Ah you spritely 44-year-olds and your loss of innocence arcs. I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio (because you have to know what is happening in the world) and I overhear a lot of youtube and tiktok nonsense (2 teenage boys). I think you have (1) a lot of scared lonely old people that do not understand the world and need attention and comfort and respond to repetitive and soothing messaging because no one is taking care of them and no one is listening to the pain of the old; (2) some very mission-driven adults who are strategic and know what outcomes they want (and it's a version of patriotism that does pay lip service to the Constitution, lionizes the founding fathers, and hero worships the framers) and are making serious progress on the plan; and (3) some angry teenagers (loosely aged 13-43) who just want to play Fortnite and be left alone and for their teachers and mothers and anyone who reminds them of their teachers and mothers to get off their backs for whom the Constitution is just more school. This last group also finds very appealing the historical stories of when people like them were all-powerful (not realizing that they still are the dominators in all things).
In biology class in college I learned about the concept of entropy. It says that everything in the universe tends towards randomness. The higher the entropy a system has, the less ordered it is and more random.
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy inside a system can only increase or stay the same; it cannot decrease. To maintain order, the system must give off energy, typically in the form of heat. This heat, however, adds to the entropy of the surrounding environment, thereby increasing the overall entropy of the universe.
I would say this is what we have here — a build-up of entropy inside the system. There are those who feel they have been given the short end of the stick of life. They see others succeeding while they struggle. They see the system as designed to help others, to their detriment. So what do you do when you feel you have been treated unfairly by a system? You shake it up. You add randomness, energy. You set the world on fire and figure the only place you can go is up.
There are many who find themselves in a better place as a result of the shaking. Or at least feel they are on a more equal footing with those who were unfairly benefiting with the system previously. Once there, it is in the person’s best interest to do what is necessary to maintain that position, lest they fall back down again. In this case, that means more shaking. More fire. Supporting entropy.
And once you get control of the system, you can ensure the shaking continues and put measures in place to ensure someone can't stop the shaking.
I assume the answer is yes, Owen, at to the question as you have framed it; however, I do not think a yes is enough. We probably need to be asking whether we have the collective will to patch the holes in the existing form of government. Voluntary norms have proven to be quite ineffective. It will take a massive push by people of good will (across the ideological spectrum) to shore them up.
This is what happens when a system built on tradition and informal norms—one that relies on a baseline of good faith—gets hijacked by bad faith actors. It’s not enough for people of goodwill to stand up for what we’re losing. We have to recognize it’s already lost.
(Somewhere in my drafts from back in March is a piece titled Maybe It’s Already Over. I never finished it. I probably won’t. I think we have our answer.)
So now the question is: what comes next? We’ll need to build something new. Maybe not from scratch, but something stronger. Something more flexible. Something that accounts for the collapse of shared norms and the reality of attention hijack.
Our political class—across the board, this isn’t partisan—isn’t up to the task. And our tech oligarchs offer only algorithmic determinism in its place.
Ah you spritely 44-year-olds and your loss of innocence arcs. I listen to a lot of conservative talk radio (because you have to know what is happening in the world) and I overhear a lot of youtube and tiktok nonsense (2 teenage boys). I think you have (1) a lot of scared lonely old people that do not understand the world and need attention and comfort and respond to repetitive and soothing messaging because no one is taking care of them and no one is listening to the pain of the old; (2) some very mission-driven adults who are strategic and know what outcomes they want (and it's a version of patriotism that does pay lip service to the Constitution, lionizes the founding fathers, and hero worships the framers) and are making serious progress on the plan; and (3) some angry teenagers (loosely aged 13-43) who just want to play Fortnite and be left alone and for their teachers and mothers and anyone who reminds them of their teachers and mothers to get off their backs for whom the Constitution is just more school. This last group also finds very appealing the historical stories of when people like them were all-powerful (not realizing that they still are the dominators in all things).
I had a gif I wanted to insert here. However, Substack does not seem to allow one to use images in comment threads to articles.
Ahh, the good old days of LinkedIn...
In biology class in college I learned about the concept of entropy. It says that everything in the universe tends towards randomness. The higher the entropy a system has, the less ordered it is and more random.
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy inside a system can only increase or stay the same; it cannot decrease. To maintain order, the system must give off energy, typically in the form of heat. This heat, however, adds to the entropy of the surrounding environment, thereby increasing the overall entropy of the universe.
I would say this is what we have here — a build-up of entropy inside the system. There are those who feel they have been given the short end of the stick of life. They see others succeeding while they struggle. They see the system as designed to help others, to their detriment. So what do you do when you feel you have been treated unfairly by a system? You shake it up. You add randomness, energy. You set the world on fire and figure the only place you can go is up.
There are many who find themselves in a better place as a result of the shaking. Or at least feel they are on a more equal footing with those who were unfairly benefiting with the system previously. Once there, it is in the person’s best interest to do what is necessary to maintain that position, lest they fall back down again. In this case, that means more shaking. More fire. Supporting entropy.
And once you get control of the system, you can ensure the shaking continues and put measures in place to ensure someone can't stop the shaking.
I assume the answer is yes, Owen, at to the question as you have framed it; however, I do not think a yes is enough. We probably need to be asking whether we have the collective will to patch the holes in the existing form of government. Voluntary norms have proven to be quite ineffective. It will take a massive push by people of good will (across the ideological spectrum) to shore them up.
This is what happens when a system built on tradition and informal norms—one that relies on a baseline of good faith—gets hijacked by bad faith actors. It’s not enough for people of goodwill to stand up for what we’re losing. We have to recognize it’s already lost.
(Somewhere in my drafts from back in March is a piece titled Maybe It’s Already Over. I never finished it. I probably won’t. I think we have our answer.)
So now the question is: what comes next? We’ll need to build something new. Maybe not from scratch, but something stronger. Something more flexible. Something that accounts for the collapse of shared norms and the reality of attention hijack.
Our political class—across the board, this isn’t partisan—isn’t up to the task. And our tech oligarchs offer only algorithmic determinism in its place.
We have our work cut out for us.