S07E06 of Connection Problem: The digital collapse of time
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Hello hello,
I hope & trust this finds you well. Today, a quick one with just a couple of articles. But those open up pretty deep rabbit holes, so let's keep it lightweight.
Enjoy
— Peter
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If you'd like to work with me or bounce ideas, let's have a chat.
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The digital collapse of time
Interesting piece by Aaron Z. Lewis that has been making the rounds in my Twitter circles. I wasn’t familiar with Lewis; apparently he’s ex-Uber, ex-Clinton2016, and now writes about meme culture & the perception of reality.
In The garden of forking memes: how digital media distorts our sense of time, he makes some pretty interesting observations about the Internet not just collapsing physical space and context, but also time, and with profound implications (highlights mine):
“As a rule, twentieth century time was imposed on people from the top-down. Twenty-first century time is a bottom-up choose your own adventure story that allows people to make their own time machines and live anywhen.”
This is a pretty interesting angle. He specifically digs into the digital as an ubiquitous archive, a perfect memory:
“What Marshall McLuhan called the “perfect memory” of computers has, in our time, spawned a garden of competing narratives and conceptions of the past/present/future. Digital media serves up an inhumanly large corpus of data that becomes raw material for new subcultures, ideologies, and alternative histories. In today’s chaotic media environment, not even a global pandemic can restore a shared sense of Reality.”
And I think he’s on to something here. That loss of shared narrative as basis for shared reality as a means to gain power? Trump wasn’t the first or last to establish, but is certainly the most visible example of right now.
Digression 1: It always struck me as odd, or maybe the better word is sad, that this might be means to grow one’s own influence, to grab power: It’s both petty and destructive. It’s not even impressive, just a pitiful lowering of everyone else and hence a bit of relative gain of influence. Just the old divide and conquer. Sigh.
Digression 2: I’m reasonably sure that the folks at the Internet Archive would very much disagree with the notion that the internet is a perfect memory. It’s a barely functioning archive, we lose tons of links, sites, posts all the time. Plus, it’s reasonably easy to fake reasonably real-looking “old” sites and information; so it wouldn’t be too hard to inject “old archived” material into the subcultural debate; I’m sure this must be happening a lot, come to think of it.
Anyway, so far Lewis makes convincing arguments. Then it starts becoming a little less tight as he holds up a straw man of traditional media against a steel man of internet subcultures, and the whole aggregate of internet subculture against tiny snapshots of traditional media. It’s ripe oranges against green, unripe apples:
“The conversations of internet subcultures feel substantive and expansive compared to the shallow and ahistorical discourse of presidential debates, op-ed pages, and cable TV shows. Old Media’s news cycles rarely last more than a few hours, and their narratives are constantly shifting. They don’t tend to give a big-picture sense of where we came from or where we’re going. Internet subcultures, by contrast, are building grand narratives and meme worlds that help people feel their way through the chaos that’s currently unfolding. These stories cut deep, down to the most foundational questions of race and religion and destiny. We shouldn’t be too surprised that complex conspiracy theories, intergenerational trauma, and age-old religious fervor are coming to the fore — in a contest of narrative memes, deep history is a serious competitive advantage.”
Let’s be real for a second: Neither one news clip nor one meme will tell a complex story by itself. However, looking at the evolution of a meme (or cluster of memes) over time, just like looking at the evolution of a news story over time, will offer plenty of insight.
I’m including this here anyway because there’s something substantial here, despite the flaws I just pointed out: The bringing to the surface of deeply held beliefs, hurts, histories. This isn’t meme specific I’d say but a function of giving everyone a voice, but it’s of course something that the internet has been a powerful driver for. (Traditional media outlets, by the way, still play an absolutely crucial role in picking up and amplifying social media debates, and also in fueling them. It’s a real ecosystem.)
The perspective of collapsing time, though, is pretty compelling.
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Distributed Web as Infrastructure & Archive
As I’ve been learning a little more about the decentralized web (dWeb for short) I’ve stumbled over this older article about dWeb and one of its lighthouse projects, Inter Planetary File System (IFPS). It’s from 2019, barely after the launch of IFPS, and on Techcrunch, both of which would usually be enough not to include it here. But it’s written by Amber Case and she does a pretty great, if very optimistic, write up of what dWeb is and why it’s relevant.
Judging by the level of excitement (and more importantly, non-douchy excitement, unlike so much around the blockchain ecosystem), dWeb is the real deal, and might be massively relevant for the next decade or two.
By fully decentralizing — no more centralized servers as the sole origin of one file or services, and rather a decentralized distribution, storage and caching infrastructure — resilience goes through the roof. And resilience is one of those things that have been moving up the priority ladder at a clip.
There’s not that many mainstream-accessible projects out there yet, because this is all still very young. There are development and research and power user tools out there, and first steps towards social networks built around these protocols and principles. But it seems that it’s just a matter of time until we see a wave of projects pop up in that space. (IFPS’s version 0.5 release notes mention big name collaborations/pilots.) So next time you read the word scuttlebutt don’t let your eyes glaze over, take a closer look. Chances are you’re looking at the immediate future.
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Sleep more
No seriously, sleep more. Scientists are still in the early stages of understanding this, but it looks like the brain uses cerebrospinal fluid to flush out toxins, but only during deep sleep phases:
“during non-REM sleep, large, slow waves of cerebrospinal fluid were washing over the brain (…) During non-REM sleep, neurons start to synchronize, turning on and off at the same time. (…) Because the neurons had all momentarily stopped firing, they didn’t need as much oxygen. That meant less blood would flow to the brain. (…) cerebrospinal fluid would then rush in, filling in the space left behind.
Electrical activity is moving fluid; if you allow your body to get into deep enough sleep. 👀
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Miscellanea
The apparently only publicly available recording of Hamilton just premiered on Disney+, a mere 5 years after the musical hit Broadway. And it’s still totally great. (Don’t judge me!)
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Currently reading: A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine
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If you’d like to work with me or have a chat to explore collaborations, let’s chat!
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Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores how emerging technologies can have a positive social impact. At the core of his work is the mission to align emerging technologies and citizen empowerment. To do this, he works at the intersection of technology, governance, policy and social impact — with foundations, public and private sector. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research and strategic advisory firm. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that explores fair, responsible, and human-centric technologies for IoT and beyond. Peter was a Mozilla Fellow (2018-19) and an Edgeryders Fellow (2019). He tweets at @peterbihr and blogs at thewavingcat.com. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.
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