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---
title: "Dispatch #36 (February 2026)"
date: 2026-01-29T22:40:09-05:00
date: 2026-02-02T00:26:33-05:00
draft: false
tags:
- dispatch
@@ -29,6 +29,42 @@ references:
url: https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman
date: 2026-01-06T18:40:18Z
file: interconnected-org-9bc7pq.txt
- title: "Things you're allowed to do"
url: https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:17Z
file: milan-cvitkovic-net-aqgldo.txt
- title: "Singing the gospel of collective efficacy (Interconnected)"
url: https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:18Z
file: interconnected-org-heqhgj.txt
- title: "The Dilbert Afterlife - by Scott Alexander"
url: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-dilbert-afterlife
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:27Z
file: www-astralcodexten-com-z9axyx.txt
- title: "Manton Reece"
url: https://www.manton.org/2026/01/20/matt-mullenweg-blogged-about-scott.html
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:28Z
file: www-manton-org-to8xs2.txt
- title: "Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why – On my Om"
url: https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:30Z
file: om-co-i3epdl.txt
- title: "Manton Reece - Velocity and authenticity"
url: https://www.manton.org/2026/01/21/velocity-and-authenticity.html
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:30Z
file: www-manton-org-htmmhe.txt
- title: "ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering"
url: https://alexharri.com/blog/ascii-rendering
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:34Z
file: alexharri-com-d1kmv9.txt
- title: "JavaScript Weekly Issue 769: January 20, 2026"
url: https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/769
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:36Z
file: javascriptweekly-com-bszyss.txt
- title: "Fascists Are Pathetic | Defector"
url: https://defector.com/fascists-are-pathetic
date: 2026-02-02T05:25:46Z
file: defector-com-p9as3r.txt
---
Greetings from frigid Durham, North Carolina. We've had an uncharacteristic amount of winter precipitation this month (mostly ice last weekend but a few inches of snow this one). On the one hand, our work is pretty flexible and we've gotten plenty of extra time with the kids. On the other, my home office and all my hobbies are in the basement, where it's presently around 40°F, so I'm about ready for things to get back to normal.
@@ -52,7 +88,7 @@ While we were up there, our car finally gave up the ghost. It's been struggling
I'm constantly thinking of, and then promptly forgetting, things I need to do, groceries to buy, ideas for these blog posts, etc. I've been on the hunt for some way to quickly capture these fleeting thoughts. I like the idea of a ring that can record voice memos, but [this one][3] requires a $10/mo subscription, and [this one][4] just ... turns into trash after 12-15 hours of recording.
Instead, I played around in the iOS Shortcuts app and made a shortcut that captures text from speech, then looks for a note named for today's date (creating it if necessary), and appends the dictated text to it. Then I made it so that double-tapping the back of the phone launches the shortcut (shout out Viget friend [Max Myers][5]). I'm getting a ton of utility from this, using it throughout my day. [Here's the shortcut if you want to give it a shot.][6]
Instead, I played around in the iOS Shortcuts app and made a shortcut that captures text from speech, then looks for a note named for today's date (creating it if necessary) and appends the dictated text to it. Then I made it so that double-tapping the back of the phone launches the shortcut (shout out Viget friend [Max Myers][5]). I'm getting a ton of utility from this, using it throughout my day. [Here's the shortcut if you want to give it a shot.][6]
[3]: https://www.sandbar.com/stream
[4]: https://repebble.com/index
@@ -63,7 +99,7 @@ Instead, I played around in the iOS Shortcuts app and made a shortcut that captu
Still having a blast with the 3D printer (though, again, too cold to operate it at present). Made a ton of toys for the kids, stuff for the house, and (of course) accessories for the printer itself.
Friend of the blog [Tim Hårek][7] linked to [this post about OpenSCAD][8], which lets you define 3D models with code. I downloaded the program and had Codex help me make a stencil for Nev to use for her Valentine's Day cards. Then I ordered this [Crayola airbrush kit][9], which works surprisingly well. She's been having a blast with it.
Friend of the blog [Tim Hårek][7] linked to [this post about OpenSCAD][8], which lets you define 3D models with code. I had Codex help me make a stencil for Nev to use for her Valentine's Day cards. Then I ordered this [Crayola airbrush kit][9], which works shockingly well. She's been having a blast with it.
[7]: https://timharek.no/
[8]: https://nuxx.net/blog/2025/12/20/openscad-is-kinda-neat/
@@ -72,26 +108,26 @@ Friend of the blog [Tim Hårek][7] linked to [this post about OpenSCAD][8], whic
{{<dither IMG_9773.jpeg "782x600">}}Blue 3D pen and a fresh printed “happy valentine’s day! ♥ nev” card on the worktable.{{</dither>}}
{{<dither IMG_9772.jpeg "782x600">}}“Happy Valentine’s day!” and “Nev” stamped on a pink slip with a heart.{{</dither>}}
We're doing our [company hackathon][10] in a few weeks, and I'm planning to use the printer to make something with both a physical and digital component (probably involving [AprilTags][11]).
We're doing our [company hackathon][10] in a few weeks, and I'm planning to use the printer to make something with both physical and digital components (probably involving [AprilTags][11]).
[10]: https://www.viget.com/articles/the-enduring-point-of-pointless-corp/
[11]: https://ftc-docs.firstinspires.org/en/latest/apriltag/vision_portal/apriltag_intro/apriltag-intro.html
Finally, [RIP Dan McQuade][12]. 43 years old. What the hell. I'm off to go hug my family.
Finally, [RIP Dan McQuade][12]. 43 years old. What the hell. I'm off to hug my family.
[12]: https://defector.com/dan-mcquade-1983-2026
### This Month
* Adventure:
* Project:
* Skill:
* Adventure: keeping it local this month (though I guess I need to get up to DC to deal with the car at some point) but lots of friends and family visiting
* Project: aforementioned hackathon
* Skill: I predict I'm going to struggle to meet all of my commitments this month, so I'm going to give myself a little bit of grace on this one
### Reading & Listening
* Fiction: [_The Will of the Many_][13], James Islington ([via][14])
* Non-fiction: [_The Magic of Code_][15], Samuel Arbesman ([via][16])
* Music: I've got a bit of a backlog here; gonna spend some time with the records I already have (assuming the basement warms up)
* Music: I've got a bit of a backlog here; gonna spend some time with the records I already have rather than buying something new
[13]: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Will-of-the-Many/James-Islington/Hierarchy/9781982141189
[14]: https://buttondown.com/nathanlong/archive/food-comas-and-some-bests/
@@ -100,10 +136,32 @@ Finally, [RIP Dan McQuade][12]. 43 years old. What the hell. I'm off to go hug m
### Links
* [Title][17]
* [Title][18]
* [Title][19]
* [Things you're allowed to do][17] ([via][18])
[17]: https://example.com/
[18]: https://example.com/
[19]: https://example.com/
> This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you weren’t, or didn’t even know you could.
* [The Dilbert Afterlife - by Scott Alexander][19] ([via][20])
> Once you’re sufficiently prominent, politics becomes a separating equilibrium; if you lean even slightly to one side, the other will pile on you so massively and traumatically that it will force you into their opponents’ open arms just for a shred of psychological security.
* [Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why – On my Om][21] ([via][22])
> Authority used to be the organizing principle of information, and thus the media. You earned attention by being right, by being first in discovery, or by being big enough to be the default. That world is gone. The new and current organizing principle of information is velocity.
* [ASCII characters are not pixels: a deep dive into ASCII rendering][23] ([via][24])
> Recently, I’ve been spending my time building an image-to-ASCII renderer. Below is the result — try dragging it around, the demo is interactive!
* [Fascists Are Pathetic | Defector][25]
> In Trump's second term, the federal government has intentionally rid itself of the capacity to do anything but make things worse; it has quite literally traded Ph.D scientists and dedicated civil servants for the chance to hastily stand up this expansion team from the waiver wire flotsam of the violence worker community.
[17]: https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/
[18]: https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
[19]: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-dilbert-afterlife
[20]: https://www.manton.org/2026/01/20/matt-mullenweg-blogged-about-scott.html
[21]: https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/
[22]: https://www.manton.org/2026/01/21/velocity-and-authenticity.html
[23]: https://alexharri.com/blog/ascii-rendering
[24]: https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/769
[25]: https://defector.com/fascists-are-pathetic

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Federal Agents arrest a man during an Immigration Enforcement Operation in
Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN, U.S., January 13, 2026.Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via
Getty Images
[40]Politics
Fascists Are Pathetic
[41][Vic]
By [42]David Roth
9:27 AM EST on January 15, 2026
• [43]Share on Bluesky
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[47]
475Comments
Two days before a shouting cluster of its agents surrounded the car of a
Minneapolis mother and [48]shot her to death last week, ICE was demanding
answers from the Hilton hotel group on Twitter. "Why did your team in
Minneapolis cancel our federal law enforcement officer and agent reservations?"
the government account of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency [49]
asked, repeatedly tagging Hilton's corporate account per the longstanding suite
of best practices among the population of squeakers prone to this kind of
social media crashout.
The meltdown continued in a subsequent post, which began with the capitalized
sentence "NO ROOM AT THE INN!": "When officers attempted to book rooms using
official government emails and rates, Hilton Hotels maliciously CANCELLED their
reservations," the agency, which [50]had a $28.7 billion budget in 2025,
posted. "This is UNACCEPTABLE. Why is Hilton Hotels siding with murderers and
rapists to deliberately undermine and impede DHS law enforcement from their
mission to enforce our nation’s immigration laws?" The hotel group and the
independently owned hotel in question both [51]apologized later that day, both
taking care to note that they don't condone any kind of discrimination. In the
streets, the horrors continued.
It is not accurate to say that the current government of the United States
speaks with one voice; there are too many half-sociopath [52]influencers and
podcasters and unstable television personalities scrabbling around in high
positions for there to be anything like that kind of shared purpose, and the
reactionary social media gremlins working under them are all too busy [53]
signaling to their own degenerate micro-communities to get into anything like
harmony. But, one brutal and stupid year into the second Trump administration,
it seems fair to say that the federal government has cohered into a sort of
collective personality. It is maybe more accurate to say that the public-facing
part of the federal government is identifiable at this moment as a specific and
repellent type of American Guy.
You do not have to know this guy personally to know what he is about; you do
not need to understand what he believes to grasp how dangerous he is or why.
You need only to put some tactical gear and a gaiter on him, dress him up with
whatever weaponry looks toughest, and drop him behind the wheel of a rented
Jeep Wagoneer. Instinct and panic and a gnarled suite of anti-values will do
the work from there; you can't trust him for much, but you can trust that this
guy will point that vehicle's enormous snarling grille at a smaller vehicle
being driven by someone the guy in question has identified as a target. They
would be doing this, or spending hours every day fantasizing about doing it,
even if they had not been told that [54]their right do it now supersedes every
other right in public life.
This type of person exists in American life—"our neighbors, friends, and loved
ones," in [55]the words of Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin—in sufficient
enough numbers that everyone who does not want to become a character in the
incoherent first-person shooter video game that plays over their every waking
moment knows to avoid them. They are all around us, but contra Sen. Mullin they
are not really our neighbors or friends; they do not quite fit that concept,
and cannot really buy into it. They are self-deputized; their personal defects
make them unstable in a way that leads inexorably to car crashes.
In his weepy tweet defending their negligible honor and that of the work they
do, Mullin calls them "red-blooded American patriots," and that, too, is both
directionally correct and plainly laughable on the merits. They're American,
all right, and the patriotism they claim—an old, small, ignorant version, but
one that for those reasons nevertheless has some claim on the word—is just one
of many. Before they put on plate carriers and masks and threw themselves into
the dirty business of terrorizing their neighbors and breaking their families,
they were still identifiable as who and what they are and always were—seething,
unappeasable, deliriously and defiantly pig-stupid, and absolutely a threat to
the peace and comfort and flourishing of everyone and anything else. The masks
only make them easier to see.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem speaks at a news conference on
January 7, 2026 in Brownsville, Texas.Kristi Noem doing the classic Standing
Around In Front Of A Bunch Of Uniformed CHUDs maneuver in Texas in January
2026. (Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)
There is no disjunction between the political movement that is so frantically
preening and whining and lying [56]on social media and into any camera lens it
can find, and the one prosecuting an aimless, endless, brutish reign of terror
in the hospitals and outside the preschools and across the big-box parking lots
of the greater Twin Cities metropolitan area. They are two sides of the same
coin, or the same side of this particular personality type—baffled, brutish,
plainly terrified and out of control, incapable of self-regulation or basic
self-soothing, never learning a single thing and making as big and violent a
mess as they can on principle. There is no legible strategy in the ICE-led
offensive in Minnesota beyond [57]trying to make the situation worse to see
what might happen, and no sense of what victory might look like; when "get told
to eat shit by dozens of bystanders" and "drive off amid a cloud of tear gas"
represent this big a part of the tactical stack, it becomes easy to doubt that
there actually is any broader goal.
It's a terror campaign, of course, but the people doing it are themselves so
terrified and so manifestly out of their depth and incapable, and so deeply
lost in their own single-serving fogs of war, that it all becomes recursive.
Its purpose, to the extent one is visible, is to keep going. The original
justification for the surge was [58]an incomprehensible viral video by a
conservative influencer, but it has since become both [59]a campaign of
indiscriminate punishment and cyclical content creation and omnidirectional
retribution—a frantic tantrum unconvincingly dressing itself up as an act of
stern paternal discipline, and a screen-addled movement of hair-trigger
illiterates that has [60]lost the ability to do anything but react, generating
new scenes to react to.
It could only ever be incoherent, and was always going to be brutal. As a
farcical re-enactment of the lost foreign wars of the last two decades on
American soil, it could not be any other way. For the same reason, it is hard
to know when or how it will end. In Trump's second term, the federal government
has intentionally rid itself of the capacity to do anything but make things
worse; it has quite literally traded Ph.D scientists and dedicated civil
servants for the chance to hastily stand up this expansion team from the
waiver-wire flotsam of the violence worker community. The public money that was
once spent, grudgingly and kludgily, on keeping people alive is now being spent
on this mission and others like it, whose only purpose is to hurt those that
the state has identified as enemies.
The people carrying this out have been behaving [61]exactly as you might expect
armed sadists to behave after they'd been told that they would be immune from
any future consequences. None of them really seem to understand the mission
they've been given beyond some atavistic mandate to violently pacify and punish
everyone that Doesn't Look Right, to make everything clean and quiet and keep
it that way, to patrol empty streets with their blood up and their guns out
until such time as the threat, which was always just everything and everyone
else, is somehow neutralized.
And that may well be what the mission actually is. Some people who did not know
anything, and who kept themselves scared all the time, and who held a grudge
against the whole rest of humanity because of how ignorant and frightened that
bigger world's existence made them feel, handed weapons to other people who
felt the same way, and told them to figure it out. All that war and the ways in
which the rot it made weakened various important structures and edifices, the
terrible use reactionary cynics found for that rot, the toxins that invariably
showed up in the groundwater downstream from all that violence—all of these
things made the culture stupid and cruel in new ways, or maybe just in very old
ones. All of that made this awful moment, too.
The capacity to cry about being treated rudely on social media while carrying
out this open-ended gambit is new, but the instinct to do so wasn't. There is
something deeply, shamefully American about this strike force of out-of-town
shitheads complaining about the customer service it has received from the
people it is trying to oppress, and doing so in language—NO ROOM AT THE INN!
—that stridently references and oafishly misuses one of the foundational
stories of the faith that movement relentlessly claims. A lesson about
humanity, and a whole humane way of seeing the world, shrinks so effortlessly
into a preening, indignant, fundamentally meaningless complaint.
Minnesota, among other places, is currently in a stalemate between people who
[62]want to live their normal lives without fear of being brutalized or
terrorized or beaten or even killed, and an occupying force that understands
preventing that from happening as more or less the substance and purpose of its
mission, and that is awful. But just because the people doing all that shooting
and crying don't know what they're doing doesn't mean anyone else is as
deceived. Every day, those pissy goons go out looking for trouble, and every
day people who never previously imagined that they would do such a thing tell
them to fuck off, absorb outsized violence for doing so, and resolve to do it
again the next day.
It's inspiring, this persistence of community and care in the face of a
campaign to annihilate them, and the defiance of people who want to live their
lives against a force that doesn't want anything at all, and all of these small
and vital human things pushing up through the attempt to make those things and
that resistance impossible. But it is also a reminder of how pathetic—how
sincerely and deeply abject, how valueless and lost—this offensive is. There is
all this rude and humble everyday life and all these different types of people
who believe it is meaningful, and then there is this attempt, overseen by an
elite that doesn't believe in anything at all, to replace it with something
dumber, simpler, more demeaning, and more like content. They are going to lose,
and not just because they are outnumbered.
Recommended
[63]Sports Highlight Of The Day
[64]
The Sports Highlight Of The Day Is This ICE Goon Eating Shit
[65]240Comments
[66]Tom Ley
January 12, 2026
[67]Ice guy slips and falls
[68]Subscribe to skip adsAdvertisement
If you liked this blog, please share it! Your referrals help Defector reach new
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• [69]Share on Bluesky
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[73][Vic]
[74]David Roth
[75]@davidjroth.bsky.social
Editor. Co-host of The Distraction.
Read More:
• [76]Actual Existing Trumpism,
• [77]dhs,
• [78]donald trump,
• [79]Fascism,
• [80]ice,
• [81]jd vance,
• [82]kristi noem,
• [83]Minneapolis,
• [84]Trumpism
Stay in touch
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[87]NBA
[88]
Sixers Enact Intentional, Then Unintentional Tribute To The Late Great Dan
McQuade
[89]157Comments
[90][rat]
[91]Ray Ratto
January 30, 2026
[92]Tyrese Maxey #0 of the Philadelphia 76ers reacts after the game against the
Sacramento Kings at Xfinity Mobile Arena on January 29, 2026 in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. The 76ers defeated the Kings 113-111.
[93]Announcements
[94]
Dan McQuade, 1983–2026
[95]1104Comments
[96][IMG]
[97]Tom Ley
January 28, 2026
[98]Dan McQuade sits in a blue chair, which is big and fake leather-ish, and
has big arms on it. He has his head resting on his left arm, which is on the
left arm of the chair. He has long light brown hair, a beard cropped to his
face, and I dunno I'd say he's pretty handsome, but I am biased as I am the
subject of the photo. Dan is wearing a red shirt with a grey and white tabby
cat's face on it, with a rose under (and patially covering) the cat. Under that
it says DEFECTOR with the 4 degrees slant logo. He has on blue shorts or pants
(they're shorts, I know they're shorts), they're not jeans but they're not
sweats, like a sort of inbetween situation. There's a hospital admit bracelet
on his left arm. His right arm is on the other arm of the couch.
[99]Cycling
[100]
Double Kangaroo Chaos Will Reverberate Across The Cycling Season
[101]58Comments
[102][hea]
[103]Patrick Redford
January 28, 2026
[104]The peloton rides past a kangaroo road sign during the Tour Down Under UCI
Men's Cycling in Adelaide on January 25, 2026.
[105]Podcasts
[106]
How Do You Make A Podcast When The World Is On Fire?
[107]4Comments
[108]A headshot of Jae Towle Vieira
[109]Jae Towle Vieira
January 28, 2026
[110][2025_NormalGossip_LogoArt_16_9_Loc]
[111]NFL
[112]
Bill Belichick Becomes The Target Of Someone Else’s Pettiness, For A Change
[113]158Comments
[114][rat]
[115]Ray Ratto
January 28, 2026
[116]Head coach Bill Belichick of the North Carolina Tar Heels gives a thumbs
up during the ACC Football Kickoff at Hilton Charlotte Uptown on July 24, 2025
in Charlotte, North Carolina. He looks real weird doing it.
[117]NFL
[118]
Heartwarming: Miserable Man Frustrated In Ultimately Insignificant Way
[119]252Comments
[120][Vic]
[121]David Roth
January 28, 2026
[122]New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick announces he is leaving the
team during a press conference at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough,
Massachusetts, on January 11, 2024.
[123]See all posts
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[51] https://www.404media.co/hilton-hotel-that-refused-dhs-reservations-backpedals/
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[54] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/stephen-miller-said-ice-officers-181934483.html
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[58] https://www.cjr.org/laurels-and-darts/ice-minnesota-fraud-somali-community-nick-shirley-viral-debunked-video-dhs-surge.php
[59] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hundreds-federal-agents-are-headed-minnesota-noem-says-rcna253547
[60] https://www.theverge.com/tech/856948/nick-shirley-minnesota-daycare-fraud-influencer-media-cycle
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[90] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
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[93] https://defector.com/category/announcements
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[114] https://defector.com/author/ray-ratto
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[120] https://defector.com/author/david-roth
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[1]Interconnected
A blog by Matt Webb
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Singing the gospel of collective efficacy
20.01, Friday 30 Jan 2026 [16]Link to this post
If I got to determine the school curriculum, I would be optimising for
collective efficacy.
So I live in a gentrified but still mixed neighbourhood in London (we’re the
newbies at just under a decade) and we have an active WhatsApp group.
Recently there was a cold snap and a road nearby iced over – it was in the
shade and cyclists kept on wiping out on it. For some reason the council didn’t
come and salt it.
Somebody went out and created a sign on a weighted chair so it didn’t blow
away. And this is a small thing but I LOVE that I live somewhere there is a
shared belief that (a) our neighbourhood is worth spending effort on, and (b)
you can just do things.
Similarly we all love when the swifts visit (beautiful birds), so somebody
started a group to get swift nest boxes made and installed collectively, then
applied for subsidy funding, then got everyone to chip in such that people who
couldn’t afford it could have their boxes paid for, and now suddenly we’re all
writing to MPs and following the legislation to include swift nesting sites in
new build houses. Etc.
It’s called collective efficacy, the belief that you can make a difference by
acting together.
(People who have heard of Greta Thunberg tend to [17]have a stronger sense of
collective efficacy (2021).)
It’s so heartening.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
You can just do things
That phrase was a Twitter thing for a while, and I haven’t done the archaeology
on the phrase but there’s this blog post by Milan Cvitkovic from 2020: [18]
Things you’re allowed to do.
e.g.
• `Say I don’t know'
• `Tape over annoying LED lights'
• `Buy goods/services from your friends'
I read down the list saying to myself, yeah duh of course, to almost every
single one, then hit certain ones and was like – oh yeah, I can just do that.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I think collective efficacy is maybe 50% taking off the blinkers and giving
yourself (as a group) permission to do things.
But it’s also 50% belief that it’s worth acting at all.
And that belief is founded part in care, and part in faith that what you are
doing can actually make a difference.
For instance:
A lot of my belief in the power of government comes from the fact that, back in
the day, London’s tech scene was not all that. So in 2009 I worked with
Georgina Voss to figure out the gap, then in 2010 bizarrely got invited on a
trade mission to India with the Prime Minister and got the opportunity to make
the case about east London to them, and based on that No. 10 launched Tech City
(which we had named on the plane), and that acted as a catalyst on the work
that everyone was already doing to get the cluster going, and then we were off
to the races. WIRED magazine wrote it up in 2019: [19]The story of London’s
tech scene, as told by those who built it (paywall-busting link).
So I had that experience and now I believe that, if I can find the right ask,
there’s always the possibility to make things better.
That’s a rare experience. I’m very lucky.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ALTHOUGH.
Should we believe in luck?
Psychologist Richard Wiseman, [20]The Luck Factor (2003, PDF):
I gave both [self-identified] lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and
asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside.
On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the
photographs whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the
second page of the newspaper contained the message “Stop counting - There
are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”
`Lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.'
They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky
decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling
prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that
transforms bad luck into good.
I insist that people are not lucky nor unlucky. Maybe some amount of luck is
habit?
You can just be lucky?
(Well, not absolutely, privilege is big, but maybe let’s recalibrate luck from
believing it is entirely random, that’s what I’m saying.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
When I was a kid I used to play these unforgivingly impossible video games –
that’s what home video games were like then. No open world play, multiple ways
to win, or adaptive difficulty. Just pixel-precise platform jumps and timing.
Yet you always knew that there was a way onto the next screen, however long it
took.
It taught a kind of stubborn optimism.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Or, in another context, `No fate but what we make.'
Same same.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All of which makes me ask:
Could we invent free-to-plan mobile games which train luckiness?
Are there games for classrooms that would cement a faith in collective efficacy
in kids?
Or maybe it’s proof by demonstration.
I’m going into my kid’s school in a couple of weeks to show the class photos of
what it looks like inside factories. The stuff around us was made by people
like us; it’s not divine in origin; factories are just rooms.
I have faith that - somehow - at some point down the line - this act will help.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it by email or on social
media. [21]Here’s the link. Thanks, —Matt.
Most recent posts
• Singing the gospel of collective efficacy 30 Jan 2026 (This post)
• [22]Do today’s work today 23 Jan 2026
• [23]The natural home for AI agents is your Reminders app 15 Jan 2026
• [24]Real like ghosts or real like celebrities? 9 Jan 2026
• [25]My top posts in 2025 3 Jan 2026
• [26]More scraps from my notes file 26 Dec 2025
• [27]Filtered for conspiracy theories 19 Dec 2025
• [28]My new fave thing to go to is algoraves 11 Dec 2025
• [29]My mental model of the AI race 5 Dec 2025
• [30]Context plumbing 29 Nov 2025
• [31]Spinning up a new thing: Inanimate 19 Nov 2025
• [32]3 books with Samuel Arbesman 14 Nov 2025
Continue reading: [33]All in 2025
streak New posts for 305 consecutive weeks (see: [34]blogging tips)
New? Start here: [35]Best of 2025 (also [36]2024, [37]2023, [38]2022, [39]2021,
[40]2020)
Or explore the archives: [41]On this day
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Archive
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[62][ ] Search
Since February 2000. Copyright © 2026 Matt Webb.
p.s. here’s [70]my blogroll and the [71]colophon.
References:
[1] https://interconnected.org/home/
[2] https://interconnected.org/
[3] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy#archive
[4] https://www.actsnotfacts.com/
[5] https://buttondown.com/genmon
[6] https://interconnected.org/home/feed
[7] https://aboutfeeds.com/
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[9] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/24/unoffice_hours
[10] https://bsky.app/profile/genmon.org
[11] https://x.com/genmon
[12] https://www.instagram.com/genmon/
[13] https://mastodon.social/@genmon
[14] https://www.linkedin.com/in/genmon/
[15] https://poem.town/
[16] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
[17] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/04/08/efficacy
[18] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/
[19] https://archive.ph/GJrTT
[20] http://richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf
[21] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/30/efficacy
[22] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/23/umpa
[23] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/15/reminders
[24] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/09/real
[25] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
[26] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/26/scraps
[27] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/19/filtered
[28] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/11/live
[29] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/12/05/training
[30] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/28/plumbing
[31] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/19/inanimate
[32] https://interconnected.org/home/2025/11/14/arbesman
[33] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
[34] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/10/streak
[35] https://interconnected.org/home/2026/01/03/top-posts
[36] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/12/30/top-posts
[37] https://interconnected.org/home/2023/12/22/top-posts
[38] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/12/21/top_posts
[39] https://interconnected.org/home/2021/12/23/top_posts
[40] https://interconnected.org/home/2020/12/17/top_posts
[41] https://interconnected.org/home/on-this-day
[42] https://interconnected.org/home/2026
[43] https://interconnected.org/home/2025
[44] https://interconnected.org/home/2024
[45] https://interconnected.org/home/2023
[46] https://interconnected.org/home/2022
[47] https://interconnected.org/home/2021
[48] https://interconnected.org/home/2020
[49] https://interconnected.org/home/2019
[50] https://interconnected.org/home/2018
[51] https://interconnected.org/home/2017
[52] https://interconnected.org/home/2016
[53] https://interconnected.org/home/2015
[54] https://interconnected.org/home/2014
[55] https://interconnected.org/home/2013
[56] https://interconnected.org/home/2012
[57] https://interconnected.org/home/2011
[58] https://interconnected.org/home/2010
[59] https://interconnected.org/home/2009
[60] https://interconnected.org/home/2008
[61] https://interconnected.org/home/2007
[70] https://interconnected.org/home/blogroll
[71] https://interconnected.org/home/2024/10/28/colophon

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Together with  [13]Mescius
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[15]jQuery 4.0 Released — 20 years on from its original release, the
ever-popular ([16]in terms of actual usage) library reaches 4.0 with a
migration to ES modules (compatible with modern build tools) along with
dropping support for IE 10 and older. With jQuery being a popular guest in our
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💡 If you're using jQuery, you'll find [17]jQuery Migrate, an official tool to
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and [18]you might not need jQuery at all..
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SpreadJS from MESCIUS inc sponsor
[22]Astro is Joining Cloudflare — Big news in the Web framework space as the
team behind [23]the popular Astro framework ([24]the beta of v6.0 is now
available) is headed to Cloudflare. Few major frameworks are now not under the
wing of a larger entity.
Schott and Irvine-Broque
IN BRIEF:
• 🕒 [25]Temporal Playground is an online sandbox for playing around with the
[26]Temporal API.
• Svelte has released patches for [27]five vulnerabilities affecting the
Svelte ecosystem.
• 🤖 Ryan Dahl, creator of both Node.js and Deno, [28]says on X that "the era
of humans writing code is over" and "That's not to say SWEs don't have work
to do, but writing syntax directly is not it." I hope not, but these are
interesting times!
RELEASES:
• [29]Electron 40.0 – The popular cross-platform desktop app framework
upgrades to Chromium 144, V8 14.4, and Node 24.11.1.
• [30]Node.js v25.4.0 (Current) – require(esm) is now marked as stable.
• [31]React Native Windows 0.81, [32]Aurelia 2 RC, [33]Deno 2.6.5
📖  Articles and Videos
[34][jgxwxup4zgn1lvkdjife]
[35]ASCII Characters Are Not Pixels: A Deep Dive Into ASCII Rendering — Alex
digs deep into getting ASCII-based graphics rendering just right with
JavaScript, complete with examples of the algorithms used and numerous demos.
The neatest technical blog post I’ve seen so far this year.
Alex Harri
[36]JavaScript Now a First-Class Citizen in Aspire — [37]Aspire is a Microsoft
framework for orchestrating the deployment of distributed apps. Originally just
for .NET, [38]Aspire 13 now makes JavaScript a first-class citizen, so you can
run Vite and full-stack JS apps with service discovery, telemetry, and
production-ready containers.
Microsoft
[39]Breakpoints and console.log Is the Past, Time Travel Is the Future — 15x
faster JavaScript debugging than with breakpoints and console.log, supports
Vitest, jest, Karma, Jasmine, and more.
Wallaby Team sponsor
[40]Introducing the <geolocation> Element — Chrome 144 introduces a new
<geolocation> element for requesting user location data, moving away from a
JavaScript-triggered prompt.
Viana, Le, Steiner
📄 [41]Bootstrapping Bun – “My journey running the build system for Bun …
without relying on any of its usual binary dependencies — namely itself.”
Bradley Walters
📄 [42]Building a Scroll-Driven Dual-Wave Text Animation with GSAP Valentin
Descombes
📄 [43]How the Electron Team Improved Window Resize Behavior Niklas Wenzel
📄 [44]How to Learn to Build Apps in 2026 Eric Elliott
🛠 Code & Tools
[45][sp5w3urjw73n3rnjqoai]
[46]Starry Night 3.9: GitHub-Like Syntax Highlighting — GitHub’s own syntax
highlighter isn’t open source, but this library is a powerful alternative that
tries to get as close as it can, with support for hundreds of languages. I’ve
[47]put a basic Web demo here to show off how to use it on the Web.
Titus Wormer
[48]Extension.js 3: Browser Extension Development Framework — Create
cross-browser extensions without manual build configuration and develop, build,
and preview across browsers with a unified workflow. [49]GitHub repo.
Cezar Augusto et al.
[50]Easily Add Image Editing to your Web App — Import pintura, give it an
image, and instantly get features like cropping, rotating, and annotation. [51]
Try for free today.
Pintura sponsor
[52]React Aria: Adobe's World-Class React Components — React Aria has a
fantastic new site and all-new documentation that really sells the entire
experience, complete with interactive CSS and Tailwind examples to get started
quickly.
Adobe
[53]localspace: Modern localForage-Compatible Storage Toolkit — [54]localForage
is/was a popular storage library that wrapped various browser storage APIs with
a simple, localStorage-like API. It hasn’t been updated for years, though, and
“localspace exists to bridge that gap”.
Michael Lin
• ⭐ [55]p5.js v2.2 – The powerful JavaScript visual/creative coding toolkit
now includes WebGPU mode as a core feature ([56]explained well here and
[57]here).
• 🎥 [58]Mediabunny 1.29.0 – The TypeScript media toolkit adds support for
reading and writing MPEG Transport Stream (.ts) files. [59]Demo site.
• [60]Prettier 3.8 – The opinionated code formatter adds full support for
[61]Angular 21.1 which was released last week.
• [62]LogTape 2.0 – Simple logging library for all major JS runtimes. [63]
Changelog.
• ☎︎ [64]vue-tel-input 9.6 – Telephone number input for Vue. ([65]Demo.)
• [66]d3-3d 2.0 – D3-powered visualizations, but projected into 3D.
• [67]Convert 6.0 – Small, fast library for type-safe unit conversions.
• [68]SuperDiff 4.0 – Rich readable diffs for arrays and objects.
• [69]Jasmine 6.0 – Long-standing JavaScript BDD framework.
📰 Classifieds
🔑 [70]Add API key auth to any JS backend. Clerk handles generation, hashing,
scopes, and instant revocation. [71]Free during public beta.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Notion, Dropbox and LaunchDarkly have switched to [72]Meticulous for frontend
tests that provide near-exhaustive coverage with zero developer effort. [73]
Find out why.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🛠️ Auth0 for AI Agents provides a foundation for developers to build AI agents
without compromising security or innovation. [74]Start building.
📢  Elsewhere in the ecosystem
Some other interesting tidbits in the broader landscape:
[75][ry47g3jm8zcchbvpn3ga]
• 🔎 The VS Code team has put together a fascinating blog post about [76]how
they implemented a new, fast client-side docs search system for the VS Code
site using Rust and WebAssembly. You can use their [77]docfind engine for
yourself too, and [78]there's a live demo here showing off how fast it is
over an index of 50,000 news articles.
• 📊 HTTP Archive has released its [79]latest Web Almanac for 2025 packed with
raw stats, trends, and observations about the state of the Web over the
past year, covering areas like [80]WebAssembly, [81]performance, and
ever-increasing [82]page weight.
• A developer makes [83]a prediction that Microsoft will eventually
discontinue Windows in favor of a Windows-themed Linux distribution.
• Things are [84]not looking good for the MySQL project.
• [85]The State of WebAssembly in 2025 and 2026.
[86]« Prev
[87]Next »
[88][ ]Subscribe now »
Easy to unsubscribe at any time. Your e-mail address [90]is safe — here's [91]
our privacy policy.
[web]
References:
[1] https://javascriptweekly.com/
[2] https://javascriptweekly.com/issues
[3] https://javascriptweekly.com/latest
[4] https://javascriptweekly.com/rss/
[7] https://cooperpress.com/spam.html
[8] https://cooperpress.com/legal/privacy/
[10] https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/768
[11] https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/770
[12] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179441/web
[13] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179442/web
[14] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179443/web
[15] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179443/web
[16] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179444/web
[17] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179445/web
[18] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179446/web
[19] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179442/web
[20] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179442/web
[21] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179442/web
[22] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179447/web
[23] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179448/web
[24] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179449/web
[25] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179450/web
[26] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179451/web
[27] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179452/web
[28] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179453/web
[29] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179454/web
[30] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179455/web
[31] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179456/web
[32] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179457/web
[33] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179458/web
[34] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179459/web
[35] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179459/web
[36] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179460/web
[37] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179461/web
[38] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179462/web
[39] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179463/web
[40] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179464/web
[41] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179465/web
[42] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179466/web
[43] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179505/web
[44] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179467/web
[45] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179468/web
[46] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179468/web
[47] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179469/web
[48] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179470/web
[49] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179471/web
[50] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179472/web
[51] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179472/web
[52] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179473/web
[53] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179474/web
[54] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179475/web
[55] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179476/web
[56] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179477/web
[57] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179478/web
[58] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179479/web
[59] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179480/web
[60] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179481/web
[61] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179482/web
[62] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179483/web
[63] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179484/web
[64] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179485/web
[65] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179486/web
[66] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179487/web
[67] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179488/web
[68] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179489/web
[69] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179490/web
[70] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179491/web
[71] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179491/web
[72] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179492/web
[73] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179492/web
[74] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179493/web
[75] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179494/web
[76] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179494/web
[77] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179495/web
[78] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179496/web
[79] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179497/web
[80] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179498/web
[81] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179499/web
[82] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179500/web
[83] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179501/web
[84] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179502/web
[85] https://javascriptweekly.com/link/179503/web
[86] https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/768
[87] https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/770
[90] https://cooperpress.com/spam.html
[91] https://cooperpress.com/legal/privacy/

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• [1]Writing
• [2]Science
• [3]About
Things you're allowed to do
December 13, 2020, updated&nbspJanuary 9, 2023
This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you weren’t, or
didn’t even know you could.
I haven’t tried everything on this list, mainly due to cost. But you’d be
surprised how cheap most of the things on this list are (especially the free
ones).
Note that you can replace “hire” or “buy” with “barter for” or “find a DIY
guide to” nearly everywhere below. E.g. you can clean the bathroom in exchange
for your housemate doing a couple hours’ research for you.
Learning and decision making
• Hire a researcher or expert consultant
□ I hired a researcher ([4]Elizabeth Van Nostrand, whom you can and
should [5]hire too) to help write this very post, which is largely
about how to hire people to do things!
□ They can:
☆ Help validate whether a crazy idea is possible
☆ Do [6]epistemic spot checks of your work
☆ Map the landscape of opinions on a topic
☆ Write literature surveys
☆ Find people worth talking to about a potential topic and writing
briefs about them
☆ Opposition or market research
☆ Find options for big purchases like houses or insurance
☆ Compile datasets
☆ Find un-Googleable things
□ To find one:
☆ Look for books or scholarly articles on the topic, and email the
author
○ Graduate students are especially good, and often know more than
the “experts”
○ If you find someone genuinely interested in what you’re working
on, you might be able to collaborate and not pay
☆ Look for interested individuals in the long tail of blogs
○ E.g. by Google searching with "site: medium.com" and finding
the authors
☆ Use a matchmaking service (see [7]Appendix)
☆ Search through professional organizations directories (e.g. Bar
Association, American Academy of Pediatrics)
☆ Google the topic +
○ “blog”
○ “podcast”
○ “expert witness”
○ “book”
○ “consultant”
○ “reddit”
□ What do I pay them?
☆ Some post their prices online
☆ If you’re hiring a grad student you can pay them at or above their
school’s graduate student stipend, which you can Google.
☆ [8]Make sure they get something out of the project (and other tips)
• [9]Ask obvious questions
• Ask questions online
□ You know those answers you enjoy reading on Stack Exchange, Reddit,
Quora, etc.? Someone had to ask those questions. It can be you.
□ If you’re embarrassed by the question, it’s easy to be anonymous
• Run surveys
□ Twitter
☆ Or ask someone with a larger following to do it
□ Google Surveys
□ Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Buy advertisements, [10]especially in legacy media
• Run [11]genuine randomized control trials on yourself
• Buy research or data
□ See [12]Appendix, [13]here, or [14]here
□ Or find it on [15]SciHub or [16]Libgen
• Hire someone to pentest/doxx you
□ Or put out a bounty for it, like [17]Gwern used to
• Hire a graphic designer to turn your appalling sketches into beautiful
diagrams or slides
• Host small gatherings or conferences on topics you care about
□ These are much easier to set up than you’d think, especially in the age
of Zoom
• Hire a tutor
□ [18]Language tutors are surprisingly cheap and better than any app
□ [19]Wyzant and many other sites exist for general tutoring
□ For niche tutoring you can try general freelance sites like [20]Fiverr
or [21]Upwork
□ Services like [22]Sharpest Minds exist for professional training
• [23]Dissect a cadaver (even as a non-medical student)
• Pick a spot on the map that simply seems strange and just go there. (HT
Michael Nielsen)
• Hire someone just as an excuse to make yourself complete a project
□ Sure you could proofread your own document. But if you hire a
proofreader, you have to actually deliver them something at some point.
Interpersonal
• Say “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t
• Not tell white lies
□ You can be nice and tell the truth at the same time.
□ Especially to kids when they annoy you.
• Don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to
• Buy goods/services from your friends
□ It’s not weird unless you make it weird
□ Everyone knows some starving artists and needs to buy holiday gifts
□ Doesn’t apply to every service obviously: don’t take out loans from
your friends
• Travel to friends just to visit them
• Move close to friends
• Live in multiple places with multiple people
□ Rent spare rooms or couches part-time in multiple homes
□ Arrange your own timeshare system with friends
☆ E.g. a group of nine friends can rent three three-bedroom
apartments in three cities
☆ This also gives you flexibility over which jurisdiction you’re
taxed in
• Be a nomad
• Ask your acquaintances, “Hey, I want to leave my house more, are there any
cool events you’re going to soon?” (HT Sasha Chapin)
• Actively try to make yourself a better conversation partner
□ Via [24]Sasha Chapin
□ Via [25]Chana Messinger
□ Via [26]Adam Mastroianni
• Start a blog or substack so you can say “I’m a writer” without lying. Then
start conversations with strangers by saying “Hi, I’m a writer doing a
piece about <location/circumstance you’re in>. Can I ask you a few
questions?”
□ This is especially handy when traveling or at a restaurant.
• Romance
□ Ask people out on dates
□ Ask your friends to set you up
□ Hire a matchmaker
□ Buy premium versions of dating apps
□ Get couples therapy
• Give to charity
□ You can, to the best of our knowledge, [27]save someone’s (statistical)
life with not that much money. This is a big deal.
Support and accountability
• Hire a coach
□ For your professional area
☆ [28]An Atul Gawande article on the subject
☆ [29]On clicker training
□ Personal trainer
□ Nutritionist
□ Meditation guide
• Visit a physical therapist
• Buy task-specific devices that prevent multitasking
□ Kindle
□ Freewrite Traveller
□ Dedicated music players
□ Dedicated notebooks for specific purposes (day planner, exercise log,
etc.)
• Engage a human productivity monitor
□ I know two people who have hired people to sit next to them or
frequently contact them to keep them on-task
□ Examples: [30]focusmate.com and [31]coding-pal.com
Making the most of your resources
• First, figure out [32]how much your time is really worth to you, and then
act/spend accordingly
• Modify your stuff
□ Tape over annoying LED lights
□ Remove logos ([33]example)
□ Write in books
□ Rip off tags
□ Rotate your monitor to portrait
• Repair your stuff, or get it repaired
□ Shoes
□ Clothes
□ Luggage and [34]outdoor gear
□ Furniture
□ Car
☆ You can buy at-home car care
• Grocery delivery
• Cleaning services
□ Can be regular or just when you need a big spring clean
□ Don’t forget carpet cleaning, vent cleaning, and air filter replacement
• Laundry service
• Nannies over daycare
• Write on a post-it note affixed to a greeting card rather than on the
greeting card itself, so the recipient can throw away the post-it and reuse
your card
□ Employ similar logic for any disposable/consumable item
• Ask for free upgrades or coupons
□ At checkout you can just ask “Do you have any coupons I can apply to
this?”
• Treat fines like payments
□ E.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of
the) fine as a parking fee
□ Obviously don’t break rules that matter like blocking a fire exit
• [35]Contest unjust fines
□ [36]DoNotPay offers lots of services like this, like unsubscribing you
from services or sending faxes digitally
• Don’t pay, or renegotiate, bills
□ [37]Example with hospital bills
• Let the credit cards on recurring bills expire
• Call/email executives at company to complain about things
□ E.g. using [38]RocketReach
• Telemedicine
• Surgery for appearance or comfort
• At-home vet care
• Enroll [39]yourself (or [40]your pet) in a clinical trial or research study
• Generate your own audiobooks
• Generate your own ebooks
□ [41]1dollarscan.com
• Get verbal things written down
□ [42]transcribeme.com
□ [43]otter.ai
• Personal assistant services (or a real PA if you can afford it)
□ [44]Magic, [45]TaskRabbit, [46]Fancy Hands, and similar services can
approximate many of these. There are also more serious services like
[47]Double.
□ Manage email
□ Helping you move
□ Getting visas and arranging travel
□ Stand in line for you
□ Errands
□ Filing paperwork
• Hire a personal stylist
• And if you grew up in a thrifty family, like me:
□ Paying for parking in convenient location
□ Hotels where you can sleep comfortably
□ Non-public transportation, especially when traveling
□ Buying comfortable mattress, shoes, etc.
□ Buying clothes for appearance or comfort instead of just the lowest
price
□ Bottled water when you’re thirsty
☆ And in general fulfilling any bodily need for < $5 (restrooms,
buying a hat when you forgot yours, etc.)
□ Buy your way out of advertising on e.g. Spotify or YouTube
□ Actually turn the heat/AC on
☆ And in general, [48]being willing to spend a few minutes to fix
small annoyances
○ You could even get someone to observe you to help figure this
out
☆ Seriously, just put 3-IN-ONE oil on that squeaky hinge already
Professional
• Ignore what’s on the jobs page and directly pitch someone at a company on
hiring you
□ The jobs page is always out-of-date anyway
□ Figure out what their needs are before you make your pitch
• Negotiate for better terms in your job offer
□ Easier than asking for a raise - you have more leverage
□ You can ask for a signing bonus equal to the cost of exercising all
your options, which shows commitment to the company
□ Propose a longer vesting schedule to demonstrate commitment
• Ask for a raise
• Ask to waive admission or graduation requirements
• Drop out/quit your job
□ Or go on leave from your job/school until they kick you out. They often
won’t.
• Live off your savings while trying something new
• If you can’t live off your savings, get a grant
□ [49]Emergent Ventures
□ [50]ACX Grants
□ Kickstarter
□ These days there are always new microgrant programs starting, [51]
here’s one list
• Work for yourself
□ Coaching, contracting, etc.
• [52]Cold contact people
□ Yes, even famous people. Or anyone who wrote something you like. Just
make sure you have something to say or a good question.
• [53]Write forwardable emails
• [54]Follow up many times
□ You won’t make people mad if you’re polite.
• Approach a person or group you admire and ask whether they want to cofound
something with you
□ “Here’s my story, my goal is to build a company/nonprofit/whatever in
this space, maybe I can help you with X role.”
• Propose that a person, group, or company contract-to-hire you
□ Even if you want a cofounder role, this can be done well
• Learn how professionals email by [55]reading leaked emails.
• Use contract-to-hire
□ Even for CEO-level roles, this can be done well
• As mentioned above, buy [56]research or data, e.g. for compensation
• Market-test a mere idea by (1) setting up a landing page with an interest
form and (2) buying a cheap social media ad campaign. (HT [57]@daytimeskye)
• Merge with your competitors, a la PayPal
• Work in public
□ Or mostly in public, a la SpaceX who livestreams everything
• Sell to unusual markets
□ ZetrOZ was building a medical device, but started by selling to olympic
horse teams, then olympic human athletes
□ Some biotech companies start in pets
• Charge more
• Write interviews with yourself and send them to journalists (HT Tom Kalil)
• Fly to people for in-person meetings/visits to demonstrate seriousness
• In general, just ask for things, even if you’ve never heard someone ask for
them
□ It’s okay if the things are crazy. You can always mollify afterward by
saying “I know that’s a crazy thing to ask for, but I have a rule that
I always ask.”
Related, Probably Better Lists
• Dwarkesh Patel’s [58]list of “barbell strategies”
• Katja Grace’s [59]How to trade money and time
• Sam Bowman’s [60]Things I Recommend You Buy and Use
• Rob Wiblin [61]channeling Sam
• Arden Koehler [62]channeling Rob
• Arden Koehler [63]channeling herself
• Sam Bowman [64]channeling himself
• [65]Estimated hourly costs of buying free time (see comments)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Thanks to [66]Gwern, [67]Stephen Malina, [68]Alexey Guzey, [69]Elliot Jin, [70]
iandanforth, [71]Joshua M. Clulow, [72]Kay, [73]zoba, [74]ryandrake, a guy I
can’t name who offers “personal assistant concierge services for high-net-worth
families,” and [75]Elizabeth Van Nostrand for some of the ideas above.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Appendix: Sources of experts
Name Type Comments Target URL
Audience
Expertise Academics to comment on many Journalists [76]
Finder subjects link
Women’s Media Women only, focuses on [77]
Center current events and politics Journalists link
SheSource
National
Association of Seems like a low [78]
Personal Financial only bar to entry Journalists link
Financial
Advisors
Owned by PR firm,
ProfNet Wide range of experts presumably works Journalists [79]
for experts more link
than you
Presumably biased
Coursera Academics from top schools towards people who Journalists [80]
Expert Network only have made Coursera link
courses
Curated experts from
ExpertFile universities, institutions, Journalists [81]
think tanks, associations, link
companies and other sources
Aimed mostly at professional [82]
GURU expertise (Sales, Marketing, Businesses link
Eng, etc.)
Amber Biology Biologists only Science [83]
projects? link
Help a Requires
Reporter Out affiliation with a Journalists [84]
(HARO) highly ranked link
website
Self
Improvement Individuals [85]
Experts link
Directory
JurisPro Expert witnesses Lawyers [86]
link
ForensisGroup Expert witnesses Lawyers [87]
link
Expert Expert witnesses Lawyers [88]
Institute link
Appendix: Sources of research and data
• Top choices:
□ [89]IBIS
□ [90]Profound
□ [91]Research Monitor
□ [92]EuroMonitor
• [93]Inside View
• [94]US Census Data
• [95]SBA’s Office of Entrepreneurship Education Resources
• [96]Pew Research Center
• [97]Statista
• [98]marketresearch.com
• [99]Plunkett Research
• [100]The Market Intelligence Co.
• [101]Jinfo
• [102]IDC
• [103]Gartner
• [104]Pitchbook
• [105]Crunchbase
• [106]Option Impact salary information
• [107]The Venture Capital Executive Compensation Survey
References:
[1] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/
[2] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/science/
[3] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/about/
[4] https://acesounderglass.com/
[5] https://acesounderglass.com/hire-me/
[6] https://acesounderglass.com/tag/epistemicspotcheck/
[7] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-experts
[8] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/evyBmPw9ZnzmoFmP6/experiment-a-good-researcher-is-hard-to-find
[9] http://mindingourway.com/obvious-advice/
[10] https://www.news10.com/news/national/90-year-old-man-spends-10k-on-ads-to-tell-att-ceo-about-his-slow-internet-service/
[11] https://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#blinding-yourself
[12] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-research
[13] https://blog.alexa.com/sites-for-market-research/
[14] https://web.jinfo.com/go/blog/73431
[15] https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub
[16] https://twitter.com/libgen_project
[17] https://www.gwern.net/Blackmail#pseudonymity-bounty
[18] https://www.italki.com/
[19] https://www.wyzant.com/
[20] https://www.fiverr.com/
[21] https://www.upwork.com/
[22] https://www.sharpestminds.com/
[23] https://alok.github.io/2022/11/09/dissection/
[24] https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/making-normal-conversations-better
[25] https://twitter.com/ChanaMessinger/status/1463160594941554696
[26] https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/good-conversations-have-lots-of-doorknobs
[27] https://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas
[28] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/10/03/personal-best
[29] https://www.npr.org/2020/02/03/802422904/when-things-click-the-power-of-judgment-free-learning
[30] https://www.focusmate.com/
[31] https://coding-pal.com/
[32] https://programs.clearerthinking.org/what_is_your_time_really_worth_to_you.html
[33] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVeGDitPqKo
[34] https://rainypass.com/
[35] https://donotpay.com/
[36] https://donotpay.com/
[37] https://twitter.com/SievaKozinsky/status/1343664550617305088
[38] https://rocketreach.co/
[39] https://www.dummies.com/health/how-to-enroll-in-a-clinical-trial/
[40] https://loyalfordogs.com/
[41] https://1dollarscan.com/
[42] https://transcribeme.com/
[43] https://otter.ai/
[44] https://getmagic.com/
[45] https://www.taskrabbit.com/
[46] https://www.fancyhands.com/
[47] https://withdouble.com/
[48] https://radimentary.wordpress.com/2018/01/29/hammertime-day-1-bug-hunt/
[49] https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures
[50] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/apply-for-an-acx-grant
[51] https://github.com/nayafia/microgrants
[52] https://guzey.com/personal/what-should-you-do-with-your-life/#cold-emails-and-twitter
[53] https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/2015/06/24/how-to-write-a-forwardable-introduction-email
[54] https://guzey.com/follow-up/
[55] https://twitter.com/TechEmails
[56] https://milan.cvitkovic.net/writing/things_youre_allowed_to_do/#appendix-sources-of-research
[57] https://twitter.com/daytimeskye/status/1608107407678349317
[58] https://web.archive.org/web/20220309155302/https://dwarkeshpatel.com/barbell-strategies/
[59] https://meteuphoric.com/2014/03/25/how-to-trade-money-and-time/
[60] https://medium.com/@s8mb/things-i-recommend-you-buy-and-use-second-edition-457a8e7163f6
[61] https://medium.com/@robertwiblin/things-i-recommend-you-buy-and-use-rob-edition-1d7b2ce27d68
[62] https://www.facebook.com/ardenlk/posts/10156553178262333
[63] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrSzGLuwIEWeQJ_2zL5vpYDyV-LmC-8SBy-Q4WPF318/edit
[64] https://sambowman.substack.com/p/things-i-recommend-you-buy-2020-sam-bowman
[65] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KuFSkLwhSkEZJYALE/collating-widely-available-time-money-trades
[66] https://www.gwern.net/
[67] https://twitter.com/an1lam
[68] https://twitter.com/alexeyguzey
[69] https://twitter.com/robot__dreams
[70] https://twitter.com/iandanforth
[71] https://twitter.com/jmclulow
[72] https://twitter.com/K4y1s
[73] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=zoba
[74] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ryandrake
[75] https://acesounderglass.com/
[76] https://expertisefinder.com/
[77] https://www.womensmediacenter.com/shesource/
[78] https://www.napfa.org/newsroom
[79] https://profnet.prnewswire.com/ProfNetHome/What-is-Profnet.aspx
[80] https://experts.coursera.org/
[81] https://expertfile.com/
[82] https://www.guru.com/
[83] https://www.amberbiology.com/
[84] https://www.helpareporter.com/
[85] https://www.selfgrowth.com/experts.html
[86] https://www.jurispro.com/
[87] https://www.forensisgroup.com/
[88] https://www.expertinstitute.com/
[89] https://www.ibisworld.com/
[90] https://profound.com/
[91] https://www.eifl.net/e-resources/research-monitor
[92] https://www.euromonitor.com/store
[93] https://www.insideview.com/
[94] https://www.census.gov/
[95] https://www.sba.gov/offices/headquarters/oee/resources/2836
[96] http://www.pewresearch.org/
[97] https://www.statista.com/
[98] https://www.marketresearch.com/
[99] https://www.plunkettresearch.com/how-to-buy/
[100] https://market-intelligence.com.au/
[101] https://www.jinfo.com/
[102] https://www.idc.com/
[103] https://www.gartner.com/en
[104] https://pitchbook.com/
[105] https://www.crunchbase.com/
[106] https://www.optionimpact.com/
[107] https://www.advanced-hr.com/VCECS

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[2]Site Logo for om.co
[3]On my Om
Technology & Change: Field Notes From The Present Future
• [4]About Om
• Search
[5] January 21, 2026
Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why
Why does everyone feel overwhelmed by information? Why does it feel impossible
to trust what passes through our streams? We tend to blame individual
publications, specific platforms, or bad actors. The real answer has less to do
with any single media entity and more with structural changes in the
information ecosystem.
I started my “information” life typing copy on an ill-tempered Remington. As
a teenage reporter, I saw newspapers being typeset, one letter at a time. It
was a messy, slow, and laborious process. So I don’t carry romantic
notions about the old days. I’ve been quick to embrace any technology that,
in Stephen Covey’s words, helps me keep “the main thing the main thing.” The
main thing is telling a thoroughly reported, well-written story.
The early 1990s Internet, followed by blogging at the turn of the century, and
social media a decade later all helped me do that main thing. In the mid-2000s
I embraced Dave Winer’s mantra of “sources going direct.” As far back as
2009, I outlined the coming changes in my essays “[6]How Internet Content
Distribution and Discovery Are Changing” and “[7]Amplification and the Changing
Role of Media.”
For the past decade and a half, the whole information ecosystem has become much
larger, faster and noisier. It is hardly surprising that nothing works. And we
feel a collective sense of overwhelming disappointment. 
So, why does nothing work?
Authority used to be the organizing principle of information, and
thus the media. You earned attention by being right, by being first
in discovery, or by being big enough to be the default. That world is gone. The
new and current organizing principle of information is velocity.
What matters now is how fast something moves through the network: how quickly
it is clicked, shared, quoted, replied to, remixed, and replaced. In a system
tuned for speed, authority is ornamental. The network rewards motion first and
judgment later, if ever. Perhaps that’s why you feel you can’t discern between
truths, half-truths, and lies.
With so much coming at us all the time, it is difficult to give any single
story or news event much weight. More content means already
fragmented attention fractures even further.
Greenland, Iran, Venezuela, Epstein Files, Dodgers. On and on.
Networks have always shaped how societies are organized. Roman roads didn’t
just make travel easier; they mapped the reach of the state and the limits of
power. Shipping routes determined where colonial empires flourished and where
they faded. In the Victorian age, the railways didn’t just shorten journeys;
they rearranged British society.
They created commuting and leisure, turned market towns into suburbs,
standardized national time, and collapsed the meaning of distance. They also
reordered authority: timetables mattered as much as parliaments. What looks
like cultural choice is often the echo of infrastructure. Today’s mobile,
cloud-linked world is another Victorian moment. Networks compress time and
space, then quietly train us to live at their speed.
That’s why we get all our information as memes. The meme has become
the metastory, the layer where meaning is carried. You don’t need to read the
thing; you just need the gist, compressed and passed along in
a sentence, an image, or a joke. It has taken the role of the headline. The
machine accelerates this dynamic. It demands constant material; stop feeding it
and the whole structure shakes. The point of the internet now is mostly to hook
attention and push it toward commerce, to keep the engine running. Anyone can
get their cut.
Velocity has taken over.
Algorithms on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter do not optimize
for truth or depth. They optimize for motion. A piece that moves fast is
considered “good.” A piece that hesitates disappears. There are almost no
second chances online because the stream does not look back. People are not
failing the platforms. People are behaving exactly as the platforms reward. We
might think we are better, but we have the same rat-reward brain.
We built machines that prize acceleration and then act puzzled that everything
feels rushed and slightly manic. The networks of the past were slower and at a
scale that was adaptable. I wrote about this years ago, and nothing since has
disproved it. So when the author of “beliefs outrun facts” says nothing works,
now you know why.
The fundamental network-level changes should give you a good idea of why we
have a growing ambivalent relationship toward media as an organized information
entity. I will get into technology media from startup perspective in a
separate piece. For now, I will stick to the broader media ecosystem.
Let’s use YouTube technology reviews as a case study, because they are
universally understandable. Take the launch of a new phone: when
the embargo lifts, dozens of polished video reviews appear on YouTube. They run
about 20 minutes, share similar thumbnails, and use the same mood lighting. The
reviewers had access to the phones before everyone else, so they had time to
prepare their reviews.
In the old days, before the current phase of content abundance, folks like Walt
Mossberg, Ed Baig, David Pogue, and Steven Levy were often the first to get
Apple products for review. Sure, these folks had big platforms, but that head
start gave them a lot of clout, which meant many non-Apple
companies offered them early access to their products. I never felt cheated
or misled by their reviews, though I did notice what they omitted after using
the product for a few months.
These days, things are markedly different. For YouTubers, access is the
currency of survival. Access, of course, means suggested talking points. Again,
nothing new. What’s different is that every reviewer knows that if they paint
outside the lines, they’ll lose access. If you don’t have the review out when
the embargo lifts, it doesn’t matter if you have a better review; no one is
going to notice.
The system rewards whoever speaks first, not whoever lives with it long enough
to understand it. The “review” at launch outperforms the review written two
months later by orders of magnitude. The second, longer, more in-depth, more
honest review might as well not exist. It’s not that people are less honest by
nature. It’s that the structure pays a premium for compliance and levies a tax
on independence. The result is a soft capture where creators don’t have to be
told what to say. The incentives do the talking.
People do what the network rewards. Writers write for the feed. Photographers
shoot for the scroll. Newsrooms frame stories as conflict because conflict
travels faster than nuance. Even our emotional lives adapt to latency and
refresh cycles. The design of the network becomes the choreography of daily
life.
In older networks, the constraints were physical. The number of train lines
limited where cities could grow. The number of printing presses limited how
many voices could speak. In our case, the constraint is temporal: how fast
something can be produced, clicked, shared, and replaced. When velocity becomes
the scarcest resource, everything orients around it. This is why it’s wrong to
think of “the algorithm” as some quirky technical layer that can be toggled on
and off or worked around. The algorithm is the culture. It decides what gets
amplified, who gets to make a living, and what counts as “success.”
Once velocity is the prize, quality becomes risky. Thoughtfulness takes time.
Reporting takes time. Living with a product or an idea takes time. Yet the
window for relevance keeps shrinking, and the penalty for lateness is
erasure. We get a culture optimized for first takes, not best takes. The
network doesn’t ask if something is correct or durable, only if it moves. If it
moves, the system will find a way to monetize it.
The algorithm doesn’t care whether something is true; it cares whether it
moves. Day-one content becomes advertising wearing the mask of criticism.
All of this folds back into a larger point. When attention is fragmented and
speed becomes the dominant value, media rearranges itself around that
reality. Not because anyone wakes up wanting to mislead people, but because the
context makes some paths survivable and others impossible.
The YouTube algorithm is the real enforcer because it rewards velocity. Get
into the algorithmic slip stream and you get the numbers and make money. So
it is no surprise that most day-one reviews are, well, anything but. This goes
back to my original premise that when velocity becomes the defining metric,
authority is displaced.
You don’t need to be right; you need to be first in the feed. Generalize this
beyond YouTube tech reviews and you see the same pattern
everywhere. I’m flabbergasted by how much good journalism goes unnoticed every
day. We didn’t just put journalism, entertainment, politics, and
private lives on networks. We let the networks rewrite what those things are
forand how they work.
None of what I am saying is new. Decades ago the media sage Marshall McLuhan
summed it up in his timeless phrase, “The medium is the message.” The medium,
the technology or channel of communication, influences society and individuals
more profoundly than the content, altering our senses and habits and, in turn,
our perception, interaction, and culture. The only difference is that network
is like a hydra, and data is the fuel that adds velocity, the new metric of
perceived reality.
The cost of all this isn’t abstract. It’s the review that took three months but
no one will read. It’s the investigation that required patience. It’s the work
of understanding something before declaring judgment. All of it still exists,
still gets made. It just doesn’t travel. And in a system where only what
travels matters, we’ve made expertise indistinguishable from noise.
In the age of AI, will any of this matter when our idea of information will be
entirely different?
January 21, 2026. San Francisco
Photo Courtesy of [8]Yousef Hussain via [9]Unsplash
[10]My Essays, [11]Technology
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[12] 29 comments
Subscribe to discover Om’s fresh perspectives on the present and future.
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[f962dea24b9cd8]
Om Malik is a San Francisco based writer, photographer and investor. [26]Read
More [27]
29 thoughts on this post
1. [141e0d] Michaela Barnes says:
[28]January 21, 2026 at 10:30 am
15 years old now, but seems relevant
[29]https://www.amazon.com/Blur-Know-Whats-Information-Overload/dp/
1608193012
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[30]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[31]January 21, 2026 at 10:44 am
Thank you. It seems like we are seeing a progressive degradation.
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[32]Reply
2. [bd4312] Peter says:
[33]January 21, 2026 at 11:56 am
OM,
Thoughtful and well put. You’ve captured something many of us feel
instinctively but struggle to articulate – that the system now rewards
speed over understanding, and motion over meaning. When velocity becomes
the metric, judgment and depth inevitably get crowded out. A sobering but
important reflection.
Best regards,
Peter
BTW, I really like your photographic style!
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[34]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[35]January 21, 2026 at 6:59 pm
Peter,
Thank you for the kind words on my photography. It is my sanity valve.
On the post, thanks for reading. I am glad it caught your attention and
you have felt this. It took me a long time to write this piece, because
I hate writing about media as often as I end up doing. 🙂 I much prefer
to write about the new and the novel.
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[36]Reply
1. [0d16e6] JT says:
[37]January 28, 2026 at 11:51 am
@Peter, Late-stage newsrooms quietly valued speed over accuracy,
even if they didn’t say it outright. That was 20 years ago. I think
that spread like a virus.
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[38]Reply
3. [5911a3] Harald Striepe says:
[39]January 21, 2026 at 12:20 pm
Very poignant.
Thank you.
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[40]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[41]January 21, 2026 at 6:57 pm
Thank you Harald.
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[42]Reply
4. [51ebdd] SlicksSlack says:
[43]January 21, 2026 at 12:20 pm
2nd and 3rd last paragraphs are very slight rewrites of each other? Am I
missing a point there? Everything else lands with more or less nodding
agreement.
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[44]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[45]January 21, 2026 at 6:55 pm
I should have deleted one of them, but damn, morning without coffee
sucks. And I should not post without waiting and re-reading 🙂 Sorry
about that.
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[46]Reply
5. [23405c] Gideon Rosenblatt says:
[47]January 21, 2026 at 1:47 pm
Another thought-provoking post, Om. In one of your recent posts, you noted
that for younger segments messages are becoming preferred to the feed. How
do you think that maps to the velocity phenomenon your describing?
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[48]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[49]January 21, 2026 at 6:57 pm
Gideon
Thanks for the comment. I am hoping to hang out with some young people
soon and would love to update you how they think. My guess is that
“messages” is a way to slowdown things for them. But I would answer
when I am more educated myself.
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[50]Reply
6. [a702e8] [51]Parveen K Chopra says:
[52]January 21, 2026 at 2:48 pm
Last para repeated, haha
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[53]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[54]January 21, 2026 at 6:55 pm
Oops. Fixed. Thanks for the heads up!
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[55]Reply
7. [c68329] [56]Eric Marcoullier says:
[57]January 21, 2026 at 4:04 pm
“Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.”
— Charlie Munger
All of us early folks (yay, Business 2.0; yay, IGN) really thought we were
creating a new way to expand the availability of news and information.
What we didn’t realize was that when news becomes a commodity, people stop
paying and ads mean everything. We can no longer prioritize valuable
information and nuanced framing.
“If it bleeds, it leads” is an old TV adage but man does it feel relevant
today,
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[58]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[59]January 21, 2026 at 6:54 pm
The whole point is that we have undermined the value system around
attention. Everything is marketing. Everyone is selling. So no ones to
say anything that adds friction in the process of selling. 🙂
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[60]Reply
8. [14ad96] Bob Mason says:
[61]January 21, 2026 at 4:23 pm
This feels intimately connected to this post from Nic Carter released today
as well. And of course, I received both by way of email newsletters.
[62]https://murmurationstwo.substack.com/p/
the-for-you-page-is-killing-social
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[63]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[64]January 21, 2026 at 6:54 pm
Thank you Bob for sharing this.
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[65]Reply
9. [984d4e] Ike Nassi says:
[66]January 21, 2026 at 7:39 pm
Hmm…. Don’t see a photo.
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[67]Reply
10. [f95f4a] MARKO BJELAC says:
[68]January 22, 2026 at 1:09 am
As often, a very interesting article.
IMHO the point a bit too much drilled in. Also, a bit defeatist.
For example,
This is why it’s wrong to think of “the algorithm” as some quirky
technical layer that can be toggled on and off or worked around.
I agree with the “worked around” bit but social media algorithms actually
are technical layers. They are just technology and all technology can be
turned off, but their owners do not want that. So, we can use
algorithm-free technology for getting information. I am using that as I
read your newsletter. A long time ago I’ve abandoned Twitter. I still use
Linkedin for networking. Every once in a while I try to scroll Linkedin’s
feed but every time I do that I see low-grade info wasting my time so I
just stop.
I am a paying subscriber of one Substack. I follow several others for free.
Although these also tend to have bias as again the incentive is to get as
much subscribers as possible.
I’m also subscribed to several [69]https://theconversation.com/ feeds.
These are giving me unbiased (I currently feel) reports on the state of the
world.
As Eric commented, the incentive is the reason for this degradation, and it
didn’t start with social media or the internet. If it bleeds it leads. The
core problem is financing the journalists. Journalism is a public service
and should be financed that way. Why can’t it be set up that way?
Peer-reviewed like science (although that one is also being corrupted by
financial incentives).
So, looks dark but I see ways out. How to get there?
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[70]Reply
11. [795954] Menachem Sharron says:
[71]January 22, 2026 at 5:10 am
Thank you dear Om.
I enjoy reading your emails very much.
Keep going.
Rgds
Menachem Sharron
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[72]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[73]January 22, 2026 at 7:18 am
Thank you Menachem. Wishing you my best
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[74]Reply
12. [4d7ec0] Priya Narasimhan says:
[75]January 22, 2026 at 5:41 am
Great writing, Om! Long time reader, first time commenting…
You’ve articulated what we’re all feeling in daily life. I’ve been thinking
technology is outpacing human adaptability and when it needs intervention,
if at all…
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[76]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[77]January 22, 2026 at 7:21 am
Thank you Priya for reading and commenting.
We are at a point where human adaptability is going to redefine itself,
and we will perhaps in time learn how to use tools that are only
emerging that will help us figure out how to deal with so much chaos on
the information front. But that would also mean that we might need to
know what we want from our information flows. I am not sure, we are
there yet.
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[78]Reply
13. [41caa2] [79]Jamie Diamond says:
[80]January 22, 2026 at 8:38 am
As a career tech PR guy pitching countless startup stories over the years
to various waves of media over the last (Om my gosh 4 decades) – Om, this
is your most cutting story for me in your vast writing history. It’s not
about me being able to do my job, its not even about the future of AI and
storytelling – I have four little girls that we home school and what kind
of connection will they have and what kind of culture of knowledge will
they grow up in? When the snarky/lie/click-bait meme wins the velocity
narrative race in January of 2026, what’s my now 4 year old going to be
dealing with as she’s read Little Women today and being surrounded by what
authority when she’s 18/28/38? And to totally go off the rails, it’s
today’s velocity authority that pits us all against one another – I’d cite
the book Hate Inc. as to why velocity authority focused on stirring up hate
to drive profit is completely wrong for any culture to be addicted to. Who
is creating the opposite and I’ll do free PR for YOU.
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[81]Reply
14. [152fb9] Lee Doolan says:
[82]January 22, 2026 at 4:33 pm
“… The main thing is telling a thoroughly reported, well-written story….”
That is exceedingly rare nowadays.
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[83]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[84]January 22, 2026 at 6:28 pm
They are rare to find, but not rare as an entity
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[85]Reply
15. [178c8c] [86]Andrew McLuhan says:
[87]January 23, 2026 at 12:18 pm
“For the ‘message’ of any medium or technology is the change of scale or
pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs.” (1964)
Always nice to see someone get it.
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[88]Reply
1. [f962de] Om Malik says:
[89]January 23, 2026 at 4:13 pm
I think it helps to have been old and have read things as they were
meant to be read — in full long form. Thanks for stopping by!
Loading...
[90]Reply
16. [02174e] [91]Arix Fïen says:
[92]January 24, 2026 at 12:21 am
This really resonates with me. I keep feeling that tension between wanting
to slow down and understand something properly, and knowing the system
barely rewards that anymore. When velocity becomes the signal of value,
depth almost feels like a liability. It’s sobering to see how
infrastructure quietly rewrites what authority, trust, and even “good work”
look like.
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[93]Reply
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[6] https://om.co/2009/05/17/how-internet-content-distribution-discovery-are-changing/
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[10] https://om.co/category/work/essays/
[11] https://om.co/category/work/technology/
[12] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comments
[26] https://om.co/about/
[27] https://om.co/author/om/
[28] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180398
[29] https://www.amazon.com/Blur-Know-Whats-Information-Overload/dp/1608193012
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[35] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180426
[36] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180426#respond
[37] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180774
[38] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180774#respond
[39] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180403
[40] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180403#respond
[41] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180425
[42] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180425#respond
[43] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180404
[44] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180404#respond
[45] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180423
[46] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180423#respond
[47] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180405
[48] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180405#respond
[49] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180424
[50] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180424#respond
[51] https://www.alotusinthemud.com/
[52] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180407
[53] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180407#respond
[54] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180422
[55] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180422#respond
[56] http://www.marcoullier.com/
[57] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180409
[58] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180409#respond
[59] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180420
[60] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180420#respond
[61] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180411
[62] https://murmurationstwo.substack.com/p/the-for-you-page-is-killing-social
[63] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180411#respond
[64] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180421
[65] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180421#respond
[66] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180428
[67] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180428#respond
[68] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180437
[69] https://theconversation.com/
[70] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180437#respond
[71] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180443
[72] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180443#respond
[73] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180449
[74] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180449#respond
[75] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180445
[76] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180445#respond
[77] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180450
[78] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180450#respond
[79] https://jdiamondpr.com/
[80] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180451
[81] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180451#respond
[82] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180463
[83] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180463#respond
[84] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180467
[85] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180467#respond
[86] http://www.tmitm.com/
[87] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180515
[88] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180515#respond
[89] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180526
[90] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180526#respond
[91] http://aifiedblog.wordpress.com/
[92] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#comment-180533
[93] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/?replytocom=180533#respond
[94] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/#respond
[107] https://akismet.com/privacy/
[108] https://om.co/2026/01/16/our-algorithmic-grey-beige-world/
[109] https://om.co/2026/01/25/neo-noir/
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● [1]Manton Reece
[2]About [3]Photos [4]Videos [5]Archive [6]30 days [7]90 parks [8]Replies [9]
Reading [10]Search [11]Also on Micro.blog
Velocity and authenticity
[12]Jan 21, 2026
When I read a blog post I love, I usually find my favorite part of it to quote
in a short post on my own blog. Sometimes I can’t find a single excerpt that
fits, so I turn it into a full blog post and add more commentary. Such is the
case with [13]this fantastic essay by Om Malik:
What matters now is how fast something moves through the network: how
quickly it is clicked, shared, quoted, replied to, remixed, and replaced.
In a system tuned for speed, authority is ornamental. The network rewards
motion first and judgment later, if ever. Perhaps that’s why you feel you
can’t discern between truths, half-truths, and lies.
Om doesn’t focus on ad-based platforms, but I think the incentives are similar.
Meta is fine with rushing us through an algorithmic feed because there is no
end. The more engaged we are, the more ads we see.
We built systems that reward acceleration, then act surprised when
everything feels rushed, shallow, and slightly manic. People do what the
network rewards. Writers write for the feed. Photographers shoot for the
scroll. Newsrooms frame stories as conflict because conflict travels faster
than nuance.
We should slow down in 2026. Take more time to read longer posts. Full stories,
not headlines. This is why when I cancelled all of my news subscriptions, I
kept only The New Yorker. Longer, thoughtful posts that I read once a week
instead of all the time.
AI will bring us infinite content, with a velocity that humans can’t match. It
will be noise, overwhelming. Then we will become numb to it. The only antidote
is authenticity. Knowing that what you’re reading is coming from a real human
with their own perspective, their own strengths and flaws, because you’ve
followed them for years.
[14]Also on Bluesky [15] [3]
Manton Reece [16]@manton
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• [19]Surprise me!
• [20]Tweets
References:
[1] https://www.manton.org/
[2] https://www.manton.org/about/
[3] https://www.manton.org/photos/
[4] https://www.manton.org/videos/
[5] https://www.manton.org/archive/
[6] https://www.manton.org/30-days/
[7] https://www.manton.org/90-parks/
[8] https://www.manton.org/replies/
[9] https://www.manton.org/reading/
[10] https://www.manton.org/search/
[11] https://micro.blog/manton
[12] https://www.manton.org/2026/01/21/velocity-and-authenticity.html
[13] https://om.co/2026/01/21/velocity-is-the-new-authority-heres-why/
[14] at://did:plc:pko7wbcggok753hnvndxh3ni/app.bsky.feed.post/3mcxsfazjmv2m
[15] https://www.manton.org/
[16] https://micro.blog/manton
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[18] https://www.manton.org/feed.json
[19] https://www.manton.org/surprise-me/
[20] https://www.manton.org/tweets/

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● [1]Manton Reece
[2]About [3]Photos [4]Videos [5]Archive [6]30 days [7]90 parks [8]Replies [9]
Reading [10]Search [11]Also on Micro.blog
[12]Jan 20, 2026
[13]Matt Mullenweg blogged about Scott Adams, trying to reconcile good memories
of Dilbert with later racist comments:
When I was younger, I used to have a more binary view of people, but as
I’ve grown, read a ton of biographies, seen the press cycles, and been
lucky enough to meet some idols and villains, I’ve become much more
comfortable taking everyone as a flawed human being.
Nuance here is difficult because we shouldn’t downplay hurtful comments with a
“both sides”-style argument. Sometimes we must draw a line. Still, I agree we
should avoid reducing people to a single moment.
[14]Also on Bluesky [15] [3]
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References:
[1] https://www.manton.org/
[2] https://www.manton.org/about/
[3] https://www.manton.org/photos/
[4] https://www.manton.org/videos/
[5] https://www.manton.org/archive/
[6] https://www.manton.org/30-days/
[7] https://www.manton.org/90-parks/
[8] https://www.manton.org/replies/
[9] https://www.manton.org/reading/
[10] https://www.manton.org/search/
[11] https://micro.blog/manton
[12] https://www.manton.org/2026/01/20/matt-mullenweg-blogged-about-scott.html
[13] https://ma.tt/2026/01/a-better-writer/
[14] at://did:plc:pko7wbcggok753hnvndxh3ni/app.bsky.feed.post/3mcui3dej6n2n
[15] https://www.manton.org/
[16] https://micro.blog/manton
[17] https://www.manton.org/feed.xml
[18] https://www.manton.org/feed.json
[19] https://www.manton.org/surprise-me/
[20] https://www.manton.org/tweets/