Being “spreadsheet brained” has become a shorthand critique for the technocratic mindset that prefers to see with abstractions rather than through immediate physical reality.
I don’t have a full history of the term but it was brought into my lexicon by Ashley Fitzgerald of Doomer Optimism.
Having spreadsheet brain can be a quality of life problem. If you are particularly numerate you can easily fixate on the negative statistics. We then use those facts to isolate themselves from the each other. It’s a classic case of seeing the price of things and not the value. It can easily become a very smart form of stupid.
I’m more of a whole to parts thinker myself so I’m amused by this meme even though as someone who works with tech startups I’m obviously susceptible to spreadsheet brain issues.
It’s reasonable to have concerns with thinking only in abstract terms. The topology of human experience is complex and yet we have many tools that take the irreducible and cook it down into something concentrated, clear, and altogether too legible. We desire to be seen but perhaps not too closely.