What those of us who are here are doing is making a deal with the devil (or an angel): in return for being 1-2 years ahead of curve, we play 2nd brain to a shared first brain. We've ceded control of executive attention not to evil companies, but... an emergent oracular brain
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I called it playing your part in the Global Social Computer in the Cloud (GSCITC). This has now become a much more important part of the argument I'm developing. If you don't build your own 2nd brain, the GSCITC *is* your first brain and the one in your skull is your 2nd brain.
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What can we say about the GSCITC?
1. It is neither good nor evil, it just is
2. It is not smarter or dumber than humans (ie not an AGI or anything), just different
3. Its primary superpower is knowing the future
4. It is comparable to things like "the market"
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Ccentral trade-off in managing your participation in GSCITC is: The more you attempt to consciously curate your participation rather than letting it set your priorities, the less oracular power you get in return. Waldenponding, BASB, and unmanaged use are 3 points on a spectrum.
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If you choose to unplug completely (and or, do a draconian discipline of extremely tightly curated following, time-budgeting etc) you get zero temporal leverage.
At best you'll live int he same present as say readers of the NYT or viewers of Fox News.
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If you build a high-maintenance 2nd-brain (whether it is making Anki cards out of everything, or using Tiago's BASB model), you'll give up some temporal leverage in return for 1st brain agency. You get (say) 1 year future-vision but less personal agency than waldenponders.
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And finally, if you choose to be completely unmanaged in your use of social media, letting the winds of The Discourse drive what you do, you give up first-brain agency, but in return you get as much oracular power as the GSCITC as it has available to deliver. The Gonzo option.
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You can actually extrapolate this model backwards through old media. If waldenponding puts you at zero temporal leverage, relying purely on (say) The Economist, which is about 6 months lag, goes into negative territory.
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In general, temporal leverage can range from +2 years to -3000 years (if all you read are ancient Greek classics). The more reactionary you get, the more you need some *other* source of leverage to make up agency deficit. That wallowing in Greek classics better generate alpha.
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