Some Recent Recalibrations
Thought One
The rabidly political have continued their incremental improvements in dominating the political discussion space and have made the political discussion space somehow even worse than it was. However, the non-rabidly political have made great strides in separating themselves from the rabidly political, either by splitting off from existing groups or improvements in changing subjects and avoiding topics. That sounds very trivial, but in my very anecdotal experience the non rabidly political have undergone some major social skill upgrades. It’s halfway to real life hellbanning.
Thought Two
The very online (producing and consuming) and the not very online will be the main political divide in the coming years. I was thinking about (for no obvious reason) Cal Newport (Deep Work) and James Scott (Seeing Like a State). Newport and Scott make interesting points about identity creation and maintenance, albeit from different angles. In my formulations, the various points converge with the notion that identity creation is hard, time consuming, and bends towards coherence and legibility. The online identity will become much more monotonic due to the greater amount of standardized influences. The not very online will maintain much more nuanced and varied identities.
Pair that with thought one above and the very online will become very visible and legible to the not very online and the not very online will become confusing then invisible to the very online.