ꗥ Synapticism

Notes

Linking For a Healthy Web

Simon Willison describes annotated links as one of several forms of “low stakes and high value” writing in My approach to running a link blog. The point is not only to reshare but keep a running log of things worth finding again, each with a line or two on why it mattered. This meshes well with my own views, where linking makes for a healthy web. By now it almost feels like Archean Internet energy, but the act of weaving that web remains important to me, and I intend to keep the traditional alive around here.

Facebook Elevator Pitch

Elevator pitch: a social media platform where you connect with friends and family to see what they’re up to and keep in touch. It’s like Facebook for people instead of brands and content creators.

Darwin Among The Machines

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.

Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race. If it be urged that this is impossible under the present condition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power to destroy, and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage.

― Samuel Butler, Darwin Among The Machines, 1863

Caught Between

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true…

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

That’s from The Origins of Totalitarianism, cited within The Future of Everything is Lies, I Guess: Information Ecology about the somewhat less savory impacts of LLMs (and what people more generally call “AI”). It’s strange being caught in this in-between place, simultaneously loving what LLMs can facilitate for programming and creative work, while dreading their seemingly unstoppable effects on society at large.

Everything Is Television

Nearly every major platform is converging on the TikTok model: short video content from people you probably don’t know or follow curated by an algorithmic timeline. Social media isn’t even really “social” anymore as most users spending the vast majority of time watching random stuff from people they don’t know or even follow—and it’s only becoming more pronounced as the technology powering generative content continues to improve. Here’s a short essay From Derek Thompson expanding on this ongoing trend, appropriately titled Everything Is Television.

Bamboozled

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995

The Who Cares Era

In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care. In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.

At a time where the government’s uncaring boot is pressing down on all of our necks, the best way to fight back is to care. Care loudly. Tell others. Get going.

As the culture of the Who Cares Era grinds towards the lowest common denominator, support those that are making real things. Listen to something with your full attention. Watch something with your phone in the other room. Read an actual paper magazine or a book.

― Dan Sinker, The Who Cares Era, 2025