The book 1.0

Whoever controls infrastructure determines the future. If you doubt that, consider that in Europe we’re still using roads and living in towns and cities the Roman Empire mapped out 2,000 years ago.

For one thing, the internet has taken the reward circuitry meant for social conditioning and has begun to replace it with parasocial conditioning; our reward feedback loops increasingly run through interactions with people we don’t know and may never meet, who have very little information about us or investment in our lives and wellbeing.... See more

The internet is not only a network of cables, servers, and computers. It is an environment that shapes and is shaped by its inhabitants and their use.

Has anyone wrote anything good on the technological effects on human affectivity? The ability of humans to feel?

What kind of memetic monsters evolve in a primordial stew made of fractalized identities, multipolar geopolitics and viral media? Conspiracy theories, of course.

And that is what really gets me going: the dynamic between what’s going on in the world, and what it means for us as human beings.

The real breakthroughs that enabled the revival of the 1,000 True Fans model are better understood as cultural. The rise in both online news paywalls and subscription video-streaming services trained users to be more comfortable paying à la carte for content. When you already shell out regular subscription fees for newyorker.com, Netflix, Peacock,... See more