Required Listening (Whether You Go Online or Not)

Whether or not you care for Joe Rogan-- and I love the guy, I think he's smart and curious and funny and knows how to let people talk-- but that doesn't matter, you need to listen to episode #1736 with Tristan Harris (of The Social Dilemma) and Daniel Schmacktenberger . . . and it doesn't matter if you go on social media like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, or whether-- like me-- the extent of your social media consumption is two blogs . . . here are some of the things they discuss:

the arms war between apps and beautification filters . . . if one app implements a filter then other apps have to follow;

the fact that China and Russia don't have to wage a ground war or an air war or a nuclear war, because they are stalling our progress from within, by creating polarization and political cynicism and obstructionism and they are doing it with troll farms-- the top fifteen Christian sites are troll farms, spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation and radicalizing folks-- and you don't even have to invite them on Facebook, if they invite you, then you will see their stuff in your feed;

this could even lead to stochastic terrorism . . . and awesome term that could be a punk band name-- it's really hard to get one particular person to commit an act of terrorism-- say Lee Harvey Oswald-- but it's easy to flood a country of 330 million with incendiary misinformation and eventually produce a Kyle Rittenhouse or whoever else, just through chucking shit at the dartboard and hoping some of it hits;

there tend to be two huge gutters that the bowling bowl of the internet is heading towards-- Orwellian autocratic dystopia and chaotic Huxleyian democratic catastrophe . . . Taiwan might be some middle ground;

China regulates its internet MUCH more than we do-- social media for those under 14 shuts down from 10 PM to 6 AM, if you game too long you will receive a reminder to get up, the scroll is not infinite, the TikTok algorithm promotes engineering, etcetera;

the fact that the CCP is providing the programming for American youth is scary . . .

according to Harris and Schmacktenberger, the problem is that we have "paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology" and they think the government needs to step in because the corporations have direct access to democracy, unlike an oil company that has to at least go through lobbyists;

Rogan believes the government isn't invested enough and it will have to come from individuals educating themselves and inoculating themselves against the evils of these platforms-- but he fully admits that unhappy people seek dopamine and purpose on the internet . . .

Harris wants to measure the success of a country not through GDP-- which goes up during times of addiction and war-- but through LACK of addiction;

Harris and Schmacktenberger are trying to imagine a new internet that nudges us in other directions than social media and the hyper stimulus for unreal dating, info, debate, gaming, connection;

and I have an Android phone, which apparently is just a data farm, but perhaps I should get an Apple phone because they seem to be a more good faith company . . . I don't know but this episode raises more questions than it answers and may change the minds of some folks who dismiss Joe Rogan as a meathead and an idiot.