Yes I recognise the phenomenon you describe. However there is a countervaling force I don't think you're accounting for here: the first real digital natives have come of age and are inventing new social norms to suit virtual spaces.
For example, I'm a happy member of the informally organised sprawling network/community/scene called TPOT ("this part of twitter"). We have learned how to build genuinely satisfying friendships and heterodox intellectual exchange, in public, on the platform commonly known as "the hellsite". How? By designing social norms that are fit for purpose. The scene is largely populated by people whose PRIMARY form of social connection is online, so they learned to make it work.
Importantly, the community building is supported by a large number of in person gatherings, there's an extraordinary culture of hosting. Much of it happens under the radar but I estimate about one gathering every 6 weeks (!) over the past couple of years. Gatherings typically about 30 people over 3 or 4 days. (I wrote about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/richdecibels/p/running-a-local-lodge-for-your-internet)
One of the questions lurking in my head has to do with the common complaint of the aged, a community to which I now belong, that "things were better back then." We chalk it up to a kind of rigidity, unable to move with "the times." But what if it's true? What if an unnamable quality of being is slowly eroding away, generation by generation. "Socrates made the same complaint centuries ago" one could say, implying an eternal condition. But I have a hard time imagining an indigenous elder, pre contact, moving around with his or her tribe, thinking things were better when they were kids. It's like we've redefined the fundamental motion of time, from circle to line.
And you're right to point to the quality of our work as a place to gauge what is happening. Not only the quality of the objects made, but the quality of experience in the making. That too is being eroded.
Last point -- AI "art." I'm dismayed at how many people are using AI generated images for their Substack postings. I find them creepy in a way that's hard to describe. Besides just being ugly, they produce in me what I can only describe as a feeling of spiritual nausea, as though I have entered a place where there is no gravity, no touch-point of reality. Meanwhile, having to search through image directories for just the right image is time consuming, but often you end up surprised, finding images that reflect on the post in fresh ways you hadn't thought of. Rilke advised "hold to the difficult," foreseeing perhaps the "convenience" mindset creeping into the culture.
I'm really impressed by your dedication to blogs, on-line meetings, zooms, podcasts et al. The list made me realise how all of this is still an alien territory to me. I don't do zooms, don't have any on-line groups that I attend, very rarely listen to or read podcasts and blogs, and generally am just a sad disconnected, flesh and bones human:-) Am I alone in this? I think it's the reliance on words that I can't deal with. We are a society that talks way too much! We are drowning in an ocean of words! All this on-line chatter seems like a distraction, a sublimation of our lack of real community? Then again, many seem to really value this form of communication. Maybe some of us just aren't wired that way.
My one vice is that I still use twitter once a day - mostly to post photos and videos (art) and very occasionally to joust with someone on the far right ... not a particularly healthy activity, I know, but occasionally quite satisfying.
I do have a Vimeo account for my moving image art and a Soundcloud for my piano indulgences. But these are mostly repositories, not places I go for interaction.
That last point about the current generation leaving the internet: I've been saying for several years now that there will be a fashion/movement to be off-line, disconnected, mostly prompted by concerns about on-line surveillance. Part of this may also be not possessing a smartphone, though this will necessitate sacrifices as it's becoming clear that there are an increasing number of things you can't do without a smartphone. I know because I haven't had one for 5+ years. My daughter also didn't have one for years but has recently just succumbed to pressure from her friends and bought a second hand one.
Thanks for this Dougald. It is a discussion I am definitely up for.
"Hand made web" is a valuable concept and brings some needed nuance to Hoel's stark and gloomy vision. Another metaphor could be that of the grocery store: there are hundreds and hundreds of different items available for purchase at a modern supermarket, but the proper way to do shopping is to stick to a list, the contents of which won't vary much over time spans of a month or so.
I would posit that the concept of "FOMO" did a great deal of psychic damage to many people, to the point where they feel they absolutely must spend time all over the internet; but if people were to carefully consider exactly what they want out of their online experience, most of them would likely want a version of what you describe. That being said, I do think there are some people who are effectively "lost," who have doomed themselves to mindlessly following whatever the internet gives them to consume.
My biggest concern comes from being a parent: how do I teach my children how to effectively navigate the web? My generation (millennials) had no playbook for the kinds of choices we must make regarding our parental responsibilities in guiding our kids away from the hack work and towards meaningful communities and relationships; we had to figure all that out on our own with varying degrees of success, and we have to keep figuring it out over and over again as the net landscape changes.
My husband and I dropped out in 2020. We took our skills, resources and 30+ years of working experience with us. It’s ALL hack work out there. We were both at managerial levels in our jobs and the environment had become totally depersonalized and unpalatable… 2020 was the last straw.
For several years we stayed offline (except Substack) but we recently started a YouTube page trying to help others leave the system (Love Off Grid).
I don’t think we can blame “the internet algorithm” when that same algorithm is driven by what WE view. I’m afraid what we’re being shown is a mirror of humanity’s lowest common denominator. It’s up to each of us to produce constructive content that counters that dark reflection.
Oh you're on a digital fast for Lent too? Actually mine is a media consumption fast. I've decided it doesn't count as consumption for me if I leave a comment so...
One thing that occurred to me reading this was that the reason AI doesn't surprise us is that we haven't asked it to. I remember some academic paper on an earlier image generation AI which paid attention to the question of whether the works produced could be considered novel. In practice, I think this meant would it be considered imaginative, by critics if it had been made by a human. Maybe that's not the right way to answer the question but at least the question was being asked. But that was an academic paper, not a commercial application.
A smaller digital experience: this is what I'm hearing now from Mastodon fans, once that platform failed to win a huge audience. They argue that their circles are smaller, but as a result the conversations are better.
A very interesting take on the AI infiltration of the web, Dougald. I like your view that it's another good reason to trim your list of online places to visit and be more discerning in what you choose to read. I've come to place a high value on my time—not in money terms but in terms of relationships. I'd rather spend my time on things that matter to me than what a random bot serves up for my consumption.
I really love this article. “The Hand Made Web” kind of sticks for me. It is a very interesting and hopeful perspective. To those interested in quality interaction rather than obsessing on viral metrics, your comments are welcome and timely. I also have a feeling within this same group are people that find a way to use new technologies (like AI and others) within this same spirit of human centered connection.
The decentralized web is my glimmer of hope and seems to overlap with the hand made web. I also see AI polluting the main networks driving people towards a healthier hand made web, but I am not as confident that AI is incapable of the same creativity as people. I imagine creativity grows from observation, similar to the van dutch quote that nothing is original. I wonder if AI is just not yet capable of that creative growth from observation.
I greatly enjoyed your post. It expresses better than I can, my view of the internet today. Thank you.
Love it. A rewilding and reweaving of the internet.
I think also it pairs with a handmade world and perhaps this is an important consideration both in terms of real world meets - but also the grounding of information as knowledge via experience.
Great piece Dougald, my brother in Lent! I love that Berger quote, especially this: "The difference is not only a question of skill and imagination, but also of morale."
Such incisive words, thank you. I worry about the trend towards lives lived more and more in digital realms, disconnected from the real world. An ungrounded, untethered and shallowed human experience.
I do agree that this may be a trend even before AI; there was just too much media and the Internet just became so unpleasant that I mostly access only a few places now. AI will make it worse.
Yes I recognise the phenomenon you describe. However there is a countervaling force I don't think you're accounting for here: the first real digital natives have come of age and are inventing new social norms to suit virtual spaces.
For example, I'm a happy member of the informally organised sprawling network/community/scene called TPOT ("this part of twitter"). We have learned how to build genuinely satisfying friendships and heterodox intellectual exchange, in public, on the platform commonly known as "the hellsite". How? By designing social norms that are fit for purpose. The scene is largely populated by people whose PRIMARY form of social connection is online, so they learned to make it work.
Importantly, the community building is supported by a large number of in person gatherings, there's an extraordinary culture of hosting. Much of it happens under the radar but I estimate about one gathering every 6 weeks (!) over the past couple of years. Gatherings typically about 30 people over 3 or 4 days. (I wrote about it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/richdecibels/p/running-a-local-lodge-for-your-internet)
Thank you for this beam in the fog.
One of the questions lurking in my head has to do with the common complaint of the aged, a community to which I now belong, that "things were better back then." We chalk it up to a kind of rigidity, unable to move with "the times." But what if it's true? What if an unnamable quality of being is slowly eroding away, generation by generation. "Socrates made the same complaint centuries ago" one could say, implying an eternal condition. But I have a hard time imagining an indigenous elder, pre contact, moving around with his or her tribe, thinking things were better when they were kids. It's like we've redefined the fundamental motion of time, from circle to line.
And you're right to point to the quality of our work as a place to gauge what is happening. Not only the quality of the objects made, but the quality of experience in the making. That too is being eroded.
Last point -- AI "art." I'm dismayed at how many people are using AI generated images for their Substack postings. I find them creepy in a way that's hard to describe. Besides just being ugly, they produce in me what I can only describe as a feeling of spiritual nausea, as though I have entered a place where there is no gravity, no touch-point of reality. Meanwhile, having to search through image directories for just the right image is time consuming, but often you end up surprised, finding images that reflect on the post in fresh ways you hadn't thought of. Rilke advised "hold to the difficult," foreseeing perhaps the "convenience" mindset creeping into the culture.
I hope for the crisis you point toward.
I'm really impressed by your dedication to blogs, on-line meetings, zooms, podcasts et al. The list made me realise how all of this is still an alien territory to me. I don't do zooms, don't have any on-line groups that I attend, very rarely listen to or read podcasts and blogs, and generally am just a sad disconnected, flesh and bones human:-) Am I alone in this? I think it's the reliance on words that I can't deal with. We are a society that talks way too much! We are drowning in an ocean of words! All this on-line chatter seems like a distraction, a sublimation of our lack of real community? Then again, many seem to really value this form of communication. Maybe some of us just aren't wired that way.
My one vice is that I still use twitter once a day - mostly to post photos and videos (art) and very occasionally to joust with someone on the far right ... not a particularly healthy activity, I know, but occasionally quite satisfying.
I do have a Vimeo account for my moving image art and a Soundcloud for my piano indulgences. But these are mostly repositories, not places I go for interaction.
Video art: http://vimeo.com/user11338598
Music http://soundcloud.com/user-329950758
That last point about the current generation leaving the internet: I've been saying for several years now that there will be a fashion/movement to be off-line, disconnected, mostly prompted by concerns about on-line surveillance. Part of this may also be not possessing a smartphone, though this will necessitate sacrifices as it's becoming clear that there are an increasing number of things you can't do without a smartphone. I know because I haven't had one for 5+ years. My daughter also didn't have one for years but has recently just succumbed to pressure from her friends and bought a second hand one.
Thanks for this Dougald. It is a discussion I am definitely up for.
"Hand made web" is a valuable concept and brings some needed nuance to Hoel's stark and gloomy vision. Another metaphor could be that of the grocery store: there are hundreds and hundreds of different items available for purchase at a modern supermarket, but the proper way to do shopping is to stick to a list, the contents of which won't vary much over time spans of a month or so.
I would posit that the concept of "FOMO" did a great deal of psychic damage to many people, to the point where they feel they absolutely must spend time all over the internet; but if people were to carefully consider exactly what they want out of their online experience, most of them would likely want a version of what you describe. That being said, I do think there are some people who are effectively "lost," who have doomed themselves to mindlessly following whatever the internet gives them to consume.
My biggest concern comes from being a parent: how do I teach my children how to effectively navigate the web? My generation (millennials) had no playbook for the kinds of choices we must make regarding our parental responsibilities in guiding our kids away from the hack work and towards meaningful communities and relationships; we had to figure all that out on our own with varying degrees of success, and we have to keep figuring it out over and over again as the net landscape changes.
My husband and I dropped out in 2020. We took our skills, resources and 30+ years of working experience with us. It’s ALL hack work out there. We were both at managerial levels in our jobs and the environment had become totally depersonalized and unpalatable… 2020 was the last straw.
For several years we stayed offline (except Substack) but we recently started a YouTube page trying to help others leave the system (Love Off Grid).
I don’t think we can blame “the internet algorithm” when that same algorithm is driven by what WE view. I’m afraid what we’re being shown is a mirror of humanity’s lowest common denominator. It’s up to each of us to produce constructive content that counters that dark reflection.
Thank you for writing this.
Oh you're on a digital fast for Lent too? Actually mine is a media consumption fast. I've decided it doesn't count as consumption for me if I leave a comment so...
One thing that occurred to me reading this was that the reason AI doesn't surprise us is that we haven't asked it to. I remember some academic paper on an earlier image generation AI which paid attention to the question of whether the works produced could be considered novel. In practice, I think this meant would it be considered imaginative, by critics if it had been made by a human. Maybe that's not the right way to answer the question but at least the question was being asked. But that was an academic paper, not a commercial application.
The value of context goes up as the cost of content goes down.
Maybe Ai is just like ‘too much cowbell’ or too much reverb because the voice is better in a cave?
Of course the ‘paywall’ ended the conversation to ‘save’ the preachers their rights to the patriots garden.
It’s a club mentality scared of its own shadow in the forever war on citizens and living by script.
The wonder has been removed with linear solutioneering.
Lovely post, Dougald.
A smaller digital experience: this is what I'm hearing now from Mastodon fans, once that platform failed to win a huge audience. They argue that their circles are smaller, but as a result the conversations are better.
A very interesting take on the AI infiltration of the web, Dougald. I like your view that it's another good reason to trim your list of online places to visit and be more discerning in what you choose to read. I've come to place a high value on my time—not in money terms but in terms of relationships. I'd rather spend my time on things that matter to me than what a random bot serves up for my consumption.
I really love this article. “The Hand Made Web” kind of sticks for me. It is a very interesting and hopeful perspective. To those interested in quality interaction rather than obsessing on viral metrics, your comments are welcome and timely. I also have a feeling within this same group are people that find a way to use new technologies (like AI and others) within this same spirit of human centered connection.
The decentralized web is my glimmer of hope and seems to overlap with the hand made web. I also see AI polluting the main networks driving people towards a healthier hand made web, but I am not as confident that AI is incapable of the same creativity as people. I imagine creativity grows from observation, similar to the van dutch quote that nothing is original. I wonder if AI is just not yet capable of that creative growth from observation.
I greatly enjoyed your post. It expresses better than I can, my view of the internet today. Thank you.
Love it. A rewilding and reweaving of the internet.
I think also it pairs with a handmade world and perhaps this is an important consideration both in terms of real world meets - but also the grounding of information as knowledge via experience.
Great piece Dougald, my brother in Lent! I love that Berger quote, especially this: "The difference is not only a question of skill and imagination, but also of morale."
Such incisive words, thank you. I worry about the trend towards lives lived more and more in digital realms, disconnected from the real world. An ungrounded, untethered and shallowed human experience.
I do agree that this may be a trend even before AI; there was just too much media and the Internet just became so unpleasant that I mostly access only a few places now. AI will make it worse.