Hello everyone, thanks for tuning in again.
Today, I’d like to wrap up the Game of Ideas series by getting a little less serious, perhaps a little more frivolous and fun; by asking the question “what do the future’s Games of Ideas look like?” Along the way, I’ll try to address why my predictions might come to light, and how they might do so— if, of course, we’re optimistic.
(I’m not very good at being pessimistic —perhaps because it’s closer to my natural state of being— and so I tend to amalgamate those influences into something more generic than is ideal for the pretentious, self-congratulatory nature of this newsletter: if I’m going to be an asshole, I figure, I might as well be as interesting as possible within those parameters.)
This, of course, follows from last week’s thinking about the grander battles between the larger players in the Game; if you missed this post, you might want to read it, given that I’m trying to explain how that fighting will develop.
Part Ten: The Fame Trapper-Keeper
Before we progress to that point, it seems worth finally revisiting a brief point I made reference to in the concluding sentence of TUB #19:
“One primary question remains… is it actually, applicably useful to win?”
Suppose you accept the premise that the closest thing you can get to ‘victory’ in the Games of Ideas is a condensation of social capital —fame— should you strive for it? Is it worth playing for that widely accepted success condition, or should we just subsistence-farm our own particular strains of acceptance, remaining content with a steady IV drip of endorphins?
Inherent in that question, of course, are a number of assumptions surrounding their value: primarily, does answering it honestly and pondering those results really change one’s feelings or behaviors? There may be many cases in which attempting to make sense of our selves and the realities we operate within is wasted expense, simply fluff glazed with a veneer of self-improvement. I feel that this is not one of those cases, however.
I think that addressing this question, even if we regard fame to be a net positive, or if our primal minds are unable to resist the temptation to act in its service, is valuable. Conducting these types of self-assessment is useful at every player tier, periodically, because it allows you to analyze the information you’ve received. Whether or not you act on such analysis, it confers material self-awareness as you proceed: even if these reviews don’t stop you from climbing the ladder, they might help you manage the power you gain. To progress, we must discard our old versions —if we get too attached, caught in local maxima, we stall— but introspection can help to preserve the pieces which remain useful.
Here’s my answer, for what it’s worth:
“…is it actually, applicably useful to win?”
Modern-day fame is something we aren’t designed to experience, and it’s difficult to analyze from the outside. That being said, it’s important to represent my development here as accurately as possible, which means displaying it in the form of a rough set of stages in my thinking. Level-by-level:
1 On its face, the resources afforded by increasing amounts of fame are simply valuable, end of discussion. Without contemplating possible negative consequences (reading accounts, understanding the pressure placed on the famous, and imagining how I’d handle my existing responsibilities, scaled up by large factors) it looks perfect. It’s aspirational, because flaws aren’t simple, and simple helps keep you in power. The worst types of “haters,” in their true form, are stuck here.
2 Once you think harder, though, it’s easy to overcorrect the other way: the archetypes of the tortured artist and the puppeteered public figure loom large. In the rush to empathize, we continue our hardline view, merely flipping it to the perspective we now believe to be correct. This, obviously, is similarly misguided.
3 Having realized that views [1] and [2] were obviously overly distilled, inadequate for capturing a full picture, we begin to introduce nuance. Surely, having believed each viewpoint so fervently, there must be some truth to both.
4 I think this is where I’ve settled, for now; I think about the consequences of fame frequently, probably too often, and I’ve begun to reconcile my own experience to its fundamental incomprehensibility.
Moving from step to step intellectually is generally gradual; there’s often not a clear moment which shifts our perception of a particular subject. Reflecting on this framework (though obviously there are levels beyond it, that’s not the point,) I tend to get stuck on stage three. It’s scarily natural to vacillate between two diametrically opposed viewpoints, find something approximating a middle ground, and hunker down there, declaring the first experience with an infusion of nuance to constitute truth.
That’s because it seems right. Stopping there is pernicious, though, because topics are fractal. It’s like the Coastline Paradox: as your measurement becomes more precise, the coastline gets longer and the topic gets more complicated. Applied here, though, the limit isn’t the length of your measuring stick, but the level of thinking you’re at. Stopping as soon as something seems right isn’t only inaccurate, it trains you to feel good far before you’ve gotten a reasonable picture of what something really is. I worry that too often we don’t push forward enough when to do so remains useful. It feels risky, and we don’t like taking risks. We don’t like the look we give ourselves over our own shoulders.
I think that approximates my current view on Ideas, really. Hopefully I’ll continue to move forward. More concerning is the degree to which that mindset summarizes the state of the Game of Ideas: somewhat stale, beginning to develop its interjections towards balance but not overly concerned with finding truth or traversing roads to better worlds. Hopefully that moves forwards too.
Part Eleven: Idea Games of the Future
I think it’ll be difficult. I think it will. In the short-term, these changes will be primarily driven by continued changes in technology, exposing new media. I’ve written previously in this newsletter about the changes I predict in the visual field through new media, with one major conclusion: the now-ephemeral will be preserved, and through time acquire value. Through multiple pathways, the impermanent and meaningless will move towards the permanent and meaningful.
Ideas will continue similarly. At the moment, our thoughts live on in very short timescales: fashion ‘seasons,’ constant advertising campaigns, and decreasing Internet engagement are testaments to this. If you don’t continually produce, you regress, and the sphere of your influence decreases.
With increased archival and new methods of transmission available, though, I predict that continued, constant, reliable output will gradually decrease in importance for the following reasons:
It is unprecedentedly easy to repackage content, presenting it in different forms
There is more dreck to sift through; filters will improve to deal with this
Because of the above two points, discovery and lifespan of quality work will improve
It’s difficult to speculate beyond generalities, but I think the proliferation of memes gives us a good directional guide: memes used to be terrible. Really, really bad. Ragecomics and Advice Animals shit, and before that, I don’t know, a vacuum of even less funny jokes no one wanted to share. Now, the meme is a pretty damn dominant medium of idea-spread, in— what, a decade?
People get better at using a given medium over time, fast, and the people who are best at it get rewarded; the Gini coefficient of social networks is massive. This trend will only intensify as social capital becomes more legible and commoditized; those who get in early and built a reputation for quality ideas will win out. This is the core of my unironic support for increased proliferation of the shitpost.
In an age where quality of finished products and the audience thereof is paramount, beyond the diminishing returns of sheer numbers, the shitpost
Weeds out less committed members of your intellectual fiefdom
Is a comparatively resource-inexpensive top-of-funnel
Provides a testing ground and attractor for unfinished ideas before they get reworked
Is an invitation to collaborators and audience members to participate in reworking-play
In ten years, there’ll be a lot more shitposts, because it’ll make a lot more sense. Here’s a Tweet, the start of a short thread-segment, with some thoughts on my generation, and particularly their use of the Internet. The relevant point contained therein is the twofold: generation Z perceives social capital easily, and shares a broad disdain for many millennial, traditional methods of obtaining it.
All over the place, you can see a warped version of this mindset infecting those who claim to be arbiters of truth while squabbling with single-digit-follower accounts. The mistake there is assuming that the moral high ground is worth fighting for. As Internet nativity becomes more prevalent, and as the culture collectively realizes that anyone can be cancelled, these things will become further and further decoupled. Thus, the shitposts.
A closing note, since we’re thinking about visions of alternative realities: last month, I mentioned that I would attempt more of an effort towards assembling a compilation of meaningful and resonant images. I’ve developed a functional process for this, copying (mostly Twitter) urls into Notes and batch-extracting the images at a later date; if you’re interested in this visual collection, here are some preliminary results.
As always, I welcome comments, questions or concerns; take care, everyone.