: Losing interest in the things that were supposed to make it better
Everything has been such a drag lately. A better-adapted person might, in such a situation, try to cheer up by doing known-fun things, like reading or going for a bike ride. Instead I have been sitting around scrolling the awful, awful news feeds and spiraling into despair.
Maybe I should do like others and do a bit of a media cleanse, take a step back from it all. But I’m not sure it’s just media that I need a break from, so much as the news itself, which would reach me either way, because my friends and colleagues are constantly bringing it up. And lots of the topics in play affect me or my loved ones immediately, so to some extent I can’t afford not to know. Maybe I’m just making excuses.
I made a couple of good attempts. Over the weekend, I went alone to some of the big tourist attractions in my city (which is not my hometown, so I’d never been to these spots before)—wandered and reflected. I noticed others who appeared to be doing the same. It’s rough out there.
: Staying on track
I am exercising all of my powers of concentration to avoid spiraling into despair.
Lot of bullshit on the news today. I mean, that’s always true, but a few of the headlines today strike close to home, and I lost a solid hour staring into space thinking about all kinds of awful worst-case scenarios. I tend to get “stuck” in that headspace by thinking that it is virtuous to worry: I need to be anxious about this to prove that I care; I need to be the sort of person who cares and gets anxious or else I might become the sort of person who idles and does nothing or makes excuses.
In theory, I am on vacation this week, and that is another source of guilt. It’s not a fancy vacation; I just knew I needed a week off from work, and schlepped myself out to my childhood hometown, where I have been wandering around the neighborhood marveling at how much things have changed, driving my dad’s new car to favorite spots, and drinking too much coffee. I went for a bike ride today and discovered, at the top of a hill, that the breaks on my dad’s bike don’t work. Oops, lol.
I also worked a bunch on some of my real-name professional development stuff, which is kind of a nervous tic of mine—hedging bets because who knows what could happen next to the job market.
: Science is fake
What does “science is real” (on those “in this house we believe …” signs) mean, anyway? Is the claim that science is real in the way jujutsu is real—as in, this is a thing that people do? Surely the claim is stronger than that.
Maybe the idea is that this thing, science, that scientists do has a “real” impact on the world. Science as a set of epistemic practices that inform public policy. You know, like eugenics.
But most likely, the intended meaning isn’t about the existence or impact, but rather that the claims scientists make about the world are true (notice how the word “real” doesn’t appear in this sentence). Unfortunately, I have trouble with this reading too:
- Sometimes scientists are mistaken, as they were when they claimed that AIDS only affected gay men.
- Sometimes scientists are not merely mistaken, but also fail to take advantage of well-known methodological improvements that would make it harder to get published.
- And sometimes scientists just straight up commit fraud.
The real meaning of “in this house we believe science is real” is, I believe, “in this house, we believe that something must be done to stop anthropogenic climate change.” Why not just say that, so I can agree with you instead of getting pissed off?
: Sometimes they are just lying
Many people take pride in being skeptical but their skepticism is actually just a skepticism toward ideas they already disagree with. The skepticism is only skin deep. If you tell them what they want to hear, they won’t ask the hard questions.
I see this at work, where the important decision making business types are often asked to sit through a marketing pitch. The pitch could be for a product, or a consulting service, or whatever. What determines a successful pitch is not the quality of the product, but rather whether it speaks to the decision maker’s need.
After hearing such a pitch, the decision maker will often put on a show of skepticism: “I’m not convinced this is going to solve our problem.” Or, in the successful case: “This sounds like exactly the tool we need.” What I never hear is a discussion of whether the product actually works.
It works because they said it works. They showed us a graph of the number going up. They showed us screenshots. You can’t fake that. And even if you could, it would be False Advertising, and who would be so foolish as to do that? Some sort of mental block refuses to acknowledge the possibility that the marketing representative was just lying.
I see this in politics, too. The obvious case is when people share memes with fake or out-of-context quotes from the other side—a clear case of disinformation. Less brazen, but still concerning cases arise when people nod along to an argument that supports their opinion on a particular issue without considering the ramifications of the argument for other issues—you know, ethical inconsistency.
People love to link to that one philosophy article arguing, for the sake of argument, that abortion could be ethically permissible even if we grant a fetus is a person—never mind that the article itself disclaims that it is just a thought experiment, and acknowledges that the argument does not cover many of the forms of abortion (e.g. late term) that supporters of abortion rights want to protect. For most progressives, basing your support for abortion on this article is a tactical and ethical error. All the more so given the availability of so many better arguments for choice.
(Those who misinterpret the paragraph above as an argument against abortion rights will be banished to the local elementary school to learn how to read again.)
Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy for caring so much about principles. It bugs me a lot when we don’t agree on the “why” behind a particular rule or decision. If I were more of a pragmatist, then I would recognize the utility of forming a coalition with those whose interests align with mine even as we differ on fundamentals. But I am neither a politician nor a corporate shark (yet!). I’m just a dude on the toilet trying to figure it all out, you know?
: 32-bit Cafe survey
Below adapted from my response to xandra’s thread with some questions about shaping the future of the 32-bit Cafe.
Are you tired of hearing about AI? For some reason I never seem to tire of arguing about AI. I honestly think it’s just a super fascinating topic with so many different ethical, technological, and social dimensions to consider. As soon as I think I have heard it all, I discover a new argument (or a newly inane presentation of a familiar one) that I haven’t considered.
Perhaps it’s because the problem is big enough that you can easily project any belief framework onto it. I can see why that makes the discussing exhausting for some. I have a few posts about AI on my dumpster but I usually refrain from sharing those in the blog thread because I suspect people have heard enough.
Likes/dislikes about the forum: Fundamentally, it’s nice to have a like-minded community that is committed to civility and helping each other out. But “like-minded” is a blessing and a curse. This forum tends to gravitate around certain dogmas like that static sites are “better” (it depends on your use case) or that you can infer someone’s politics from their platform (true in some cases?), but of course there are minority voices too. I just worry that, to a newcomer, it might feel tribal or gatekeepy.
On a related note, I find the indieweb aesthetic to be a bit cliche sometimes. I would love to see more personal sites that try to be beautiful in a way that’s original or modern rather than statement/throwback pieces (although I recognize the beauty in those too). I guess I shouldn’t complain since it says “32-bit” in the name, after all—but to me 32-bit means more to the early internet ideals of DIY and personal expression than a specific aesthetic or toolchain.
Regarding the forum’s 18+ rule: I like this rule mainly because it absolves me of the sense that I am a creep. But the truth is that I spent a lot of my early teen years lingering in internet spaces with people older and wiser than me and learned a lot from the experience. I am not so confident in others’ implication in the thread that an age cutoff promotes a “mature” or civil tone of discussion—it can just as easily be taken as a license to fly off the handle. But yes, this forum feels safe and welcoming in a way that others don’t, and I hope it can remain that way without having to acquire too many rules or a super heavyhanded moderation style.