Monday Musings - "We Need a Slowness Revolution"

Hi friends,

The Internet has us trapped in a recency bias. It was supposed to usher in an information superhighway that gave us direct access to history's greatest ideas.

That was the dream, at least. The reality is different.

The Internet hijacked our minds with algorithms that optimize for our short-term desires instead of our long-term ones. Most of what we consume on the Internet was created in the past 24 hours. Even though we’re just a click away from history's top writers, from Plato to Dostoevsky, the majority of our time is spent with cheap content that was created in the past 24 hours.

I've written more about the solutions below, but first I have two recommendations for you:

1. My Interview with Ted Gioia: He calls our culture stagnant. Algorithms have us addicted to distraction, and we need a "Slowness Revolution" to pull us out. If you're looking for an entry point, I recommend this clip about our Dopamine Culture or this one about how to cure writer's block.
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   Watch the full episode on YouTube. Listen on Apple or Spotify.
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2. Johnathan Bi's Philosophy Lectures: The vast majority of books aren't worth reading. It's better to focus on the Timeless Books and spend your life absorbing them instead. These lectures, beginning with this one about Nietzsche, are designed as guides to the ideas at the heart of Western civilization. Unlike most philosophy lectures, which are either so dry that they put you to sleep or dilute the ideas in the name of entertainment, Johnathan has injected life into the world of lectures while upholding the integrity of such an important piece of writing.
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   Here's the trailer for his new series and here's his first lecture on Nietzsche.
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   Johnathan will be publishing lectures about Rousseau and Shakespeare in the next few weeks, and if you'd like to receive them by email, click here.

Now, back to what I was writing about earlier.

Our culture is blinded by the dogma of "newer is better." We've been pulled into a Never-Ending Now, where we're constantly running along a treadmill of content that was published in the past 24 hours to keep up with what's happening in the world.

As a society, we’ve traded the fruits of eternal wisdom for the ephemeral mirage of “being informed.” We’re obsessed with the present, but detached from the past; obsessed with politics, but detached from history. We click and scroll to infinity while the wisdom-filled classics pick up dust on the shelves.

Though it isn't your fault, it's your problem — because the information architecture of the Internet is perpetuating these behaviors.

Lest you think these thoughts are new, think again. Heed these words from the book of Jeremiah, which was written around 600 B.C. It says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’"