Wow! VERY comprehensive. I love how you tied so many things together. I also appreciate your acknowledgement of uncertainty; this is the mark of maturity, even wisdom.
I do quibble a bit with the idea that a small number of obscenely rich individuals and families generate as much environmental damage (of all sorts) as do multiple billions of the global poor. Counting pollution from investments is hideously complicated to calculate for one thing, but the real problem is it leaves out the non-direct pollution generated by the simple existence of billions of bodies. It is emotionally satisfying to blame the greedy rich but it is the multitudinous poor that cause the intractable problem.
Which leads me to a mega-trend that you didn't mention: population decline.
Consider this simple mathematical fact: an annual death rate just 3% over the birth rate over 100 years will result in a population just 5% the size of the original. Some politicians around the world are aware of this issue and are taking it seriously, others not so much. But they will as soon as population decline starts to bite. You could legitimately say that it is already gnawing on the legs of most first world countries and will cripple them sooner rather than later. I am watching Japan with interest to see how this plays out for them.
Hey, thank you so much. I'm trying to do this every week. Like I'm collecting different stories and news that happened over the week and then I'm trying to like pick my favorite three topics and then I'm trying to do like a small commentary what could be the effects that this will have on society.
Yeah, I don't believe that there's actually enough space for a few billion more. It's the question is how we manage resources and if we still extract all the resources that we need, we move into a completely wrong direction. What we have to do is we have to learn how to regenerate and grow minerals and materials.
Wow, three great essays for the price of one! Part 1 was my favorite. The concept of top heavy hierarchy dissolving into horizontal nodes of trust sounds both useful and nourishing. And this really links in to Part 3, in which we are growing collapse aware without much to do other than witness and reshape to the demands of the unfolding situation day to day. Part 2 is heavy and disorienting. The overshadow of macabre tech ghosts. The sharp edge of the knife which is tearing down our knowable world so quickly.
Thanks for coming, highly appreciated. I'm trying to do this now every week, so I spend my whole Sunday writing these articles and condensing the stories I was reading over the week, so I think you appreciate that a lot.
Increasing media fracture certainly is unsettling, but I would be weary of using the Edelman Trust Barometer or anything coming out of the PR/Comms industry for anything other than marketing its ability to amplify corporate reputation in a changing media landscape.
As someone who has worked as a PR analyst and researcher, I can tell you that data points like these are highly manufactured and politicized to signal confidence in these agencies to navigate new social platforms, channels and media opportunities. Facebook has been around for the last 20 years or so, so this loss of "shared reality" via alternate platforms seems to be a relatively moot point. It's like BetterHelp publishing rising depression statistics during a recession.
Not saying that media fracture is stalling, but I do think there's a difference in saying that "shared reality is collapsing" vs consumption of news/ information on alternative platforms (like SubStack) is increasing. The shift from old institutions to individual people has been underway for some time now; during the Vietnam War, people cared less about CBS News than they did Dan Rather and actual war correspondents on the ground. If you were to ask survey respondents, "Do you Trust CBS News?" I think we would be discussing an entirely different data point.
Again, not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I would ask a little more rigor in sourcing data from actual researchers and not corporate PR.
Yes, but the Edelmann Transparometer is at the moment the only thing that I have and I really don't want to use prediction markets or anything else at the moment. The problem that I see actually with your point is that we probably will have much more individualized news or personalized news that are far away from reality and are optimized for consumption. And yes, I agree, if you ask someone do you trust CPS News, probably it would go into a different direction. Like I said earlier, these pieces are usually just something that I want to use as a weekly review, what was happening, so I don't really want to dig into all the data points. That's usually what I do with other articles, which are more research based. This is most like most likely this is what happens last week. This is my opinion. This is what I'm thinking about could happen.
Yeah totally fair that you are using what you have available. My biggest problem with the use of secondary data like this as a lead-in, in the context of a weekly news rundown, is that it is not qualified news in relation to the point you are making. Yet, it's presented like it is.
Us disagreeing about the validity of said data/information is funny in this context, and proves your point that individualized information is polarizing. I also think it proves that things can't be neatly packaged as "shared reality breaking down," when the main problem to contend with is journalistic vetting and data literacy, which is much more concerning to me in the way people weaponize data to self-diagnose medical issues, develop mewing regimens, and publish selectively-researched thinkpieces. Not every verified claim or analytically-formed opinion needs a data point. Example: I don't need a data point to tell you that legacy media is in free-fall. If the data seems misleading, the responsible course of action is to exclude so it's that much more clear that it is indeed your opinion. On my profile, I have a satire piece that I think is a good example of how I see data and authoritative reference distorting journalistic intrigue and credibility.
All that said, l do think you make some interesting correlations, and I'm curious to read some of your other research based articles.
Wow! VERY comprehensive. I love how you tied so many things together. I also appreciate your acknowledgement of uncertainty; this is the mark of maturity, even wisdom.
I do quibble a bit with the idea that a small number of obscenely rich individuals and families generate as much environmental damage (of all sorts) as do multiple billions of the global poor. Counting pollution from investments is hideously complicated to calculate for one thing, but the real problem is it leaves out the non-direct pollution generated by the simple existence of billions of bodies. It is emotionally satisfying to blame the greedy rich but it is the multitudinous poor that cause the intractable problem.
Which leads me to a mega-trend that you didn't mention: population decline.
Consider this simple mathematical fact: an annual death rate just 3% over the birth rate over 100 years will result in a population just 5% the size of the original. Some politicians around the world are aware of this issue and are taking it seriously, others not so much. But they will as soon as population decline starts to bite. You could legitimately say that it is already gnawing on the legs of most first world countries and will cripple them sooner rather than later. I am watching Japan with interest to see how this plays out for them.
Hey, thank you so much. I'm trying to do this every week. Like I'm collecting different stories and news that happened over the week and then I'm trying to like pick my favorite three topics and then I'm trying to do like a small commentary what could be the effects that this will have on society.
Some might argue that the only true problem is overpopulation. And thus decline, while problematic, is most excellent long term.
I think I read that various experts agree 3B is the carrying capacity of humans on Earth...
Yeah, I don't believe that there's actually enough space for a few billion more. It's the question is how we manage resources and if we still extract all the resources that we need, we move into a completely wrong direction. What we have to do is we have to learn how to regenerate and grow minerals and materials.
Wow, three great essays for the price of one! Part 1 was my favorite. The concept of top heavy hierarchy dissolving into horizontal nodes of trust sounds both useful and nourishing. And this really links in to Part 3, in which we are growing collapse aware without much to do other than witness and reshape to the demands of the unfolding situation day to day. Part 2 is heavy and disorienting. The overshadow of macabre tech ghosts. The sharp edge of the knife which is tearing down our knowable world so quickly.
Thanks for coming, highly appreciated. I'm trying to do this now every week, so I spend my whole Sunday writing these articles and condensing the stories I was reading over the week, so I think you appreciate that a lot.
Increasing media fracture certainly is unsettling, but I would be weary of using the Edelman Trust Barometer or anything coming out of the PR/Comms industry for anything other than marketing its ability to amplify corporate reputation in a changing media landscape.
As someone who has worked as a PR analyst and researcher, I can tell you that data points like these are highly manufactured and politicized to signal confidence in these agencies to navigate new social platforms, channels and media opportunities. Facebook has been around for the last 20 years or so, so this loss of "shared reality" via alternate platforms seems to be a relatively moot point. It's like BetterHelp publishing rising depression statistics during a recession.
Not saying that media fracture is stalling, but I do think there's a difference in saying that "shared reality is collapsing" vs consumption of news/ information on alternative platforms (like SubStack) is increasing. The shift from old institutions to individual people has been underway for some time now; during the Vietnam War, people cared less about CBS News than they did Dan Rather and actual war correspondents on the ground. If you were to ask survey respondents, "Do you Trust CBS News?" I think we would be discussing an entirely different data point.
Again, not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I would ask a little more rigor in sourcing data from actual researchers and not corporate PR.
Yes, but the Edelmann Transparometer is at the moment the only thing that I have and I really don't want to use prediction markets or anything else at the moment. The problem that I see actually with your point is that we probably will have much more individualized news or personalized news that are far away from reality and are optimized for consumption. And yes, I agree, if you ask someone do you trust CPS News, probably it would go into a different direction. Like I said earlier, these pieces are usually just something that I want to use as a weekly review, what was happening, so I don't really want to dig into all the data points. That's usually what I do with other articles, which are more research based. This is most like most likely this is what happens last week. This is my opinion. This is what I'm thinking about could happen.
Yeah totally fair that you are using what you have available. My biggest problem with the use of secondary data like this as a lead-in, in the context of a weekly news rundown, is that it is not qualified news in relation to the point you are making. Yet, it's presented like it is.
Us disagreeing about the validity of said data/information is funny in this context, and proves your point that individualized information is polarizing. I also think it proves that things can't be neatly packaged as "shared reality breaking down," when the main problem to contend with is journalistic vetting and data literacy, which is much more concerning to me in the way people weaponize data to self-diagnose medical issues, develop mewing regimens, and publish selectively-researched thinkpieces. Not every verified claim or analytically-formed opinion needs a data point. Example: I don't need a data point to tell you that legacy media is in free-fall. If the data seems misleading, the responsible course of action is to exclude so it's that much more clear that it is indeed your opinion. On my profile, I have a satire piece that I think is a good example of how I see data and authoritative reference distorting journalistic intrigue and credibility.
All that said, l do think you make some interesting correlations, and I'm curious to read some of your other research based articles.