burnout world / evil is in

Social media incentivized more extreme views at the same time that China began to develop an entirely different internet that, unlike the Western internet, was built on the values expressed by the state.

the mainnet turns into a slop of “for anyone” consumer trends and long Twitter battles with bots, but the place where culture actually happens is hidden and so fragmented that it can’t help but create strong divergences between people.

X has turned into a bullhorn for “anti-woke” sentiments used to boost Musk’s political messaging, Meta has abandoned its fact checking in deference to possible Trump retribution against the Zuckerberg empire; Starlink, TikTok, and Nvidia/TSCM are becoming geopolitical bargaining chips in nativist industrial trade wars; Network States are gaining po

This is as much a problem of platform logic as it is of political economy: Reactionary outrage begets clickrates, which begets attention and reach especially when the people running these media platforms are themselves largely sympathetic to reactionary beliefs.

• Brands and platforms emerge that propose a new economic model for creatives, a clear codex of what is good and bad within their system, a moral compass, such as Metalabel or Subvert.

• Crypto goes deeper into the Right-coded direction of Bitcoinmaxxies, memecoin grifters and anti-government types. While Ethereum, the more pro-social / governance e

to the Dark Forest of the internet; off mainline socials where their speech and behavior was broadcast to anyone and into small niche communities on invite-only forums, p2p networks, and group chats.