On the Internet’s elephant in the room
I was listening to Lex Fridman’s podcast piece with Balaji. It is curious how Lex mentions Love out of nowhere few times and interlieves in the current topic of discussion. “A hippie guy with a costume, not my first rodeo, I’ve seen others” - my first thought.
And then the realization hit me. I’ve accumulated a lot of knowledge online (thanks NNTaleb, George Hotz, Shkreli, c4eva, semi-anons on GitHub, Twitter, Reddit and IRC). But it all comes loaded with some form of hate. Whether it is a bunch of negative comments from the noisy minority, spam, censorship, or - the more modern shadow ban/mute/cancel. Does not matter, Love is essentially not present on the Internet - in all senses - as kindness and empathy for humans, as familial shared values and commitment.
And…it is sad. The Internet is not only a public forum, it is also an incubator for the culture of the society. Stable culture cannot be created with success metric being engagement. Love is private, sometimes silent, hate is noisy.
We’ll have to figure all this out. I still believe in the Internet. For sure, it is better than what we had before. May Love, the Good and the True conquer all.