I am sympathetic utopian communities of all flavors. I myself have many dystopian worries because I’d prefer those utopias. I believe we are capable of more when we work together. America is a strange coalition even when we strain at the boundaries of pluralism.
It feels so hard to do this right now as we come up against our alienation from each other. Everybody is in pitched battles for control of the narrative of our future while so many of us battle individual nightmares in the here and now. We can do so much better in reaching for a future for each other but it’s all politics up and down.
The podcasting tech right are three years late to the effective altruists versus effective accelerationist meme wars (EA vs e/acc) as we we are subject to yet another round of Anthropic fear mongering over its potential power as a developer of artificial intelligence. Screaming its the end of white collar jobs tends to rattle.
If I had 3 billion in revenue, the horniest model on the planet and some weird Benthamite fetish I’d probably say less catastrophic shit personally but Anthropic is battling the eye of Sauron SaaS brotherhood of OpenAI’s aggressive financialization needs.
Meanwhile even the most determined of religious nationalist Rod Dreher is experimenting with transhumanism. Or he let an artificial intelligence write an essay in his style responding to the New York Times. Or that is how much he respects David Brooks. The professional pundit class might be listening to the doomers but they experimenting with optimism.
This is a funny way of getting into the New York Times having a panic attack as an institution as its way through various forms of nationalist and revanchist thought.
I myself am not very sympathetic to many veins of nationalist thought I was intimidated to be seated on a panel with Deneen this spring as he is a formidable scholar. Speaking on the aims of technology he is much more of the academy and the Citadel than I am.
I feel I have an obligation to engage with all types of political thought as technologists have found themselves with power in America on where. We have to consider how we build and to what benefit. I feel in some way that technologists (especially the optimists) are a political constituency but also a worldview and we coexist among others.
The diverse array of opinions and different constituencies in America are battling over what constitutes the good. America is the land of some degree of diversity and we cannot only serve a narrow band of interests. I am often afraid of the other parties in that debate because I do understand that it is power at stake but I engage because we all have the power to do so. Even if it seems ridiculous sometimes.
We get regular reminders of how chaotic things are in our new hypersphere networked world that we have entire memes categories and full influence campaigns dedicated to blackpilling people into nihilism.
No blackpilling meme
The fatalism and determinism expressed on the internet is the experiences reality for plenty of people and it’s probably not limited to a few radicals. The presumption that any of these pills are limited to incels misogynists racist cranks is comforting but incorrect.
She thought something had gone wrong with us physically too. “Endocrine systems get fried. There’s too much cortisol, you’ve been running on adrenaline, eventually you tap out. Everyone feels nuts right now,” she said, “because what on earth are we supposed to do with the fact that we’ve had this incredible rate of change for so long. We think we’re keeping up with it, but our bodies are like, ‘Oh, actually no. We have no idea what’s going on.’ ”
I also believe it’s a deliberate strategy by virtually every player in the great games of power and influence to make us feel nuts. Everything is a conspiracy. Everyone is a villain except your in-group. Except it’s not.
I’m not sure exactly how to characterize Doomer Optimism other than a kind of social club for Internet denizens that wish to retain their optimism in the face of chaos and change. It’s a very human group and I’ve enjoyed their company for years.
I’m one of the odder congregants in this group which includes a diverse array of characters from all classes and walks of life. I say I’m the odd man out only because I’ve seen them as a generally regenerative self sufficient localist group that in another era would have been back to the land hippies, unionists, environmentalists and anarchists. Generally left wing coded but skeptical of state and corporate power.
That I’m one of a handful of practicing technologists that participates, and a libertarian, means I argue for the liberatory power of open source software and its range of applications for individuals to enable a life that can provide means and meaning without being in the jaws of the Machine.
Decentralizing technologies lets us all participate. More individuals are interested in thinking how they engage with industrial processes. 3D printing enables many types of freedom and is crucial to the right to repair movement. Which gives power back to the owner of property and not the corporation from which it was purchased. I unabashedly support the freedom to compute as a human who wishes to find a harmony with the machine in all its forms. Be not controlled by your tools or their makers. Make your own future.
If none of this strikes you as particularly right wing, reactionary or otherwise populist, or even statist; I’d agree with you. I am a libertarian.
And yet there are those who are still enthralled by old narratives of political poles that this individual, and choice centered, politics is one grounded in real people with real problems not financial or social abstractions.
Paul is a neighbor, a friend, and a gentleman in the most noble possible sense. He does not traffic in status or social cachet. He is a free thinking and curious American man who is dedicated to hearing a large swathe of perspectives. He wrote a response and included the email screenshot below. I am certain Paul really does mean his hospitality genuinely.
Dear @awinston
Thank you for your email (below). Of course its intent was not in good faith nor was it evidence of genuine curiosity, but it did cause me to reflect on the scope of @thewagonbox project and the growing constellation of characters around it. And I had to think about you, and Mr. Wilson, and how one should respond to the sort of witch hunts for political wrong-think that have become your cottage industry (one that I’m afraid is dying.)
To your first point: an interesting aspect of the Wagon Box, and particularly our Doomer Optimism events, is the breadth of the politics represented. Seneca Scott is a ‘90s democrat who wants a safe community for his family and goats. James Pogue, like me (and Jesus), has anarchist sensibilities, cares about the habitat for the trout he fishes and is leery of the global hegemonic machine. Ashley Fitzgerald is a suburban mom who likes regenerative agriculture and healthy neighborhoods. The event has largely focused on a suspicion of “The Machine” and ways to live humanely and harmoniously with the natural world. The idea that it is some hotbed of “hard/far right” ideology, or that we are promoting “corporate governance” is laughable.
To the question of the “ties” I have to Ryan Payne, or Jonathan Keeperman, or D. C. Miller, or any other person you may see as a “smoking gun” evidence of nefarious ideology, I have a few comments. First of all, you have left out other characters who have graced the Wagon Box, some of whom you might even consider even worse! And of course there are others hard to place politically, like Walter Kirn, Patrick Deneen, Paul Kingsnorth, or Max Foley. All these characters differ quite widely, have deep disagreements, but all have something in common: I find them interesting and care about what they have to say, and they see enough in me to take me up on my invitation.
You ever get to talking to someone and you see their eyes glaze over? They do not care what you have to say, they are not listening. It’s no fun. It is death. What’s the point? Good faith curiosity is the lifeblood of any relationship, of any conversation, of journalism, and of self governance. There are swaths of folks who have had good faith curiosity driven from them, and it has been done largely by people like you, who paint in caricatures and come to stories with an agenda, who live on fear and suspicion. You send a guy like me some sort of hostage note instead of an invitation to a real conversation. It’s sad.
At the root of the Wagon Box project is my personal curiosity in people, and at the root of that is a conviction that we will all be together eventually at a large table in a conversation that will never end. Our enemy is no person, but the stale impulse of death that preys on love, on connection, on community. It thrives in the Machine of mass delusion of which, regrettably, The Guardian is a mouthpiece. It has forced you to have a narrower view of people, a static view, and one that lacks curiosity. But I really do care about you, as you too are on a journey and I’d love to hear about it. Let’s grab coffee and talk sometime. No deadline.
I brought up the context of there being technologists as part of this conversation as another reporter who shares a similarly slanted lens who seems to have quite a problem with Silicon Valley while not really understanding the core values that technologists share that are not compatible with a controlled statist or even corporatist view of power.
We are going through a huge cultural change that will sweep many of us up its cascading consequences. We will have materially different conditions as artificial intelligence changes day to day life.
Do you want to trust those who insist on control to prevent horrors? Or do you want to trust yourself and your fellow man to engage with one another as human? I’ve chosen optimism. I believe we can build freely.
We live in an endless scroll world of relational voids. The ways we consume content has now surpassed even the worst fears of media theory greats like Marshall MacLuhan and Neil Postman.
Amusing ourselves to death is no longer a fear but a practical reality. So we spot auto playing clips divorced from context of tech CEOs revealing ever more horrifying statistics about how degraded our conditions have become.
I have no idea if this interview pull quote is from the frat bro former addict Theo Von who so likable interviewed Trump or from Dwarkesh the 24 year old artificial intelligence wunderkind. Context collapse indeed.
I think this tidbit on its own is open to a number of interpretations as our Bowling Alone era has been with us before Facebook.
We forget how inelastic social capital can be. We’ve got a statistic (not even a nod to Dunbar’s number) about friend demand without addressing the issue of friend supply. Of course, it’s not an economics problem as humans are not fungible.
We have a cultural and psychological problem on our hands when it comes to our new relational world as it’s mediated through digital intermediaries. Maybe you can make a case that there is a demand for 15 more people to improve your social standing.
You’d think the man at the head of the corporation who owns Instagram would understand status signaling. For plenty of people having friends is about your social position.
Fortunately for most of us friendship is still about feeling understood and caring enough to understand another person. Which an artificial intelligence is probably capable of doing. But that’s a different story.
Being that so much of modern work is done online it is a challenge to ever really unplug. I feel as if startups, finance and media have it particularly bad.
I try not to let myself burn out on the dopaminergic waves of the network. But I am a citizens of the internet and just like Molly Millions I’m suffering from the central nervous system stress the Cyperpunk future promised us.
I am however going to attempt a pull back to refocus myself so that I don’t get pulled by the strong currents of the network. A lot of low roads will be traversed between here and wherever we land.
Gallop polling in the FT on young American’s trust
What a fun set of polling data on the day we have Tim Walz stomping around saying industry sucks. We have no future and the people who build just absolutely suck isn’t the best vibe from a vice presidential candidate. But it certainly seems to be a mood.
Decent people suggest we must protect the class of people so bad at math they would use this financial product. Well, actually…go a million nuanced credit understanders. Honestly I’ve never carried a credit card balance because I’m too afraid to do so. But some people yolo their consumption.
Abundance means we need to produce things. Which costs money. It’s hard to take say Ezra Klein’s Abundance tour too seriously when we make it impossible to finance housing but we can finance your burrito taxi. That’s not what anyone was hoping for when they gave all this power to our government. No wonder institutional trust is down.
It feels as if they produce a new America version every quarter but if that’s not enough content for you there are spinoffs in Sweden, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Argentina.
They shoot them roughly a year ahead of time. Which, in any other era in my lifetime, would have been fast turn around time. You could figure basic values would hold from year to year. But culture changes very rapidly now.
So reality tv that was shot even a year ago now makes for some very odd viewing as America’s politics and “current thing” are in constant flux.
February and March of 2024 did not have the vibe shift we are in now. I won’t spoiler it should you be considering the show but I will say it’s fascinating to see how much politics played into the women’s decisions.
Now maybe it’s because it’s the Minnesota season they felt they had to address certain topics in race relations after the summer of 2020.
But they also went to places on queer issues, religion and national politics that did absolutely nothing to make any situation better.
Looking back on one’s previous view of the world is not always pleasant. That we have a way back thanks to media makes for a strange continuity of views that probably do little to do with stuff of a happy love filled life. Perhaps a good reminder to not look too much to the past to decide your future. Or a reminder to focus on what never changes.
I hate to add fears that we will face a “dead internet” but increasingly we lack shared context in our online spaces. As context collapses so too does culture. Bad behavior proliferates.
Without shared values we cannot find purchase on the informational ravine of the open web. Competing narratives and interests buffet your mind as you try to sense-make your way into a firmer grip. It’s easy to slip and find yourself unsure of what is up or down.
The vibes are bad. People have entirely different interpretations when presented with something as innocuous as an email asking “what did you get done this week?” If you discuss a particularly contested space it quickly becomes a hostile information environment. Many retreat.
If you are tempted to argue with me about whether that action is in fact innocuous you have to wonder how far apart you and I are from each other as we try to climb through the great ravine to the other side.
It’s been a bad month for me. It seems like a bad month in general. But that’s February for you right? It’s a thumbs down kind of month. I’ve enjoyed the nonstop snow but we’ve finally gone above freezing.
Icicles
As the sun melts down our power into icicles I’ll try not to dwell on the negatives.
Are you a Frankfurt School student? I certainly am. If you are, you may find John Ganz’s review of Alex Karp’s new book The Technological Republic to be an amusing read. His Substack also has some gems including this imagine of Adorno which I intend to use everywhere.
I am seeing some progress in my various home and health projects. I’ve been doing my best to remain optimistic even though I was not feeling well and the sheer amount of changes required was intimidating. But I’m seeing low progress.
An industrial hygienist is coming to do an arm test tomorrow on our basement as well as the rest of the house to confirm the extent of our mold problems. Our hope is that it’s contained to the bathroom in the basement.
If we have to do a bathroom remediation that presents an opportunity to do some renovations. While exciting that is also introducing more risk. But you can’t waste a crisis right?
