I express in there – and my views on tech journalism and how we should view progress – are fundamental to understanding a lot of the pieces here. Although Certified Friend of the Stack Klaus has persuasively argued that this actually contradicts my series on tech that I may or may not have plagiarized from his piece.

The final piece I’m proud of is the Netflix one, which is the most widely read thing I’ve written since I was writing about hockey in the 90s (and possibly more so since the internet was tiny then).  Timing is funny. On the one hand, if I had never taken the hiatus⁴ and published this in March (as was planned) it would’ve looked prescient. On the other hand, I would not have lucked into Substack promoting it. But I also think that entire series deserves a look, particularly the one on Amazon.

There are two pieces I want to highlight from after that because they were both my initial attempts at talking about serious problems. The first is Bumble in the Jungle, which I adore as a title and thesis, even if I am disappointed with the final product. This was an inverted Dan Win, as one of the Titans of Substack published a similar piece a few days later. But I’m highlighting this because that series – on fighting the deleterious effects of technology – was one I was excited about. Fortunately, it was timed to come out right when I started getting readers. Unfortunately, it was timed to come out right after I got fired. Theoretically, I could’ve spent this time really crafting those pieces, but instead I used it eating pizza and playing The Witcher III.⁵ As such, the quality of that piece and its series is below what I wanted, and it’s an overall topic I want to explore during the next year. And thankfully, negative tech effects are plentiful enough I shall have enough examples to explore.

Similarly, my piece on Formula One was, despite being the most time consuming (due to the video editing), was not as good as it should have been. However, that whole series on the dead hand of history – and I think this was the best of them – is an important one. John Maynard Keynes once said that “the difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” There are many reasons that innovation has slowed, but I believe this is the easiest part of it to deal with, and I look forward to exploring that further in Year Two.

I hope you do read some of those if you haven’t yet, but I think it’s more interesting to discuss the pieces I didn’t publish. The one on techno-dystopia I’ve been working on for almost a full year will be fantastic if I ever finish it. If. But how do you pull together things as disparate as government surveillance and QR code restaurant menus? Similarly, my anti-predictions piece has foundered on the rocks of unfocused narrative. My more historical pieces – on Norman Borlaug and the Erie Canal – keep resulting in frustration. And my list of ideas has three that continue to haunt me, written down as: “something on desalinization,” “giant container ships are bad,” and, most excitingly, “roboburger.”

I did quite a bit of work last winter on a modern lesson to be learned from each chapter of Dan Jones’ amazing history of the Middle Ages, Power and Thrones. I regret not finishing that. But not as much as my big regret, which was a series in response to a tweet by Balaji Srinivasan.⁶ When I went to finish it in September the original tweet was (mysteriously) gone. I’ve repurposed parts of it into other articles – and am still revising one on newspapers – but this was my one chance to talk about crypto.

Somehow, I have only made passing reference to the two biggest tech stories of the last year: the Metaverse⁷ and crypto. Unfortunately, in that time, crypto speed ran the culture war and business cycle. If I had wrote about it in November, my thesis (the clickbaity “one big mistake the crypto community is making”) would’ve been fine. By February it would’ve drawn scorn from hardcore cryptonians and anti-cryptos. By July it was pointless. Oh well.

If that’s the past, what’s the future? For starters, expect more interaction in the comments. I always feel bad about ignoring the many fantastic comments! The truth is that I press publish – on average – at 4 A.M. for a piece that publishes at 7:07 A.M., so I’m usually either asleep or tired and cranky when most comments come in, fall behind, then feel guilty about not responding and do nothing. But I promise to do better.

I would like to expand content, primarily into either audio or video, simply because I don’t have much experience with either medium and think it would be fun. I’m also open to monetization. No longer possessing a sinecure, extra income would be nice (by which I mean critical). But I am also committed to NEVER asking people to pay for the main content here, so it would be either content extensions or the supporting member model Substackers are increasingly using, like we’re PBS. If I do the latter expect some tote bags and a Yan Can Cook or Anne of Green Gables marathon. But I vow the main pieces here will never go behind a paywall. I am interested in hearing any suggestions on either of those topics.

Likewise, I always loving hearing what you’d like to read about. Reader suggestions are the best ideas. But for now, I have some exciting ideas for the next few months. That includes pieces on extreme longevity tech, humans living in space, 5G, blockbuster movies, AI art, and the death and resurrection of the office. Ambitiously, I hope to be able to tackle the Great Stagnation and what I think is the most important problem we face: the decline of community. And finally, I promise that even if it kills me, I will find some way to get 2,000 words out of “roboburger.” I love you all and I hope to see you next week for a return to our regularly scheduled programming.

1. I should also note I have a firm “promote yourself” policy for the comments. So many of you have your own amazing writing that I can’t promote more than a fraction of it. Please never hesitate to share it here.

2. I recently finished Artemis – really liked it but found the ending unsatisfactory – and am in the middle of Project Hail Mary. I seem to enjoy Andy Weir books. Those who have seen the movie and read the book, is it worth it for me to go back and read The Martian?

3. I explain the story behind that in the piece, basically, it’s me being right but unfamous and late.

4. I’m not linking to the piece that explains it because it was poorly written (despite containing my single best joke), but I paused this at the start of the war in Ukraine. With all internet discourse revolving around that I saw my choices as crassly ignore it or try and shoehorn my angle into it, which felt inappropriate when people were dying. I intend to do similarly whenever the discourse becomes monotopic, although probably not for four months.

5. To continue with my frivolous overfootnoting this week, my Top 5 current gen games are Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher III, Fallout 4 (go ahead and ridicule me), Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto V. I know the original RDR was from the last generation, but it plays so well on current gens I am counting it.

6. One of my unpopular opinions is that I don’t buy into him as a great oracle of wisdom. Which, I mean, he’s a billionaire revered by tens of thousands, including smart and important people. I’m a nobody. But I cannot shake the belief that he’s wrong about almost everything.

7. I was going to actually go into the Metaverse for y’all! I still remain much more optimistic about it than most people.