Rabbit Holes š³ļø #94
From everyone numbing out to founder mode, dead speech, slow AI, aging = living, scene cool, and littered movements
OMG people! Iāve overhauled the format of the weekly Rabbit Holes issue and it makes sooo much more sense now (at least from my perspective š ). I present to you the new Rabbit Holes issue. Enjoy:
THIS WEEK ā
š¼ļø Framings: š«„ Numbing Out // š«µ Founder Mode // š Dead Speech
š Re-Framings: š Slow AI // šµš¼ Aging = Living // š Recovery Rest
š§¬ Frameworks: š Scene Cool
šØ Works: Littered MVMNTS // Powerfoyle // Toxic Influence
ā³ Reading time: 7 minutes
š¼ļø Framings
Naming Framing it, to crystallize something we feel but rarely put a name frame to.
š«„ Numbing Out
This is a must-read about a feeling that is so incredibly relatable and it links perfectly to my post,Ā The Transience of Everything,Ā and the idea of feeling unrooted.
āLife has gotten very chaotic incredibly quickly. It has become increasingly difficult to parse anything from the static. People started coping with this lack of meaning through a kind of ironic detachment (which is very much still around), but it has matured into a pervasive cultural apathy, a permeating numbness. This isnāt nihilism per se. (Even nihilists have a sincere belief system; they just sincerely believe that life is meaningless.) What weāre dealing with is worse than nihilism. People are checking out of life in their 20s and 30s without reaching any profound conclusions about the point of it all.
[ā¦] thereās a real lack of palpable ambition and vitality these days, a stunning lack of life force in the world. [ā¦] so many of the things that once gave the average personās life real meaning are now treated with sarcasm and contempt: college is a waste of money, work is a waste of your life, getting married is just a piece of paper, having kids is a nightmare, family is a burden, hobbies are merely quaint, earnestly expressing yourself is cringe, leaving the house is exhausting, religion is for idiots, the list goes on. If you allow yourself to internalize this perspective, eventually everything becomes a dumb joke.ā
Ā» Everyone is numbing out by Catherine Shannon
š«µ Founder Mode
Super interesting explanation of why Silicon Valley is cozying up with Trump and other authoritarian leaders while reminding us about the anti-authoritarian roots of the Valley and the latterās important role in its early success. Iāve written about the rise of authoritarianism across several parts of society in the June deep dive Reframing How We Come Together.
āSilicon Valleyās current fascination with a trendy management meme illustrates a broader and more troubling turn in certain powerful pockets of its culture [ā¦]. Iām talking about founder mode. A recently coined management style being celebrated by some venture capitalists, it embraces the notion that a companyās founder must make decisions unilaterally rather than partner with direct reports or frontline employees. All too often the extension of founder mode is to resist not only internal checks and balances but also those from the government.
I see founder mode as another expression of a creeping attraction to one-man rule in some corners of tech. (I use āmanā intentionally, as only 3 percent of venture capital funding goes to solo female founders.) This neo-authoritarianism is nothing short of a rejection of the historical values that made Silicon Valley what it is today. Perhaps we shouldnāt be surprised that a handful of the wealthiest and most powerful venture capitalists there are throwing their resources behind the re-election of Donald Trump.ā
Ā» āFounder Modeā Explains The Rise Of Trump In Silicon Valley by Kim Scott
š Dead Speech
So much to learn in this thought-provoking framing of large language modelsā output as dead speech. Who do we become when we interact with dead speech? How do we transform when we substitute living speech with dead speech (see also last weekās deep dive Reframing The Tech Narrative)?
āIf, as Marx argued, capital is dead labor, then the products of large language models might best be understood as dead speech. Just as factory workers produce, with their āliving labor,ā machines and other forms of physical capital that are then used, as ādead labor,ā to produce more physical commodities, so human expressions of thought and creativityāāliving speechā in the forms of writing, art, photography, and musicābecome raw materials used to produce ādead speechā in those same forms. LLMs, to continue with Marxās horror-story metaphor, feed āvampire-likeā on human culture. Without our words and pictures and songs, they would cease to function. They would become as silent as a corpse in a casket. [ā¦]
The mind of the LLM is purely pornographic. It excels at the shallow, formulaic crafts of summary and mimicry. The tactile and the sensual are beyond its ken. The only meaning it knows is that which can be rendered explicitly. For a machine, such narrow-mindedness is a strength, essential to the efficient production of practical outputs. One looks to an LLM to pierce the veils, not linger on them. But when we substitute the LLMās dead speech for our own living speech, we also adopt its point of view. Our mind becomes pornographic in its desire for naked information.ā
Ā» Dead Labor, Dead Speech by Nicholas Carr
š Re-Framings
Thought-provoking re-framings that I have recently come across:
š From Fast to Slow AI
āI am tired of seeing speed as a selling point. [ā¦] I think one of the main reasons many of us feel anxious is because we have more productivity tools than ever, but these tools rarely match how we naturally want to create. [ā¦] The problem isnāt that machines are becoming more human-like, itās that humans are becoming more machine-like in an effort to keep up. [ā¦]
What would it look like if, in a McLuhan-esque, medium is the message sort of way, our tools said to us:
Itās gonna take you a while. Itās normal to take a while. Itād be weird if you made something beautiful so quickly.Ā The problem isnāt that youāre not working fast enough. The problem is your expectations are not realistic. Our AI helps you slow the fuck down and make something wonderful. [ā¦]
I donāt want to go live in a cabin and swear off AI. I want a world where āslow AIā doesnāt sound like such an oxymoron. Where we collectively stop falling for the empty promise of doing more, faster. And focus on doing less, better.ā
Ā» What does slow AI look like? by Sari Azout
šµš¼ Aging Is Another Word For Living
āWhenever the urge to be āproactive about anti-agingā hits me, I remind myself that aging is another word for living.ā I pasted that sentence, from Jessica DeFino, into the Notes app on my phone a few months ago, when I started noting down the lessons Iāve learned in the last year. I think the point of writing these lessons down is to create a record of the way that life can actually get easier and more joyful as you get older ā albeit with more aches, pains, and fine lines.
If you are doing the work, paying attention, trying not to repeat the same bullshit, you inch towards a place of liberation and surrender. You get more responsibility, yes, but also more agency and confidence to shape not just how you want to life your look, but more importantly, feel. The hope is to arrive at a place where the optimizations and injections may still seem alluring, but you ultimately know they will not provide what you are looking for.ā
Ā» āAging is another word for livingā by Rosie Spinks
š What We Call Rest Is Actually Recovery
āIn fact, what Americansāand increasingly Brits, Canadians, and Aussiesāoften call rest is actually recovery.
We will spend the weekend entombed in weighted blankets while binging Netflix and generally trying to gain strength to start the whole grind again on Monday. If we nap, we will tell ourselves that we āearnedā it but still feel guilty. Even when we are lonely and desperate to see our friends, it can often feel like too much exertion to go out when energy needs to be conserved for the week ahead. [ā¦]
After a few weeks of living by the rhythms of Italian culture, I noticed how quickly riposo had given me a calmer nervous system and more energy. I felt happier. Whereas the word ārestā for me typically meant self-isolation to recuperate from a stressful life, in Italy it began to be associated with connection and fun, the way it was when I was a child.ā
Ā» Italians Are Teaching Me About Rest by Kirsten Powers
š§¬ Frameworks
Handy mini-frameworks that I stumbled upon recently:
š Scene Cool vs. Internet Cool
šØ Works
Some hand-picked, particularly thought-provoking work:
Littered MVMNTS (love this one!) // Powerfoyle // Toxic Influence
Thatās it for this weekās Rabbit Holes issue!
Did you enjoy this weekās issue with its slightly updated format? If so, pleaseĀ give it a ā¤ļøĀ (yes, you can like this e-mail),Ā shareĀ itĀ with your network,Ā andĀ let me know what you think in the comment section!
Thanks for supporting my work! š
Loved the new format (and the content, of course!)!
"why Silicon Valley is cozying up with Trump and other authoritarian leaders" ok buddy.