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I was going to suggest stuff about community but then you dark horsed me and threw that in right at the end.

How’s about YouTube? It’s known for gamers and reaction videos and gossip and beauty content and yada yada yada but it’s also bursting with absolutely free yet invaluable educational content. I swear to god, Ninja Nerd and Pennsylvanian Zach Murphy is one of the best teachers I’ve ever come across and the Ninja Nerd content lectures are accessed by millions of med students and nursing students. Every time I watch one of their videos I feel like Will Hunting.

Contrast the most free information ever available with the rise of credentialism.

In conclusion, Through a Hedge Backward is an awesome substack. I’d like to thank Through a Hedge Backward for sponsoring this comment.

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TaHB is one of the only officially recommended Stacks for a reason!

Coincidentally, just this week I became the last human on Earth to learn that YouTube is filled with amazing content. So this is definitely a great idea!

My completely uneducated hunch is that with the other primary digital media - audio (mainly podcasts) and writing (blogs, Twitter) - there’s a small band of people who got in early but almost everyone else is still from legacy media. Conversely, the visual ones - video and pictures (YouTube, Twitch, IG, Tok) - seem to have created a more varied and less credentialed ecosystem.

If true, the question of why is really interesting!

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Would like your reports on the Metaverse.

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Ugh. So, the actual gear is too expensive on my current no dollars a month income and the woman who was going to guide me is a former coworker who I haven’t spoken to since I left there. My Amazing Tales of the Metaverse is going to end up being significantly delayed. Which is a shame because it sounds like an unusual place.

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I feel slightly responsible, at least in part, for What Is Technopoptimism. Remember me suggesting you expand on it? Sorry.

Congratulations on a successful year. The forthcoming one I'm particularly anticipating is decline in community. I'm so split on the impact of technology on relationships it helps to see if anyone else can clear my block.

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I appreciate your willingness to explore strange, new worlds, but you don't have to go into the metaverse for me. :)

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Congratulations! I can't wait to experience all the things you have in store for this next year.

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Thank you!

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It was probably fortunate that you were sacked Dan otherwise we may never have been able to read your works, you would have been too busy to put pen to paper either prosecuting or defending the idiots in todays world.

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Thank you Sally! I always appreciate your comments. And I feel similarly, although my bank account certainly misses my old job!

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You will be fine. Keep writing and perhaps you could have a sideline as a “barista”, ☕️they make good money 🤗

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Nov 10, 2022Liked by Daniel T

Congrats on one year! The Witcher III rocks.

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PLEASE write about the scourge of QR-code menus! They actually fit in with some of your larger themes--they are a technical “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist, and they erode those casual, friendly encounters with strangers that are so important to us social animals. Plus, like self-checkouts, they outsource the work to the customers but without paying us it even offering s discount.

For the record, I think you are great at titles! Technopoptimism is very clever!

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