SpaceXponential

The former CIA analyst Martin Gurri predicted these fracturing effects in his 2014 book, The Revolt of the Public. Gurri’s analysis focused on the authority-subverting effects of information’s exponential growth, beginning with the internet in the 1990s. Writing nearly a decade ago, Gurri could already see the power of social media as a universal... See more

 Attention is a finite resource, and how we choose to spend our attention online is, in some ways, a direct reflection of where human culture has gone in an era where access to information is basically unlimited. We are very much in our teenage years—that is, we suddenly have all these new capabilities and it’s really easy to just run wild. But... See more

Eventually, I began coding some rough prototypes for John Michael and Stuart. At that point, we didn’t talk about how it would be a business or even how it would function on a practical, user, or human level. It was really, really utopian.Those days we asked questions like, “How does a person be their best self on the internet?” and “How do you get... See more

Bohm considered unexamined thought to be the crux of most issues that humans face. He says, “When we see a ‘problem,’ whether pollution, carbon dioxide, or whatever, we then say, ‘We have got to solve that problem.’ But we are constantly producing that sort of problem — by the way we go on with our thought.” His concept of dialogue is meant to

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The pressure to perform and live up to the expectations of others is not a new social phenomenon — nor a bad one. **^^But the way it manifests at the internet’s global scale increases its intensity tenfold — especially for young people. The goal is no longer to simply live up to the high expectations of your parents and peers — online you could be... See more

Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onwards, they no longer inform — they deform. They can even darken the world. This puts them in opposition to truth. Truth illuminates the world, while information lives off the attraction of surprise,... See more

The notion of epistemic sanctions clarifies what we might really mean by “consensus” in the context of public discourse — universal mutual listening , rather than universal agreement.

“Universal mutual listening” happens when publishers compete on the basis of trustworthiness, instead of on the basis of ‘facts.’

Competing on the basis of ‘facts’

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+ Rapid exchange of tools and techniques — As soon as something is invented, it is flaunted and then shared. Ideas flow quickly because they are flowing inside a common language and sensibility.

This is what growing up very visibly online is like. It’s hard not to internalize the sense that you’re constantly being watched and thus everything you do demands a defensible explanation. **Granted, there are many benefits to this — incredible opportunities are unlocked by constructing a digitally consumable caricature of yourself that makes you... See more