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"What the hell is going on?" A thoughtful and thorough overview of the rising entropy in society by David Perell
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- Title
- What the Hell is Going On?
- Published
- Mar 10 2019
- Word count
- 12 798 words
It's an engrossing read, but I'll dispute the idea that big institutional players have ceased to have a role in shaping mass knowledge and opinion.
Instead of broadcast and print journalism or big academic institutions, we've ceded the range of accessible knowledge to Google, Facebook, Apple, TenCent, Weibo, et al. (that's just starting to step outside the barriers imposed by language and nationalisms), and a shadowy network of advertisers who use their platforms.
We're more insular due to the ability to curate our own information streams according to confirmation biases, and our biases are more easily manipulated because we don't know when we're not experts.
As to government authorities, the power of propaganda still exists; it's just less controllable in the liberal democracies which remain.
I dispute your dispution. Although its true that different people are holding the cards, the motive and modus operandi which were once present are no longer there, and will likely never be again so long as I'm able to simply stop posting on reddit and start posting on tildes.
Yes, these new companies hold new levels of control, but over different areas. They dont dictate the conversation, they just know everything about the people holding it. And the idea that there's some shadowy cabal of advertisers pulling the strings... Well, as an advertiser myself, the idea is fundamentally ridiculous. Youtube can panic when coca-cola and friends pull ad revenue, but the truth of the matter is, theyre still only a tiny, dare I say virtually inconsequential fraction of the advertising pie overall.
As for the idea of bias manipulation, the only such thing we've seen be successful so far is people being turned towards what they already think they know, which is very different from the conformism and control which the old system was built on. Its the same in terms of propaganda; mccarthyism would never be able to succeed today - can you imagine the protests, desertions or riots today if Trump decided to institute a draft for Vietnam V2?
The Charlottesville protests and the antifa movement are already evidence enough that the left wont sit idly by, and as for the right, Trump's entire election was the result of, more than anything else, people rejecting the establishment propaganda. More than anything, he was elected because he "told it like it was," no matter how wrong it turned out to be.
No, I think the only true area on the article I can dispute myself is that things will get better. The author argues that our information age is in its infancy and just growing legs, but I'd argue that it did so 15 years ago, with the first advent of connectivity.
Our society itself, by the very nature of democracy and consumerism, is built on the idea of conformism, and most people alive today are still part of that culture by merit of being idiots. The only thing thats really changed is that we're now telling the world what to tell us, rather than simply taking what we're told at face value regardless. I'm willing to bet it'll be another 4 or 5 generations before it truly took root that you should always draw a logical conclusion for yourself, and it'll be far too late at that point.
A change is coming, but before it can, the ignorant masses will tear apart everything they no longer believe in, first, and that isnt about to stop at cancelling a cable tv subscription.
If you look up information on David Perell and find out anything, let me know. He seems very adept at marketing himself. His analysis of current trends is compelling, but the data offered seems lacking and selective. Most of his ideas feel like recycled Marshal McLuhan. To be fair, I suppose few people have read Marshall McLuhan, and his ideas could use a popular refreshening. Still, I'd like to see Perell's credentials.
I think his personal case is one that supports his thesis, that current events and trends and certainty are in upheaval and relative chaos. But that has been the case for many decades, if not centuries and millennia. Certainly the information abundance has snowballed within our lifetimes, but Alvin Toffler was talking Future Shock in the last century.
Most of the differences of opinion seem to be in how the confusion will shake out. Will or won't the major tech corporations develop a new stranglehold on information? I thought the most insightful comments of Perell were on the ascendancy of Trump and the recognition that Trump and the Old Media played a win-win game of profit seeking, but with new adversarial rules, at least for a modern presidential campaign.
If one looks back on history, every contemporary society always determines it's on the verge of a new unprecedented age, and maybe it is. It remains that the confusion is real time, and understanding is in the form of hindsight and analysis. Humans want to understand things, in the quickest and most efficient way possible. Perell, or PewDiePie? They're both in the same business.
I think you managed to managed to summarize the entire article right there; between politics, economics, and the current education system. So it stands to ask, how do you think it will shake out?
If I knew that I would have bought Apple at $30 a share years ago. My track record with macroeconomics is a solid 50%. Sometimes knowing that we know virtually nothing, especially about future shakeouts, is an advantage.
An engrossing read, I'll have to make sure to pass it along to my friends. Do you think microbrands will continue to rise up and dominate the market?