internet culture

Together, Hobart and Huber argue that bubbles are coordination mechanisms for progress: by linking collective risk to potential financial rewards, bubbles enable megaprojects beyond the capability of any single person or industry—megaprojects which, although risky, mark inflection points in technology, economics, and culture when they are... See more

While seemingly open-ended and allowing for an infinite recombination of elements, the idea of “vibes” is reductive. It discourages the more difficult work of interpretation and the search for meaning that defines human experience. It diverts attention away from narrative and moral implications in favor of foregrounding the idea of affect as... See more

Let’s start with the reality that this idea of satiating the internal of an individual is also deeply embedded in the philosophy of internet technologies. That Ayn Rand was, and maintains to be, a philosophical hero that helped to invent the mythos of the self-made Silicon Valley hero that many founders strive to be.

I use technology in order to hate it more properly. –Nam June Paik https://t.co/8lJQifwyqD

Once front-running other participants in financial markets or cultural production becomes a common strategy, trends become inefficiencies – temporary blips of difference or spikes in value that are bound for correction. Being early as a meta is replaced by catching people offsides. Betting on the return to the mean.

In our present technological era, humans have also needed a new framework to avoid drowning in the daily firehose of entertainment, media, and information. Given this setting of increasing complexity, it becomes more appealing to use an associative concept like “vibes” as a simplifying framework for understanding or self-expression. If we can’t... See more

“the internet is full of smart people writing beautiful prose about how bad everything is... i find this confusing and tragic, like watching Olympic high-jumpers catapult themselves into a pit of tarantulas.”

i have also been thinking about how all the timeless classics do not do this. my heroes do not do this, at least not in their heroic works.

why... See more