We love hacks. We get to shave off a few seconds, trim the fat, and live more efficiently. But there’s a dirty little secret about efficiency: We keep sacrificing quality to get it. 

Consider hand dryers, an efficient solution with one minor drawback: They don’t actually dry your hands. Inevitably, I wind up using the back of my shirt to finish the job. 

QR codes make menus more efficient. But they also make sitting down for dinner feel like going back to work. Just when you thought you had escaped screenspace for the night, you’re forced back into scan-and-scroll zombieland. B.J. Novak on why these menus are QRap:

I am on my phone already 16 hours a day. When I’m in a restaurant with another person, the one time I'm actually talking to a person, they're saying, ‘Will you please be on your phone now too?’ Give me some time to connect.”

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Dating apps make meeting a potential partner more efficient. But how’s that working out in reality? We’re in a sex recession, women must navigate an avalanche of unsolicited d*ck pics, and incels won’t stop kvetching about how they can’t get laid. Congrats on all that convenience.

In the past, there was a barrier to entry to getting published; you had to convince someone with a printing press to give you valuable page space. Now, we’ve made publishing easy, turning it into a free-for-all, infinite scroll, hot take paradise. Everyone’s “in the media.” Result: No one trusts the media. Back when ranters had to write a letter to the editor, at least you knew they cared enough to put a stamp on an envelope and mail it. These days, it only takes a few clicks so we’re all punchdrunk on dunks.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb

No, I don't want to "learn fast", in any subject. I don't want shortcuts. If I don't enjoy the subject, I don't want to learn it; and if I enjoy it, I want to prolong the pleasure. I avoid what exam-takers do: I trade speed for depth.

7:45 PM ∙ Nov 29, 2021

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Portable bluetooth speakers are neat for a trip to the beach or as a vacation stopgap. But people frequently use them (or even worse, tinny laptop speakers) for their home audio setup. Any audiophile can tell you that’s a lame compromise. Proper speakers have a woofer to produce bass frequencies. There is no workaround for physics. Alas, en masse, we’ve traded low end for portability.

Want to know the price you’re paying? Put “When the Levee Breaks” on a real set of speakers, the kind that look like they belong in a ‘70s sunken living room, and crank up the volume. Listen to John Bonham dinosaur stomp his kick drum in an elevator shaft and notice the vibrations in your chest. Now try that on a little bluetooth speaker. You’ll quickly realize there’s a chasm between those two experiences – and that, in one form or another, is what we’re losing all the time. 

It’d be one thing if these were tradeoffs we were carefully considering. But there’s rarely any upfront active consent here. We’re sold on all this as “progress” and by the time we recognize the price we’ve paid, it’s usually too late to go back. “Gotcha!” screams predatory capitalism, yet again. We lick our wounds while they count their stacks.

I don’t want to sound like some kooky luddite Unabomber fan. I like that my home’s wired for electricity, has indoor plumbing, and is heated by gas. And I’m glad this newsletter isn’t some zine I need to photocopy on a Xerox machine and leave at the local record store. (Kids: DM for an explanation of record stores.)

But so many our recent technological advancements feel rather trivial. We’re not getting bulbs instead of candles, elevators instead of stairs, and airplanes instead of horse-drawn carriages. Instead, we keep getting minor tweaks that shave off edge-case inconveniences. It’s nice that Alexa makes it so I don’t have to write down my grocery list anymore, but that ain’t exactly the Interstate Highway System.

More and more, it feels like we’re a bunch of amphetamine junkies desperate for increasing levels of acceleration. Like any good addict, we don’t admit the problem. Instead, we refer to this addiction as “productivity,” while ignoring the fact we don’t really seem to be producing anything of value. We’re all on speed. And sure, it’s a rush. But it shouldn’t be surprising when the inevitable crash follows.

People smarter than me, like Bill Gates, disagree and point to advances in gene editing, machine learning, driverless cars, robotic surgery, AI, and more. Many of these seem like a mixed bag though. What if someone likes having a taxi with a driver – and, gasp, wants to talk to them? Gene editing will help us live longer – but what if living forever just makes us sadder? And stop showing me those goddamn robot dogs. I don’t want them as our new security guards. “But they’ll be way more efficient.” Yeah, so was Robocop. Look how that turned out.

Vooza @voozahq

I’m happy for the people who own it, but I’m sad for the people who have to use it.

3:15 PM ∙ Nov 29, 2021

As we gain efficiency, we seem to be becoming increasingly miserable. Correlation isn’t necessarily causation, but perhaps those little bits of friction were providing us with something intangible, a kind of connective tissue for our daily lives. “Time-saving devices” were supposed to free us up to relax more, yet somehow we’re busier than ever. And when we do have free time, we’re not spending it digging wells or playing catch with our kids, we’re scrolling TikTok and watching p0rn.

Scroll down the definitions for “hack” at Merriam-Webster and the “clever tips” one recedes until you come across the way this word is used in comedy – and which feels more appropriate for all this:

We keep getting sold on clever efficiency that winds up feeling more like sellable mediocrity. There’s another way though. Consider this a call to put down your arms. Stop being a slave to efficiency and decide to take your time every once in a while.

Sure, you can take I-95; or you can take the scenic route and gawk at the changing leaves.

You can drink Soylent at your cubicle or down fast food in your car; or you can eat like the French, savoring each bite of a lengthy meal alongside loved ones.

You can one-click order a top seller at Amazon; or you can wander a bookstore and find an old title that grabs your attention serendipitously.

You can wham-bam-thank-you-maam sex; or you can enjoy some foreplay first. Sure, whispering in someone’s ear and caressing their back is less efficient. But isn’t that the point?

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Quickies

🎯 I’m aging like an iPhone. My face is cracked, my memory’s shot, and when I get frisky I gotta do it in low power mode so I don’t finish too soon.

🎯 New Orleans is fun because you can be covered in cocaine and play it off by saying you were just eating beignets.

🎯 Camel Bucks and Marlboro Miles were incredible in retrospect. Basically, ya got frequent flier miles for killing yourself. "Just smoke 2,000 packs of cigarettes and you'll get this free tent!" Each one shoulda come with a ventilator.

🎯 Things really started to go downhill when we began referring to empathy as "bothsidesism."

🎯 I have no idea what "emotional labor" actually means. Is it when someone goes pumpkin picking with you and starts crying?

🎯 How to be fashionable as a man: Hide what you actually look like as much as possible. Layers, glasses, hats, scarves, etc. Cover it all up and let us use our imaginations.

🎯 Me pretending to know Jewish prayers: "Baruch Atah Adonai...um, hakuna matata challah Vietnam”

🎯 No one should have to endure another of month Hershel Walker speaking.

🅼🅰🆃🆃 💎 🆁🆄🅱🆈 @mattruby

Herschel

8:36 PM ∙ Nov 14, 2022

Comedy

😈 I post clips of my standup all the time at Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

😈 Recent posts at “Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian.”

😈 Pennsylvania! Like a NY Times reporter looking to discuss politics with white working class voters in a diner, I'm coming for ya. I’ll be doing two shows in Hershey, PA on Nov 26: Misguided Meditation, my one man show on mindfulness (get Misguided Meditation tickets) and then a straight up standup show later that night (standup tickets). Come give me a (Hershey) kiss.

Spotted

🗯 Two great one-man shows to watch:

1) I’ve seen every Mike Birbiglia solo show and, like the rest, The Old Man & The Pool (now on Broadway), is outstanding. Hilarious jokes and legit gravitas. He's a master of the form. Example: He intentionally leads a doomed-to-failure moment of silence that gets funnier and funnier as it goes along. If you're in NYC, check it out (and don't show up late or you'll get roasted). If you can’t make it, I also recommend his Thank God for Jokes on Netflix, a smart examination of “the line” and offensiveness in comedy. It just gets more and more relevant.

2) Would you rather be right or happy? Neal Brennan explores that and more on Blocks, his latest special on Netflix – it's very funny and deep too. Especially loved his NRA guys vs. the military bit. There’s also a great editing maneuver where he replicates the feeling of an inner monologue via quick cuts. His Three Mics on Netflix is really strong too.

🗯 Jaron Lanier on how marriage is like social media and the ways people who use social media a lot change.

In the case of digital platforms, the purpose is usually “engagement,” a concept that is hard to distinguish from addiction. People receive little positive and negative jolts of social feedback — getting followed or liked, or being ignored or even humiliated. Before social media, that kind of tight feedback loop had rarely been present in human communications outside of laboratories or marriages. (This is part of why marriage can be hard, I suspect.)  

Up ahead for paid subscribers: the romantic bonus men get from hierarchy, aging white boomer victimhood, Michael Lewis, Dave Chappelle, Sam Bankman-Fried, drag bingo, and the Biden bait and switch...