12/ An Atomized, Resurrected, or Precipitated person largely sees information warfare as confusing FUD and noise, and develops some hygiene practices. All of them have filter bubbles that are *primarily online* and not being reinforced offline.
Conversation
13/ Circled Wagon communities on the other hand, are like cognitively aligned magnets. They have an online filter bubble like the rest of us, but it is strongly and powerfully reinforced offline via meatspace interactions with people who all think like them.
1
3
4
14/ As I’ve been saying since one of my early Breaking Smart essays, geography is the strongest filter bubble (credit for this insight to ). But we now know a shit ton more about why this is and what the consequences are.
1
17
15/ In-person interactions are powerfully human, and add massive weight to belief structures. Picking up a fake news opinion from some rando is one thing. Having it then reinforced by your 10 lifelong neighbors who also picked it up and internally flesh it out... explosive.
1
4
19
16/ We’ve all seen this. It’s especially obvious in (for example) the things our old relatives forward. Everybody above 70 is apparently on the same email lists and they all live next to each other.
But it’s not a problem of age. It’s a problem of cognitive mobility.
3
1
12
17/ Cognitive mobility is probably a lousy term but I can’t think of a better one. Something about how much variety there is in the minds that most powerfully reshape/reweight your beliefs.
One in-person interaction counts for like 10-100 online, for the same belief.
2
11
18/ What can we do about this? You can’t just yell at people “choose Atomization over Circled Wagons” and you can’t guarantee that a more open response to digital forces will lead to Resurrection rather than death.
1
2
19/ You also can’t deny the strong need for physical community with “just get some VR goggles and get in the Nozick experience machine already.”
Human desire for physical community is a predictor for adaptation success. Less desire = more success at the moment.
1
1
8
20/ In terms of adaptive fitness in digitally transformed social landscapes, the total pole of psychological health is probably Resurrected > Precipitated > Atomized > Circled Wagons.
1
3
This Tweet was deleted by the Tweet author. Learn more
Replying to
Memetics eats genetics for lunch. Producing more babies does not make you more adaptive if you can’t keep the best young people from leaving town and defecting to other regions/ideologies, which is what’s happening to this lot.
