what is happening society and why is everyone experiencing an existential crisis? 

it seems like the last couple of years has been fraught with tension after tension

the catholic church scandal, the me too movement, blm, stop asian hate, trump, trans politics etc etc 

but why?

founder ~ spuddie.ai ✨twitter.com/emmabwaldron

actively working on a thesis about how the internet has accelerated cultural globalization leading to context collapse, and the result is that interpersonal meaning is dead in the water

we don't know each other anymore

we only know everything else

so we fight with facts

instead of connecting with wonder

no kings. only working on impossible things.

We know everything else - aren’t people, different cultures (exposure to them through the internet and access to information) part of that though?

the idea is that we believe our "exposure" to other cultures through the internet is a proper representation of those people's experience

so we generalize and stereotype our neighbor, instead of getting to know them as a person

we become armchair experts, rather than friends

Im super interested in this topic. 

Yet also struck by the fact that before the internet most of the things people knew about other parts of the world were basically just even more racist memes?

So like it’s not solved yet but at least it’s directionally better?

weird internet kid. word rotator. building /seemore. yapping on /okbanger. curating in /cameron + pdfproject.org | dev + vet + HBS. 
seemore.tv/cameron 🫡

Somebody said somewhere (maybe tumblr) that the person who would’ve catalogued all the bugs in the tri-county area in the 1800s is now making YouTube videos about how to collect every ring in level 3 of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and I felt that in my soul

memes just spread more rapidly now with the new medium 

we have more exposure to information than ever before.. i wonder are more people seeking information now though? or are the same people who would have sat and read a book reading articles online? 

boredom was a catalyst for inquiry now we’re endlessly stimulat

Got it got it. 

I buy that (with caveat that some people are self aware enough now to realize that tension). 

To say it back - people still don’t really think two steps in. They go to the 1st order solution which used to be the source (out of necessity) but now the “source” is whoever is loudest on the internet

still a lot of nuance to unpack, but

pre-internet, curiosity likely led you to ask people directly (few other choices)

post-internet, curiosity likely leads you to the internet, where experiential information is hard to verify, and generalizations are easy to come by (but we tend to challenge them less)

At first I was like 🧐 but then I got it

v agree https://i.imgur.com/8o5ubfA.jpg

That’s my thinking. Not solved, but everything is relative. And relative to 100 years ago, we’re far less racist and a more accepting society. The plane, and the internet have massively helped.