Links
This commit is contained in:
David Eisinger
@@ -9,6 +9,26 @@ references:
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url: https://lmno.lol/puddingtime/aspiration
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date: 2025-09-14T05:24:26Z
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file: lmno-lol-f6bq3n.txt
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- title: "David, please stop posting"
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url: https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2025/09/26/david-please-stop-posting/
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date: 2025-10-04T17:57:50Z
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file: johan-hal-se-85n0as.txt
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- title: "The Last Days Of Social Media"
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url: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
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date: 2025-10-04T17:57:55Z
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file: www-noemamag-com-zt2clg.txt
|
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- title: "Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape :: BogdanTheGeek's Blog"
|
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url: https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/
|
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date: 2025-10-04T17:58:03Z
|
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file: bogdanthegeek-github-io-p0gyop.txt
|
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- title: "Through a Love of Note-Taking, José Naranja Documents His Travels One Tiny Detail at a Time — Colossal"
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url: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/04/jose-naranja-travel-notebooks/
|
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date: 2025-10-04T17:58:06Z
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file: www-thisiscolossal-com-bknqfp.txt
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- title: "An E-bike For The Mind - by Josh Brake"
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url: https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind
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date: 2025-10-04T17:58:17Z
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file: joshbrake-substack-com-jwoo1m.txt
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---
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- Intro: Solo weekend
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@@ -72,10 +92,28 @@ Misc:
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### Links
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* [Title][4]
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* [Title][5]
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* [Title][6]
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* [David, please stop posting][4]
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[4]: https://example.com/
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[5]: https://example.com/
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[6]: https://example.com/
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> I think most rubyists would be pragmatic enough to just accept things for what they are and let them settle, if he'd just let them. If he stopped posting inflammatory rightwing nonsense then we could all pretend he wasn't drunkenly stumbling towards the open arms of QAnon and the manosphere with tears of joy on his face. The deal is this: if he can shut his mouth, we can hold our noses. Then we can all make this work despite our differences.
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* [The Last Days Of Social Media][5]
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> The problem is not just the rise of fake material, but the collapse of context and the acceptance that truth no longer matters as long as our cravings for colors and noise are satisfied. Contemporary social media content is more often rootless, detached from cultural memory, interpersonal exchange or shared conversation. It arrives fully formed, optimized for attention rather than meaning, producing a kind of semantic sludge, posts that look like language yet say almost nothing.
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* [Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape][6]
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> Someone's trash is another person's web server.
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* [Through a Love of Note-Taking, José Naranja Documents His Travels One Tiny Detail at a Time — Colossal][7]
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> From postage stamps to jetliner specifications to items he packed for the journey, José Naranja’s sketchbooks capture minute details of numerous international trips. “I’m lost in the intricate details, as always,” he tells Colossal. Everything from currency to noodle varieties to film references make their way into small books brimming with travel ephemera and observations.
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* [An E-bike For The Mind - by Josh Brake][8]
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> At the end of the day, we must remember that innovation is a bargain. We often consider what technology promises to enable for us, without considering what it will almost certainly disable. Most of the time, we fail to stop and consider the tradeoffs. Perhaps e-bikes may give us a metaphor to frame our thinking.
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[4]: https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2025/09/26/david-please-stop-posting/
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[5]: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
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[6]: https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/
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[7]: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/04/jose-naranja-travel-notebooks/
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[8]: https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind
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203
static/archive/bogdanthegeek-github-io-p0gyop.txt
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203
static/archive/bogdanthegeek-github-io-p0gyop.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,203 @@
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[1]
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BogdanTheGeek's Blog
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• Menu ▾
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•
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□ [2]About
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□ [3]Insights
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□ [4]Projects
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□ [5]Thoughts
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||||
• [6]About
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• [7]Insights
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• [8]Projects
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||||
• [9]Thoughts
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[10]Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape
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2025-09-13Bogdan Ionescu6 min read (1266 words)[11]source [12]report issue
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#[13]programming #[14]arm #[15]tools #[16]electronics Hosting a WebSite on
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a Disposable Vape
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Preface[17]#
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This article is NOT served from a web server running on a disposable vape. If
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you want to see the real deal, click [18]here. The content is otherwise
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identical.
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Background[19]#
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For a couple of years now, I have been collecting disposable vapes from friends
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and family. Initially, I only salvaged the batteries for “future” projects
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(It’s not hoarding, I promise), but recently, disposable vapes have gotten more
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advanced. I wouldn’t want to be the lawyer who one day will have to argue how a
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device with USB C and a rechargeable battery can be classified as “disposable”.
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Thankfully, I don’t plan on pursuing law anytime soon.
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Last year, I was tearing apart some of these fancier pacifiers for adults when
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I noticed something that caught my eye, instead of the expected black blob of
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goo hiding some ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) I see a little
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integrated circuit inscribed “PUYA”. I don’t blame you if this name doesn’t
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excite you as much it does me, most people have never heard of them. They are
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most well known for their flash chips, but I first came across them after
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reading Jay Carlson’s blog post about [20]the cheapest flash microcontroller
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you can buy. They are quite capable little ARM Cortex-M0+ micros.
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Over the past year I have collected quite a few of these PY32 based vapes, all
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of them from different models of vape from the same manufacturer. It’s not my
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place to do free advertising for big tobacco, so I won’t mention the brand I
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got it from, but if anyone who worked on designing them reads this, thanks for
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labeling the debug pins!
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What are we working with[21]#
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The chip is marked PUYA C642F15, which wasn’t very helpful. I was pretty sure
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it was a PY32F002A, but after poking around with [22]pyOCD, I noticed that the
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flash was 24k and we have 3k of RAM. The extra flash meant that it was more
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likely a PY32F002B, which is actually a very different chip.^[23]1
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So here are the specs of a microcontroller so bad, it’s basically disposable:
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• 24MHz Coretex M0+
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• 24KiB of Flash Storage
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• 3KiB of Static RAM
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• a few peripherals, none of which we will use.
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You may look at those specs and think that it’s not much to work with. I don’t
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blame you, a 10y old phone can barely load google, and this is about 100x
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slower. I on the other hand see a blazingly fast web server.
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Getting online[24]#
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The idea of hosting a web server on a vape didn’t come to me instantly. In
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fact, I have been playing around with them for a while, but after writing my
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post on [25]semihosting, the penny dropped.
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If you don’t feel like reading that article, semihosting is basically syscalls
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for embedded ARM microcontrollers. You throw some values/pointers into some
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registers and call a breakpoint instruction. An attached debugger interprets
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the values in the registers and performs certain actions. Most people just use
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this to get some logs printed from the microcontroller, but they are actually
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bi-directional.
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||||
If you are older than me, you might remember a time before Wi-Fi and Ethernet,
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the dark ages, when you had to use dial-up modems to get online. You might also
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know that the ghosts of those modems still linger all around us. Almost all USB
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serial devices actually emulate those modems: a 56k modem is just 57600 baud
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serial device. Data between some of these modems was transmitted using a
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protocol called SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol).^[26]2
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This may not come as a surprise, but Linux (and with some tweaking even macOS)
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supports SLIP. The slattach utility can make any /dev/tty* send and receive IP
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packets. All we have to do is put the data down the wire in the right format
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and provide a virtual tty. This is actually easier than you might imagine,
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pyOCD can forward all semihosting through a telnet port. Then, we use socat to
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link that port to a virtual tty:
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pyocd gdb -S -O semihost_console_type=telnet -T $(PORT) $(PYOCDFLAGS) &
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socat PTY,link=$(TTY),raw,echo=0 TCP:localhost:$(PORT),nodelay &
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sudo slattach -L -p slip -s 115200 $(TTY) &
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sudo ip addr add 192.168.190.1 peer 192.168.190.2/24 dev sl0
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sudo ip link set mtu 1500 up dev sl0
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Ok, so we have a “modem”, but that’s hardly a web server. To actually talk TCP/
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IP, we need an IP stack. There are many choices, but I went with [27]uIP
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because it’s pretty small, doesn’t require an RTOS, and it’s easy to port to
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other platforms. It also, helpfully, comes with a very minimal HTTP server
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example.
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After porting the SLIP code to use semihosting, I had a working web server&
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mldr;half of the time. As with most highly optimised libraries, uIP was
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designed for 8 and 16-bit machines, which rarely have memory alignment
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requirements. On ARM however, if you dereference a u16 *, you better hope that
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address is even, or you’ll get an exception. The uip_chksum assumed u16
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alignment, but the script that creates the filesystem didn’t. I actually
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decided to modify a bit the structure of the filesystem to make it a bit more
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portable. This was my first time working with perl and I have to say, it’s
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quite well suited to this kind of task.
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Blazingly fast[28]#
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So how fast is a web server running on a disposable microcontroller. Well,
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initially, not very fast. Pings took ~1.5s with 50% packet loss and a simple
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page took over 20s to load. That’s so bad, it’s actually funny, and I kind of
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wanted to leave it there.
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||||
|
||||
However, the problem was actually between the seat and the steering wheel the
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whole time. The first implementation read and wrote a single character at a
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time, which had a massive overhead associated with it. I previously benchmarked
|
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semihosting on this device, and I was getting ~20KiB/s, but uIP’s SLIP
|
||||
implementation was designed for very low memory devices, so it was serialising
|
||||
the data byte by byte. We have a whopping 3kiB of RAM to play with, so I added
|
||||
a ring buffer to cache reads from the host and feed them into the SLIP poll
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||||
function. I also split writes in batches to allow for escaping.
|
||||
|
||||
Now this is what I call blazingly fast! Pings now take 20ms, no packet loss and
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a full page loads in about 160ms. This was using almost all of the RAM, but I
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||||
could also dial down the sizes of the buffer to have more than enough headroom
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||||
to run other tasks. The project repo has everything set to a nice balance
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latency and RAM usage:
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||||
|
||||
Memory region Used Size Region Size %age Used
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||||
FLASH: 5116 B 24 KB 20.82%
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||||
RAM: 1380 B 3 KB 44.92%
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||||
|
||||
For this blog however, I paid for none of the RAM, so I’ll use all of the RAM.
|
||||
|
||||
As you may have noticed, we have just under 20kiB (80%) of storage space. That
|
||||
may not be enough to ship all of React, but as you can see, it’s more than
|
||||
enough to host this entire blog post. And this is not just a static page
|
||||
server, you can run any server-side code you want, if you know C that is.
|
||||
|
||||
Just for fun, I added a json api endpoint to get the number of requests to the
|
||||
main page (since the last crash) and the unique ID of the microcontroller.
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||||
Resources[29]#
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• [30]Code for this project
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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1. While getting things together for this post, I came across [31]this project
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that correctly identified these MCUs as PY32C642, which are pretty much
|
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identical to the 002B. [32]↩︎
|
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|
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2. Later modems used PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) [33]↩︎
|
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|
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© 2025 Bogdan Ionescu
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|
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References:
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|
||||
[1] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/
|
||||
[2] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/about
|
||||
[3] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/insights
|
||||
[4] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects
|
||||
[5] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/thoughts
|
||||
[6] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/about
|
||||
[7] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/insights
|
||||
[8] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects
|
||||
[9] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/thoughts
|
||||
[10] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/
|
||||
[11] https://github.com/BogdanTheGeek/blog/tree/main/content/projects/vapeserver.md
|
||||
[12] https://github.com/BogdanTheGeek/blog/issues/new?template=corrections.md&title=[Correction]:%20Hosting%20a%20WebSite%20on%20a%20Disposable%20Vape
|
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[13] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/tags/programming/
|
||||
[14] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/tags/arm/
|
||||
[15] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/tags/tools/
|
||||
[16] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/tags/electronics/
|
||||
[17] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#preface
|
||||
[18] http://ewaste.fka.wtf/
|
||||
[19] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#background
|
||||
[20] https://jaycarlson.net/2023/02/04/the-cheapest-flash-microcontroller-you-can-buy-is-actually-an-arm-cortex-m0/
|
||||
[21] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#what-are-we-working-with
|
||||
[22] http://pyocd.io/
|
||||
[23] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#fn:1
|
||||
[24] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#getting-online
|
||||
[25] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/insights/jlink-rtt-for-the-masses/
|
||||
[26] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#fn:2
|
||||
[27] https://github.com/adamdunkels/uip/tree/uip-0-9
|
||||
[28] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#blazingly-fast
|
||||
[29] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#resources
|
||||
[30] https://github.com/BogdanTheGeek/semihost-ip
|
||||
[31] https://github.com/grahamwhaley/py32c642_vape
|
||||
[32] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#fnref:1
|
||||
[33] https://bogdanthegeek.github.io/blog/projects/vapeserver/#fnref:2
|
||||
134
static/archive/johan-hal-se-85n0as.txt
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134
static/archive/johan-hal-se-85n0as.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
|
||||
[1]JohanJohan Halse
|
||||
[2]GitHub[3]Mastodon[4]GitHub profile[5]Mastodon profile[6]GitHub profile[7]
|
||||
Mastodon profile
|
||||
|
||||
2025-09-26David, please stop posting
|
||||
|
||||
Let's be realistic: DHH isn't going anywhere. He owns the trademarks, he
|
||||
controls the Rails Foundation, he sits on the board of Shopify, and he doesn't
|
||||
give a shit about you. In fact, he seems positively giddy at the idea of people
|
||||
being driven away by his occasionally repugnant blog posts and xeets. I'm sure
|
||||
he'd very much like an ideologically pure userbase for Rails, the same way he'd
|
||||
love for Britain to only contain native brits, wink wink. If that means the
|
||||
"Rails community" becomes a small stagnant pool of people getting paid to cheer
|
||||
for him and Tobi, that's clearly a price he's willing to pay! He'll be staying
|
||||
on, whether you like it or not.
|
||||
|
||||
But be that as it may, I sincerely wish he would just shut up. He has a severe
|
||||
case of [8]American Brainworm and like most of that parasite's hosts, he's
|
||||
absolutely determined to infect everyone else with their culture war. He
|
||||
actually managed to recognize how harmful it was to his own company, and banned
|
||||
political discussions as a consequence. But somehow, he has yet to grasp the
|
||||
fact that in a bankshot way, everyone working with Rails is working with him at
|
||||
their day job, and it's exactly as corrosive to the Ruby community as it was
|
||||
inside Basecamp at the time. It's sort of unreal to me that he can't wrap his
|
||||
head around that, having gone through what he did and having taken so much
|
||||
obvious psychic damage from it. To the best of my kremlinology it seems like he
|
||||
views these posts as some fun harmless sport, where he goes off to "[9]annoy
|
||||
people on the Internet" as a way of blowing off steam, to then sit back and
|
||||
guffaw to himself at how he really pwned the woke-ass SJWs this time, won't
|
||||
they get their panties in a twist, haha roflmao pepe the frog meme dot jpeg.
|
||||
Then he can't refrain from diving into the backlash and escalating the conflict
|
||||
even further. I wish he'd stop. It's unseemly. It's destructive.
|
||||
|
||||
Run me on a need-to-know basis
|
||||
|
||||
I have no idea what political views John Hawthorn, Xavier Noria, Jean Boussier,
|
||||
or the rest of the core team hold. You read something from Byroot or Tenderlove
|
||||
and it'll be all [10]competence and [11]excellence and sometimes very bad dad
|
||||
jokes and I can respect these people for what they do and how they conduct
|
||||
themselves both online and in real life. I really don't need to know if they're
|
||||
paying members of the Charlie Kirk fanclub, or if they think people with ADHD
|
||||
should just stop fidgeting and get over themselves. I don't need them to air
|
||||
their grievances with DHH in public, either–I don't know whether they've patted
|
||||
him on the back and said "good one" every time he's spat another slimy gob of
|
||||
far-right politics at everyone, or whether they've privately told him to please
|
||||
stop because they're collateral damage in his tiresome rants. And not knowing
|
||||
is a splendid and magnificent thing, because it means we can all project our
|
||||
beliefs onto the core team and they can remain paragons of Ruby virtue to
|
||||
everyone. [12]Recent events have also shown pretty conclusively that anyone who
|
||||
fails to show Dear Leader enough respect will be promptly replaced by some
|
||||
AI-assisted Shopify drone. The current economy is heavily tilted towards the
|
||||
people holding the bags of money and they're squeezing that for all it's
|
||||
worth—I have a lot of sympathy towards people who just want to do their job and
|
||||
avoid getting fired because they're not enthusiastic enough towards the mad
|
||||
king.
|
||||
|
||||
But I really do think that being a leader and a public figure, in open source
|
||||
as well as in a company, comes with a price of admission: it requires some
|
||||
goddamn decency. Elementary shit like being able to contain your glee when you
|
||||
feel the political winds blowing your way. Not antagonizing others for the
|
||||
lulz. Not broadcasting virulent American schisms to the rest of us sorry fucks
|
||||
who are already inundated with FAR TOO MUCH OF IT on top of all the mass
|
||||
layoffs, AI shenanigans, and russian drone strikes we wake up to every day. If
|
||||
you can't extend this kind of basic courtesy to the people who work with you,
|
||||
you're just not a good leader. He gets called a fascist and bristles at it, but
|
||||
the fact is that he picked each and every one of these fights himself. And
|
||||
again, it's mind-bendingly strange how someone like DHH, given his long history
|
||||
of [13]telling others to [14]keep it private and [15]not get political, doesn't
|
||||
get this. The rest of Rails core seem to understand it perfectly well.
|
||||
|
||||
The deal
|
||||
|
||||
Rails has been a successful project for literally decades now, and with [16]a
|
||||
few [17]tweaks it's still a great choice for anyone who wants to build solid
|
||||
web applications. Ruby as a language and ecosystem has benefitted tremendously
|
||||
from it, too. People can get paid to write in what often looks like magical
|
||||
pseudocode, that's a lovely thing, and I believe David's personality was a big
|
||||
part of its early success. Going up against what he calls the Merchants of
|
||||
Complexity with their onerous but well-funded Java and Microsoft stacks
|
||||
required a strong mix of courage, arrogance, and grit. But those kinds of
|
||||
qualities can really curdle when you make the journey from underdog to
|
||||
incumbent—especially if you end up rich and untouchable, and surrounded by
|
||||
yes-men with blue ticks. To the rest of us, it looks like a real beast of a
|
||||
mid-life crisis, and it's playing out on an open stage. Everyone wants to look
|
||||
away, but he insists on putting his cringe right in front of us and
|
||||
gesticulating over it. It's terrible.
|
||||
|
||||
I think most rubyists would be pragmatic enough to just accept things for what
|
||||
they are and let them settle, if he'd just let them. If he stopped posting
|
||||
inflammatory rightwing nonsense then we could all pretend he wasn't drunkenly
|
||||
stumbling towards the open arms of QAnon and the manosphere with tears of joy
|
||||
on his face. The deal is this: if he can shut his mouth, we can hold our noses.
|
||||
Then we can all make this work despite our differences. The alternative is that
|
||||
Rails keeps shrinking and sliding into irrelevance as Shopify's Backend, some
|
||||
parts of which are open source.
|
||||
|
||||
I'm Johan Halse: web developer, feared duelist, renowned lover, compulsive
|
||||
liar. I made this fat footer because that's how footers are supposed to look
|
||||
these days!
|
||||
|
||||
While you're here, consider following me on Mastodon. Am I always correct on
|
||||
Mastodon? No. But am I always hilarious? Also no. But I'm angling for enough
|
||||
followers to credibly call myself a "thought leader" and retire to a quiet life
|
||||
of picking shameful public fights with JavaScript celebrities.
|
||||
|
||||
If Mastodon's not your jam, maybe star one of my GitHub repos. It's really the
|
||||
least you can do.
|
||||
|
||||
Also: if you found my technical writing interesting, you should know that I
|
||||
founded a company called Varvet many years ago and they're still going, so give
|
||||
them a buzz if you want help with web stuff.
|
||||
|
||||
Copyright © Johan Halse 2025
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
References:
|
||||
|
||||
[1] https://johan.hal.se/
|
||||
[2] https://github.com/johanhalse
|
||||
[3] https://ruby.social/@hejsna
|
||||
[4] https://github.com/johanhalse
|
||||
[5] https://ruby.social/@hejsna
|
||||
[6] https://github.com/johanhalse
|
||||
[7] https://ruby.social/@hejsna
|
||||
[8] https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2023/01/13/twitter-didnt-need-fixing/
|
||||
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ&t=11655s
|
||||
[10] https://byroot.github.io/ruby/performance/2025/08/11/unlocking-ractors-generic-variables.html
|
||||
[11] https://tenderlovemaking.com/2024/09/29/eliminating-intermediate-array-allocations/
|
||||
[12] https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/
|
||||
[13] https://world.hey.com/dhh/meta-goes-no-politics-at-work-and-nobody-cares-d6409209
|
||||
[14] https://world.hey.com/dhh/make-politics-private-again-9b47aaaf
|
||||
[15] https://world.hey.com/dhh/linkedin-71ee75d9
|
||||
[16] https://johan.hal.se/wrote/2024/11/19/turbo-considered-harmful/
|
||||
[17] https://www.phlex.fun/
|
||||
417
static/archive/joshbrake-substack-com-jwoo1m.txt
Normal file
417
static/archive/joshbrake-substack-com-jwoo1m.txt
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,417 @@
|
||||
[1]
|
||||
The Absent-Minded Professor
|
||||
|
||||
[2]The Absent-Minded Professor
|
||||
|
||||
SubscribeSign in
|
||||
|
||||
An E-bike For The Mind
|
||||
|
||||
E-bikes and what they can teach us about AI
|
||||
|
||||
[7]
|
||||
Josh Brake's avatar
|
||||
[8]Josh Brake
|
||||
Jun 10, 2025
|
||||
32
|
||||
[9]
|
||||
6
|
||||
5
|
||||
[10]
|
||||
Share
|
||||
|
||||
Thank you for being here. As always, these essays are free and publicly
|
||||
available without a paywall. If my writing is valuable to you, please share it
|
||||
with a friend or support me with a paid subscription.
|
||||
|
||||
[21][ ]
|
||||
Subscribe
|
||||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||||
[23]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
A photo of my new ride, the OG [24]Aventon Abound. Not quite the same capacity
|
||||
as the new minivan, but close. Fitting four kiddos is easy. Probably could
|
||||
squeeze three on the back bench to make five in a pinch.
|
||||
|
||||
I've always had a philosophical objection to e-bikes. It probably started a few
|
||||
years ago when I was out of the saddle, cranking my way up the hills west of
|
||||
the Rose Bowl to reach the top of the hill and a glorious overlook of the San
|
||||
Gabriel Mountains when I got passed by some older ladies calmly powering their
|
||||
way up past me, hardly breaking a sweat. On further reflection, maybe it's not
|
||||
just a philosophical objection.
|
||||
|
||||
And yet, as you’ve seen in the picture above, I am now the proud owner of—you
|
||||
guessed it—a beautiful, used-but-new-to-me, cargo e-bike.
|
||||
|
||||
[25]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
The trusty, now semi-retired, kid trailer hauler with a photo of the San
|
||||
Gabriel Mountains in the background on a fine morning from 2017.
|
||||
|
||||
As I've been pedaling around town over the past few days, I've been reexamining
|
||||
my beef with e-bikes. And as I've wrestled with it, I've come to a few
|
||||
conclusions that I think are relevant not just to e-bikes but—wait for it, I'm
|
||||
sure you didn't see this one coming either—our use of artificial intelligence
|
||||
too.
|
||||
|
||||
Steve Jobs famously imagined the computer as [26]a bicycle for the mind. If the
|
||||
computer is a bicycle, perhaps AI is an e-bike.
|
||||
|
||||
Narcissus as Narcosis
|
||||
|
||||
In an early chapter of his magnum opus, [28]Understanding Media (with the
|
||||
blog-post worthy title "The Gadget Lover: Narcissus as Narcosis"), Marshall
|
||||
McLuhan makes the case that technological augmentation is simultaneously
|
||||
amputation. He writes:
|
||||
|
||||
Any invention or technology is an extension or self-amputation of our
|
||||
physical bodies, and such extension also demands new ratios or new
|
||||
equilibriums among the other organs and extensions of the body.
|
||||
|
||||
He goes on to quote the 113th Psalm to argue that by using technologies, we are
|
||||
both formed by them and conformed to them.
|
||||
|
||||
Their idols are silver and gold,
|
||||
The work of men’s hands.
|
||||
They have mouths, but they speak not;
|
||||
Eyes they have, but they see not;
|
||||
They have ears, but they hear not;
|
||||
Noses have they, but they smell not;
|
||||
They have hands, but they handle not;
|
||||
Feet have they, but they walk not;
|
||||
Neither speak they through their throat.
|
||||
They that make them shall be like unto them;
|
||||
Yea, every one that trusteth in them.
|
||||
|
||||
"They that make them shall be like unto them." Indeed.
|
||||
|
||||
This is the question we had better be asking much more regularly, publicly, and
|
||||
with each other: to what image is our technology conforming us? In recent
|
||||
years, there has been much conversation about the conforming power of
|
||||
algorithmically-powered social media and internet-connected devices that are
|
||||
practically attached to our hands. In so many ways, we accepted them into our
|
||||
lives with a false promise of augmentation without amputation. Only in
|
||||
retrospect are we noticing what’s been cut off.
|
||||
|
||||
In the midst of it all, there is hope. We can work to reclaim those things we
|
||||
have lost. Perhaps amputation is the wrong metaphor, and it is more a
|
||||
desensitization from infrequent attention and use. But if we thought that the
|
||||
societal impact of smartphones and social media was significant, just wait till
|
||||
we see the downstream amputations on offer with the promises of artificial
|
||||
intelligence.
|
||||
|
||||
As we consider the potential augmentations of AI, we need to hold them in
|
||||
tension with the concurrent amputations. E-bikes and their tradeoffs can offer
|
||||
us some wisdom.
|
||||
|
||||
Today, I’d like to riff on three e-bike-inspired perspectives I’m using to
|
||||
think about my technology use.
|
||||
|
||||
1. What: What is being augmented and amputated?
|
||||
|
||||
2. How: How does the augmentation interact with our effort?
|
||||
|
||||
3. Why: What are the values and stories motivating our choices?
|
||||
|
||||
1. What: Augmentation and Amputation
|
||||
|
||||
The question is not a question of whether a technology has enabling and
|
||||
disabling effects, but rather a question of what they are. Many times, this has
|
||||
to do with your perspective.
|
||||
|
||||
In the case of the e-bike, the most obvious augmentation is the ease of travel
|
||||
compared to a standard bicycle. With the addition of a motor, the bike can
|
||||
propel itself with an energy source that supplements (or completely replaces)
|
||||
that of its human rider. If you look at the advertisements for any technology,
|
||||
the augmentations are clear. E-bikes are no different. What’s front and center?
|
||||
Range, speed, and power.
|
||||
|
||||
But how to judge the choice depends on the alternative. If I were to trade my
|
||||
road bike for an e-bike, that would indicate a certain set of values and
|
||||
choices. However, in my case, I sold a car and got a cargo e-bike.
|
||||
|
||||
The cargo bike will enable me to get around town and accomplish many of the
|
||||
things a second car would have. It doesn't solve any long-range transportation
|
||||
needs, but it will solve the majority of our need for a second car by giving me
|
||||
a more convenient and efficient way to get around town with enough space on the
|
||||
back for the kids and some groceries, too.
|
||||
|
||||
Yesterday, I biked to my dentist appointment. It was only a mile away and
|
||||
certainly in reach with my road bike, but the e-bike makes it even more
|
||||
accessible without the car.
|
||||
|
||||
Of course, there is always an amputating influence, even if the overall
|
||||
motivation for the e-bike was a good one. It is worth asking why not use a
|
||||
regular bicycle or even walk. Some of the benefits of bicycling, like getting
|
||||
fresh air and being able to move more slowly and intentionally, or taking time
|
||||
to pay attention to your surroundings, are even more accentuated when moving
|
||||
less efficiently.
|
||||
|
||||
Whatever our choice, we should be clear about the tradeoffs.
|
||||
|
||||
2. How: The Principle of Proportional Augmentation
|
||||
|
||||
When we think about what a certain technology does for us, it is also important
|
||||
to consider how that technology is conforming us. The features of the
|
||||
technology matter, but often the conformational power of the technology is
|
||||
significantly influenced by how they are implemented.
|
||||
|
||||
Take, for example, the implementation of the electric motor assist on an
|
||||
e-bike. When you first think of an e-bike, you may think of it essentially as a
|
||||
motorbike. Most e-bikes can be ridden without pedals. You can use throttle
|
||||
control to power your forward movement completely from the onboard battery and
|
||||
motor.
|
||||
|
||||
But most e-bikes today are primarily designed to be driven using pedal assist.
|
||||
In this mode, sensors on the bike detect the force or speed with which you are
|
||||
pushing on the pedals and use this measurement to supplement, not totally
|
||||
replace, the power being exerted by the rider through the pedals in the
|
||||
old-fashioned way. In this mode, the assistance from the motor is proportional
|
||||
to the effort that you, as the rider, are putting in.
|
||||
|
||||
Functionally, there is little difference between the throttle and the pedal
|
||||
assist. In both cases, the motor is giving you a significant boost.
|
||||
Philosophically, however, there is a big difference. In pedal assist mode, you
|
||||
are still required to exert some effort. You have some choice over how strong
|
||||
the assistance will be, but in any situation, the level of assistance remains
|
||||
directly connected to the amount of effort you put in.
|
||||
|
||||
This sort of design strategy is important to consider as we think about AI,
|
||||
especially in educational contexts. If we eliminate the connection between
|
||||
effort and results, we are training ourselves to become reliant on our AI
|
||||
tools. Just like only using the throttle on our e-bike will deprive us of the
|
||||
health benefits of exerting ourselves and cycling, using AI in this way will
|
||||
sacrifice opportunities we have to build our cognitive and intellectual skills.
|
||||
|
||||
3. Why: The Ruthless Elimination of Friction
|
||||
|
||||
One last question we should be asking as we choose our technology is why we are
|
||||
choosing to use it. In many ways, these three questions cannot be disconnected
|
||||
from each other. The what, how, and why are interconnected.
|
||||
|
||||
In the case of my e-bike, am I really getting it to replace my car, or will it
|
||||
just serve as an excuse to ride my road bike less? As we think about AI, is the
|
||||
thing it will accomplish for us worth doing the old-fashioned way? Why exactly
|
||||
are we choosing to outsource it? What does our choice indicate about our
|
||||
values?
|
||||
|
||||
In my case, I feel pretty justified in my purchase, having towed all three kids
|
||||
around town multiple times already. My previous bike just didn’t have the space
|
||||
to fit all of them, and trying to tow a bike trailer behind a cargo bike with a
|
||||
five and almost four-year-old on the back without some assistance just isn’t a
|
||||
tenable solution.
|
||||
|
||||
But enter a little electronic boost, and the bike has new life again. Last
|
||||
week, we rode to get ice cream as a family on bikes. I had a smile on my face
|
||||
for the rest of the weekend. Yesterday, we explored a new neighborhood and
|
||||
checked out a new park. All these things were enabled by the e-bike and the
|
||||
additional boost of power that comes with it.
|
||||
|
||||
[32]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
[33]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
The Innovation Bargain 2x2. Original design by me based on [34]the idea from
|
||||
[35]Andy Crouch.
|
||||
|
||||
At the end of the day, we must remember that [36]innovation is a bargain. We
|
||||
often consider what technology promises to enable for us, without considering
|
||||
what it will almost certainly disable.
|
||||
|
||||
Most of the time, we fail to stop and consider the tradeoffs. Perhaps e-bikes
|
||||
may give us a metaphor to frame our thinking.
|
||||
|
||||
[47][ ]
|
||||
Subscribe
|
||||
Got a thought? Leave a comment below.
|
||||
|
||||
[49]Leave a comment
|
||||
|
||||
Reading Recommendations
|
||||
|
||||
I’ve been intrigued and encouraged by the work that The
|
||||
[51]Cosmos Institute
|
||||
is doing to ask thoughtful questions about AI. Their mission to cultivate
|
||||
philosopher-builders resonates deeply with my own and the kind of impact I hope
|
||||
to have at Harvey Mudd.
|
||||
[52]Brendan McCord
|
||||
’s latest, where he uses Wilhelm von Humboldt as a frame to think about our
|
||||
future with AI, is worth a read.
|
||||
|
||||
[53]
|
||||
[https]Cosmos Institute
|
||||
AI vs. the Self-Directed Career
|
||||
Two centuries ago, as mechanization began reshaping society, German philosopher
|
||||
Wilhelm von Humboldt issued a vision and a warning…
|
||||
Read more
|
||||
5 months ago · 69 likes · 12 comments · Brendan McCord and Cosmos Institute
|
||||
[64][ ]
|
||||
Subscribe
|
||||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||||
|
||||
The Book Nook
|
||||
|
||||
[67]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
|
||||
Slowly but surely making progress on [68]The Devil and the Dark Water. Getting
|
||||
more and more interesting, page by page.
|
||||
|
||||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||||
|
||||
The Professor Is In
|
||||
|
||||
Hard to believe we are quickly coming up on the end of four weeks of summer
|
||||
research already. It’s always amazing to see how much progress my students make
|
||||
so quickly during the summer, and great fun to get to dig into building and
|
||||
debugging optical systems with them.
|
||||
|
||||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||||
|
||||
Leisure Line
|
||||
|
||||
[https][https][https]
|
||||
[https][https][https]
|
||||
|
||||
Some pies from the weekend. Went with a slightly higher than usual hydration
|
||||
(65%), which led to some nice chewy texture on the crust.
|
||||
|
||||
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
|
||||
|
||||
Still Life
|
||||
|
||||
[72]
|
||||
[https]
|
||||
|
||||
#1 and I went to see the Mets last week at the Dodgers game. We took the train
|
||||
in from Claremont and the bus to the game, which was fun. The good guys lost,
|
||||
but we took the season series from LA and were in it all four games of the
|
||||
series we played out west. Metsies are just fun to watch this year, and boy,
|
||||
Alonso is just ripping the cover off the ball lately.
|
||||
|
||||
32
|
||||
[73]
|
||||
6
|
||||
5
|
||||
[74]
|
||||
Share
|
||||
PreviousNext
|
||||
|
||||
Discussion about this post
|
||||
|
||||
CommentsRestacks
|
||||
User's avatar
|
||||
[ ]
|
||||
[ ]
|
||||
[ ]
|
||||
[ ]
|
||||
[81]
|
||||
Colin's avatar
|
||||
[82]Colin
|
||||
[83]Sep 5
|
||||
Liked by Josh Brake
|
||||
|
||||
Interestingly in the UK e-bikes _must_ be propelled with human energy and can
|
||||
only support you up to 15.5mph / 25kph. Otherwise, it's a moped and you need to
|
||||
get a drivers license / register it as a motor vehicle. There are 'jailbroken'
|
||||
bikes where you can just use the motor but the police are cracking down on
|
||||
those as they're proving to be a public safety issue. [86]https://
|
||||
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/04/
|
||||
britains-e-bike-boom-desperation-delivery-drivers-and-unthinkable-danger
|
||||
|
||||
Expand full comment
|
||||
Reply
|
||||
Share
|
||||
[87]
|
||||
Kalen's avatar
|
||||
[88]Kalen
|
||||
[89]Jun 10
|
||||
|
||||
It's funny- I had the e-bike thought a few days ago-but less charitably. In my
|
||||
neck of the woods a particular breed of especially fat-tired, awfully fast,
|
||||
never-actually-seen-it-pedaled e-bike has been surging in popularity, and
|
||||
functionally has turned into a way to get away with driving a small motorcycle
|
||||
on the bike and walking paths- a weird netherworld device that mostly just
|
||||
serve to muck things up. It's less old people being enabled and dads towing a
|
||||
pack of kids through nature and more almost being run over by disaffected
|
||||
teenagers.
|
||||
|
||||
I dunno- the longer this hype cycle goes on the more that chatbots really just
|
||||
seem like a bad tool, regardless of their technical sophistication. More
|
||||
amputation than augmentation. They do too much if you are trying to improve
|
||||
yourself (synthesized homework text is one of their major markets) and do too
|
||||
little if you have actual work to do (not enough knobs to turn for creatives
|
||||
trying to express themselves, and fake law citations will never do). Just like
|
||||
with the metaverse and crypto and all the rest, the giant pool of money is
|
||||
doing its best to drive uptake through sheer noise with a product that might
|
||||
just be kind of bad in a durable way, or at least kind of niche (given how much
|
||||
coding is boilerplate in something besides your native language, sure, maybe
|
||||
the boilerplate generator is a nice thing to have).
|
||||
|
||||
Your thoughts reminded me of a good Nicholas Carr essay on good and bad tools
|
||||
that's been rolling around my head of late- on the off chance you haven't read
|
||||
it yet, you might enjoy it: [91]https://www.newcartographies.com/p/
|
||||
the-love-that-lays-the-swale-in-rows
|
||||
|
||||
Expand full comment
|
||||
Reply
|
||||
Share
|
||||
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[108][ ]
|
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|
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© 2025 Josh Brake
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[110]Privacy ∙ [111]Terms ∙ [112]Collection notice
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[113] Start writing[114]Get the app
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[115]Substack is the home for great culture
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References:
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[1] https://joshbrake.substack.com/
|
||||
[2] https://joshbrake.substack.com/
|
||||
[7] https://substack.com/@joshbrake
|
||||
[8] https://substack.com/@joshbrake
|
||||
[9] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comments
|
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[10] javascript:void(0)
|
||||
[23] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!t_AT!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fda5c221b-40ed-44ae-bb42-5e9417997ada_1024x768.jpeg
|
||||
[24] https://www.aventon.com/products/abound-ebike?variant=42319517515971
|
||||
[25] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!V_-V!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9286909-abcf-49d5-9396-76c21c7ca5b9_1024x768.jpeg
|
||||
[26] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/a-bicycle-for-the-mind
|
||||
[28] https://amzn.to/448Ndm3
|
||||
[32] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I3Pv!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb3be922-4cab-4ed9-b0a8-e9191d248814_2001x2001.png
|
||||
[33] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!E2lY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb08d97d3-f35d-4db4-8588-3a7614af4f36_1601x1600.png
|
||||
[34] https://journal.praxislabs.org/we-dont-need-superpowers-we-need-instruments-860459cfc165
|
||||
[35] https://andy-crouch.com/
|
||||
[36] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/the-innovation-bargain
|
||||
[49] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comments
|
||||
[51] https://open.substack.com/users/179794473-cosmos-institute?utm_source=mentions
|
||||
[52] https://open.substack.com/users/866604-brendan-mccord?utm_source=mentions
|
||||
[53] https://cosmosinstitute.substack.com/p/ai-vs-the-self-directed-career?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
|
||||
[67] https://amzn.to/3FhqzhO
|
||||
[68] https://amzn.to/4mnZt9z
|
||||
[72] https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!AKII!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06d89460-fec1-4724-9d7b-d5b7e25b84cd_1024x768.jpeg
|
||||
[73] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comments
|
||||
[74] javascript:void(0)
|
||||
[81] https://substack.com/profile/21520494-colin?utm_source=comment
|
||||
[82] https://substack.com/profile/21520494-colin?utm_source=substack-feed-item
|
||||
[83] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comment/152585767
|
||||
[86] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/04/britains-e-bike-boom-desperation-delivery-drivers-and-unthinkable-danger
|
||||
[87] https://substack.com/profile/7174172-kalen?utm_source=comment
|
||||
[88] https://substack.com/profile/7174172-kalen?utm_source=substack-feed-item
|
||||
[89] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comment/124514975
|
||||
[91] https://www.newcartographies.com/p/the-love-that-lays-the-swale-in-rows
|
||||
[92] https://joshbrake.substack.com/p/an-e-bike-for-the-mind/comments
|
||||
[110] https://substack.com/privacy
|
||||
[111] https://substack.com/tos
|
||||
[112] https://substack.com/ccpa#personal-data-collected
|
||||
[113] https://substack.com/signup?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_content=footer
|
||||
[114] https://substack.com/app/app-store-redirect?utm_campaign=app-marketing&utm_content=web-footer-button
|
||||
[115] https://substack.com/
|
||||
[116] https://enable-javascript.com/
|
||||
752
static/archive/www-noemamag-com-zt2clg.txt
Normal file
752
static/archive/www-noemamag-com-zt2clg.txt
Normal file
@@ -0,0 +1,752 @@
|
||||
[1]Skip to the content
|
||||
|
||||
[2][noema-logo]
|
||||
[3]Subscribe
|
||||
|
||||
[4] Published
|
||||
by the
|
||||
Berggruen
|
||||
Institute
|
||||
|
||||
Topics
|
||||
|
||||
• [5]Technology & the Human
|
||||
• [6]Future of Capitalism
|
||||
• [7]Philosophy & Culture
|
||||
• [8]Climate Crisis
|
||||
|
||||
• [9]Geopolitics & Deglobalization
|
||||
• [10]Future of Democracy
|
||||
• [11]Digital Society
|
||||
• [12]Read Noema In Print
|
||||
|
||||
Search
|
||||
|
||||
[13][ ]
|
||||
Go
|
||||
The Last Days Of Social Media
|
||||
|
||||
Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion.
|
||||
|
||||
Illustration by Daniel Barreto. Illustration by Daniel Barreto.
|
||||
Daniel Barreto
|
||||
[15]Essay[16]Digital Society
|
||||
By [17]James O'Sullivan September 2, 2025
|
||||
[18][19][20][21][22]
|
||||
Credits
|
||||
|
||||
James O’Sullivan lectures in the School of English and Digital Humanities at
|
||||
University College Cork, where his work explores the intersection of technology
|
||||
and culture.
|
||||
|
||||
At first glance, the feed looks familiar, a seamless carousel of “For You”
|
||||
updates gliding beneath your thumb. But déjà‑vu sets in as 10 posts from 10
|
||||
different accounts carry the same stock portrait and the same breathless
|
||||
promise — “click here for free pics” or “here is the one productivity hack you
|
||||
need in 2025.” Swipe again and three near‑identical replies appear, each from a
|
||||
pout‑filtered avatar directing you to “free pics.” Between them sits an ad for
|
||||
a cash‑back crypto card.
|
||||
|
||||
Scroll further and recycled TikTok clips with “original audio” bleed into Reels
|
||||
on Facebook and Instagram; AI‑stitched football highlights showcase players’
|
||||
limbs bending like marionettes. Refresh once more, and the woman who enjoys
|
||||
your snaps of sushi rolls has seemingly spawned five clones.
|
||||
|
||||
Whatever remains of genuine, human content is increasingly sidelined by
|
||||
algorithmic prioritization, receiving fewer interactions than the engineered
|
||||
content and AI slop optimized solely for clicks.
|
||||
|
||||
These are the last days of social media as we know it.
|
||||
|
||||
Drowning The Real
|
||||
|
||||
Social media was built on the romance of authenticity. Early platforms sold
|
||||
themselves as conduits for genuine connection: stuff you wanted to see, like
|
||||
your friend’s wedding and your cousin’s dog.
|
||||
|
||||
Even influencer culture, for all its artifice, promised that behind the
|
||||
ring‑light stood an actual person. But the attention economy, and more
|
||||
recently, the generative AI-fueled late attention economy, have broken whatever
|
||||
social contract underpinned that illusion. The feed no longer feels crowded
|
||||
with people but crowded with content. At this point, it has far less to do with
|
||||
people than with consumers and consumption.
|
||||
|
||||
In recent years, Facebook and other platforms that facilitate billions of daily
|
||||
interactions have slowly morphed into the internet’s largest repositories of
|
||||
[23]AI‑generated spam. Research has found what users plainly see: tens of
|
||||
thousands of machine‑written posts [24]now flood public groups — pushing scams,
|
||||
chasing clicks — with [25]clickbait headlines, half‑coherent listicles and hazy
|
||||
lifestyle images stitched together in AI tools like Midjourney.
|
||||
|
||||
It’s all just vapid, empty shit produced for engagement’s sake. Facebook is
|
||||
“sloshing” in low-effort AI-generated posts, as Arwa Mahdawi [26]notes in The
|
||||
Guardian; some even bolstered by algorithmic boosts, like “[27]Shrimp Jesus.”
|
||||
|
||||
The difference between human and synthetic content is becoming increasingly
|
||||
indistinguishable, and platforms seem unable, or uninterested, in trying to
|
||||
police it. Earlier this year, CEO Steve Huffman pledged to “[28]keep Reddit
|
||||
human,” a tacit admission that floodwaters were already lapping at the last
|
||||
high ground. TikTok, meanwhile, [29]swarms with AI narrators presenting
|
||||
concocted news reports and [30]“what‑if” histories. A few creators do append
|
||||
labels disclaiming that their videos depict “no real events,” but many creators
|
||||
don’t bother, and many consumers don’t seem to care.
|
||||
|
||||
The problem is not just the rise of fake material, but the collapse of context
|
||||
and the acceptance that truth no longer matters as long as our cravings for
|
||||
colors and noise are satisfied. Contemporary social media content is more often
|
||||
rootless, detached from cultural memory, interpersonal exchange or shared
|
||||
conversation. It arrives fully formed, optimized for attention rather than
|
||||
meaning, producing a kind of semantic sludge, posts that look like language yet
|
||||
say almost nothing.
|
||||
|
||||
We’re drowning in this nothingness.
|
||||
|
||||
The Bot-Girl Economy
|
||||
|
||||
If spam (AI or otherwise) is the white noise of the modern timeline, its
|
||||
dominant melody is a different form of automation: the hyper‑optimized,
|
||||
sex‑adjacent human avatar. She appears everywhere, replying to trending tweets
|
||||
with selfies, promising “funny memes in bio” and linking, inevitably, to
|
||||
OnlyFans or one of its proxies. Sometimes she is real. Sometimes she is not.
|
||||
Sometimes she is a he, sitting in a [31]compound in Myanmar. Increasingly, it
|
||||
makes no difference.
|
||||
|
||||
This convergence of bots, scammers, brand-funnels and soft‑core marketing
|
||||
underpins what might be called the bot-girl economy, a parasocial marketplace
|
||||
[32]fueled in a large part by economic precarity. At its core is a
|
||||
transactional logic: Attention is scarce, intimacy is monetizable and platforms
|
||||
generally won’t intervene so long as engagement [33]stays high. As more women
|
||||
now turn to online sex work, lots of men are eager to pay them for their
|
||||
services. And as these workers try to cope with the precarity imposed by
|
||||
platform metrics and competition, some can spiral, forever downward, into a
|
||||
transactional attention-to-intimacy logic that eventually turns them into more
|
||||
bot than human. To hold attention, some creators increasingly opt to behave
|
||||
like algorithms themselves, [34]automating replies, optimizing content for
|
||||
engagement, or mimicking affection at scale. The distinction between
|
||||
performance and intention must surely erode as real people perform as synthetic
|
||||
avatars and synthetic avatars mimic real women.
|
||||
|
||||
There is loneliness, desperation and predation everywhere.
|
||||
|
||||
“Genuine, human content is increasingly sidelined by algorithmic
|
||||
prioritization, receiving fewer interactions than the engineered content
|
||||
and AI slop optimized solely for clicks.”
|
||||
|
||||
The bot-girl is more than just a symptom; she is a proof of concept for how
|
||||
social media bends even aesthetics to the logic of engagement. Once, profile
|
||||
pictures (both real and synthetic) aspired to hyper-glamor, unreachable beauty
|
||||
filtered through fantasy. But that fantasy began to underperform as average men
|
||||
sensed the ruse, recognizing that supermodels typically don’t send them DMs.
|
||||
And so, the system adapted, surfacing profiles that felt more plausible, more
|
||||
emotionally available. Today’s avatars project a curated accessibility: They’re
|
||||
attractive but not flawless, styled to suggest they might genuinely be
|
||||
interested in you. It’s a calibrated effect, just human enough to convey
|
||||
plausibility, just artificial enough to scale. She has to look more human to
|
||||
stay afloat, but act more bot to keep up. Nearly everything is socially
|
||||
engineered for maximum interaction: the like, the comment, the click, the
|
||||
private message.
|
||||
|
||||
Once seen as the fringe economy of cam sites, OnlyFans has become the dominant
|
||||
digital marketplace for sex workers. In 2023, the then-seven-year-old platform
|
||||
[35]generated $6.63 billion in gross payments from fans, with $658 million in
|
||||
profit before tax. Its success has bled across the social web; platforms like X
|
||||
(formerly Twitter) now serve as de facto marketing layers for OnlyFans
|
||||
creators, with thousands of accounts running fan-funnel operations, [36]baiting
|
||||
users into paid subscriptions.
|
||||
|
||||
The tools of seduction are also changing. One 2024 study [37]estimated that
|
||||
thousands of X accounts use AI to generate fake profile photos. Many content
|
||||
creators have also [38]begun using AI for talking-head videos, [39]synthetic
|
||||
voices or endlessly varied selfies. Content is likely A/B tested for
|
||||
click-through rates. Bios are written with conversion in mind. DMs are
|
||||
automated or [40]outsourced to AI impersonators. For users, the effect is a
|
||||
strange hybrid of influencer, chatbot and parasitic marketing loop. One minute
|
||||
you’re arguing politics, the next, you’re being pitched a girlfriend experience
|
||||
by a bot.
|
||||
|
||||
Engagement In Freefall
|
||||
|
||||
While content proliferates, engagement is evaporating. Average interaction
|
||||
rates across major platforms are declining fast: Facebook and X posts now
|
||||
scrape an average 0.15% engagement, while Instagram has dropped 24%
|
||||
year-on-year. Even TikTok has [41]begun to plateau. People aren’t connecting or
|
||||
conversing on social media like they used to; they’re just wading through slop,
|
||||
that is, low-effort, low-quality content produced at scale, often with AI, for
|
||||
engagement.
|
||||
|
||||
And much of it is slop: Less than half of American adults [42]now rate the
|
||||
information they see on social media as “mostly reliable”— down from roughly
|
||||
two-thirds in the mid-2010s. Young adults register the steepest collapse,
|
||||
which is unsurprising; as digital natives, they better understand that the
|
||||
content they scroll upon wasn’t necessarily produced by humans. And yet, they
|
||||
continue to scroll.
|
||||
|
||||
The timeline is no longer a source of information or social presence, but more
|
||||
of a mood-regulation device, endlessly replenishing itself with just enough
|
||||
novelty to suppress the anxiety of stopping. Scrolling has become a form of
|
||||
ambient dissociation, half-conscious, half-compulsive, closer to scratching an
|
||||
itch than seeking anything in particular. People know the feed is fake, they
|
||||
just don’t care.
|
||||
|
||||
Platforms have little incentive to stem the tide. Synthetic accounts are cheap,
|
||||
tireless and lucrative because they never demand wages or unionize. Systems
|
||||
designed to surface peer-to-peer engagement are now systematically filtering
|
||||
out such activity, because what counts as engagement has changed. Engagement is
|
||||
now about raw user attention – time spent, impressions, scroll velocity – and
|
||||
the net effect is an online world in which you are constantly being addressed
|
||||
but never truly spoken to.
|
||||
|
||||
The Great Unbundling
|
||||
|
||||
Social media’s death rattle will not be a bang but a shrug.
|
||||
|
||||
These networks once promised a single interface for the whole of online life:
|
||||
Facebook as social hub, Twitter as news‑wire, YouTube as broadcaster, Instagram
|
||||
as photo album, TikTok as distraction engine. Growth appeared inexorable. But
|
||||
now, the model is splintering, and users are drifting toward smaller, slower,
|
||||
more private spaces, like group chats, Discord servers and [43]federated
|
||||
microblogs — a billion little gardens.
|
||||
|
||||
Since Elon Musk’s takeover, X has [44]shed at least 15% of its global user
|
||||
base. Meta’s Threads, launched with great fanfare in 2023, saw its number of
|
||||
daily active users collapse within a month, [45]falling from around 50 million
|
||||
active Android users at launch in July to only 10 million active users the
|
||||
following August. Twitch [46]recorded its lowest monthly watch-time in over
|
||||
four years in December 2024, just 1.58 billion hours, 11% lower than the
|
||||
December average from 2020-23.
|
||||
|
||||
“While content proliferates, engagement is evaporating.”
|
||||
|
||||
Even the giants that still command vast audiences are no longer growing
|
||||
exponentially. Many platforms have already died (Vine, Google+, Yik Yak), are
|
||||
functionally dead or zombified (Tumblr, Ello), or have been revived and died
|
||||
again (MySpace, Bebo). Some notable exceptions aside, like Reddit and BlueSky
|
||||
(though it’s still early days for the latter), growth has plateaued across the
|
||||
board. While social media adoption continues to rise overall, it’s no longer
|
||||
explosive. [47]As of early 2025, around 5.3 billion user identities — roughly
|
||||
65% of the global population — are on social platforms, but annual growth has
|
||||
decelerated to just 4-5%, a steep drop from the double-digit surges seen
|
||||
earlier in the 2010s.
|
||||
|
||||
Intentional, opt-in micro‑communities are rising in their place — like Patreon
|
||||
collectives and Substack newsletters — where creators chase depth over scale,
|
||||
retention over virality. A writer with 10,000 devoted subscribers can
|
||||
potentially earn more and burn out less than one with a million passive
|
||||
followers on Instagram.
|
||||
|
||||
But the old practices are still evident: Substack is full of personal brands
|
||||
announcing their journeys, Discord servers host influencers disguised as
|
||||
community leaders and Patreon bios promise exclusive access that is often just
|
||||
recycled content. Still, something has shifted. These are not mass arenas; they
|
||||
are clubs — opt-in spaces with boundaries, where people remember who you are.
|
||||
And they are often paywalled, or at least heavily moderated, which at the very
|
||||
least keeps the bots out. What’s being sold is less a product than a sense of
|
||||
proximity, and while the economics may be similar, the affective atmosphere is
|
||||
different, smaller, slower, more reciprocal. In these spaces, creators don’t
|
||||
chase virality; they cultivate trust.
|
||||
|
||||
Even the big platforms sense the turning tide. Instagram has begun emphasizing
|
||||
DMs, X is pushing subscriber‑only circles and TikTok is experimenting with
|
||||
private communities. Behind these developments is an implicit acknowledgement
|
||||
that the infinite scroll, stuffed with bots and synthetic sludge, is
|
||||
approaching the limit of what humans will tolerate. A lot of people [48]seem to
|
||||
be fine with slop, but as more start to crave authenticity, the platforms will
|
||||
be forced to take note.
|
||||
|
||||
From Attention To Exhaustion
|
||||
|
||||
The social internet was built on attention, not only the promise to capture
|
||||
yours but the chance for you to capture a slice of everyone else’s. After two
|
||||
decades, the mechanism has inverted, replacing connection with exhaustion.
|
||||
“Dopamine detox” and “digital Sabbath” have entered the mainstream. In the
|
||||
U.S., [49]a significant proportion of 18‑ to 34‑year‑olds took deliberate
|
||||
breaks from social media in 2024, citing mental health as the motivation,
|
||||
according to an American Psychiatric Association poll. And yet, time spent on
|
||||
the platforms remains high — people scroll not because they enjoy it, but
|
||||
because they don’t know how to stop. Self-help influencers now recommend weekly
|
||||
“no-screen Sundays” (yes, the irony). The mark of the hipster is no longer an
|
||||
ill-fitting beanie but an old-school Nokia dumbphone.
|
||||
|
||||
[50]Some creators are quitting, too. Competing with synthetic performers who
|
||||
never sleep, they find the visibility race not merely tiring but absurd. Why
|
||||
post a selfie when an AI can generate a prettier one? Why craft a thought when
|
||||
ChatGPT can produce one faster?
|
||||
|
||||
These are the last days of social media, not because we lack content, but
|
||||
because the attention economy has neared its outer limit — we have exhausted
|
||||
the capacity to care. There is more to watch, read, click and react to than
|
||||
ever before — an endless buffet of stimulation. But novelty has become
|
||||
indistinguishable from noise. Every scroll brings more, and each addition
|
||||
subtracts meaning. We are indeed drowning. In this saturation, even the most
|
||||
outrageous or emotive content struggles to provoke more than a blink.
|
||||
|
||||
Outrage fatigues. Irony flattens. Virality cannibalizes itself. The feed no
|
||||
longer surprises but sedates, and in that sedation, something quietly breaks,
|
||||
and social media no longer feels like a place to be; it is a surface to skim.
|
||||
|
||||
No one is forcing anyone to go on TikTok or to consume the clickbait in their
|
||||
feeds. The content served to us by algorithms is, in effect, a warped mirror,
|
||||
reflecting and distorting our worst impulses. For younger users in particular,
|
||||
their scrolling of social media can [51]become compulsive, rewarding [52]their
|
||||
developing brains with unpredictable hits of dopamine that keep them glued to
|
||||
their screens.
|
||||
[53]Read Noema in print.
|
||||
|
||||
Social media platforms have also achieved something more elegant than coercion:
|
||||
They’ve made non-participation a form of self-exile, a luxury available only to
|
||||
those who can afford its costs.
|
||||
|
||||
“Why post a selfie when an AI can generate a prettier one? Why craft a
|
||||
thought when ChatGPT can produce one faster?”
|
||||
|
||||
Our offline reality is irrevocably shaped by our online world: Consider the
|
||||
worker who deletes or was never on LinkedIn, excluding themselves from
|
||||
professional networks that increasingly exist nowhere else; or the small
|
||||
business owner who abandons Instagram, watching customers drift toward
|
||||
competitors who maintain their social media presence. The teenager who refuses
|
||||
TikTok may find herself unable to parse references, memes and microcultures
|
||||
that soon constitute her peers’ vernacular.
|
||||
|
||||
These platforms haven’t just captured attention, they’ve enclosed the commons
|
||||
where social, economic and cultural capital are exchanged. But enclosure breeds
|
||||
resistance, and as exhaustion sets in, alternatives begin to emerge.
|
||||
|
||||
Architectures Of Intention
|
||||
|
||||
The successor to mass social media is, as already noted, emerging not as a
|
||||
single platform, but as a scattering of alleyways, salons, encrypted lounges
|
||||
and federated town squares — those little gardens.
|
||||
|
||||
Maybe today’s major social media platforms will find new ways to hold the gaze
|
||||
of the masses, or maybe they will continue to decline in relevance, lingering
|
||||
like derelict shopping centers or a dying online game, haunted by bots and the
|
||||
echo of once‑human chatter. Occasionally we may wander back, out of habit or
|
||||
nostalgia, or to converse once more as a crowd, among the ruins. But as social
|
||||
media collapses on itself, the future points to a quieter, more fractured, more
|
||||
human web, something that no longer promises to be everything, everywhere, for
|
||||
everyone.
|
||||
|
||||
This is a good thing. Group chats and invite‑only circles are where context and
|
||||
connection survive. These are spaces defined less by scale than by shared
|
||||
understanding, where people no longer perform for an algorithmic audience but
|
||||
speak in the presence of chosen others. Messaging apps like Signal are quietly
|
||||
[54]becoming dominant infrastructures for digital social life, not because they
|
||||
promise discovery, but because they don’t. In these spaces, a message often
|
||||
carries more meaning because it is usually directed, not broadcast.
|
||||
|
||||
Social media’s current logic is designed to reduce friction, to give users
|
||||
infinite content for instant gratification, or at the very least, the
|
||||
anticipation of such. The antidote to this compulsive, numbing overload will be
|
||||
found in deliberative friction, design patterns that introduce pause and
|
||||
reflection into digital interaction, or platforms and algorithms that create
|
||||
space for intention.
|
||||
|
||||
This isn’t about making platforms needlessly cumbersome but about
|
||||
distinguishing between helpful constraints and extractive ones. Consider [55]
|
||||
Are.na, a non-profit, ad-free creative platform founded in 2014 for collecting
|
||||
and connecting ideas that feels like the anti-Pinterest: There’s no algorithmic
|
||||
feed or engagement metrics, no trending tab to fall into and no infinite
|
||||
scroll. The pace is glacial by social media standards. Connections between
|
||||
ideas must be made manually, and thus, thoughtfully — there are no algorithmic
|
||||
suggestions or ranked content.
|
||||
|
||||
To demand intention over passive, mindless screen time, X could require a
|
||||
90-second delay before posting replies, not to deter participation, but to curb
|
||||
reactive broadcasting and engagement farming. Instagram could show how long
|
||||
you’ve spent scrolling before allowing uploads of posts or stories, and
|
||||
Facebook could display the carbon cost of its data centers, reminding users
|
||||
that digital actions have material consequences, with each refresh. These small
|
||||
added moments of friction and purposeful interruptions — what UX designers
|
||||
currently optimize away — are precisely what we need to break the cycle of
|
||||
passive consumption and restore intention to digital interaction.
|
||||
|
||||
We can dream of a digital future where belonging is no longer measured by
|
||||
follower counts or engagement rates, but rather by the development of trust and
|
||||
the quality of conversation. We can dream of a digital future in which
|
||||
communities form around shared interests and mutual care rather than
|
||||
algorithmic prediction. Our public squares — the big algorithmic platforms —
|
||||
will never be cordoned off entirely, but they might sit alongside countless
|
||||
semi‑public parlors where people choose their company and set their own rules,
|
||||
spaces that prioritize continuity over reach and coherence over chaos. People
|
||||
will show up not to go viral, but to be seen in context. None of this is about
|
||||
escaping the social internet, but about reclaiming its scale, pace, and
|
||||
purpose.
|
||||
|
||||
Governance Scaffolding
|
||||
|
||||
The most radical redesign of social media might be the most familiar: What if
|
||||
we treated these platforms as [56]public utilities rather than private casinos?
|
||||
|
||||
A public-service model wouldn’t require state control; rather, it could be
|
||||
governed through civic charters, much like public broadcasters operate under
|
||||
mandates that balance independence and accountability. This vision stands in
|
||||
stark contrast to the current direction of most major platforms, which are
|
||||
becoming increasingly opaque.
|
||||
|
||||
“Non-participation [is] a form of self-exile, a luxury available only to
|
||||
those who can afford its costs.”
|
||||
|
||||
In recent years, Reddit and X, among other platforms, have either restricted or
|
||||
removed API access, dismantling open-data pathways. The very infrastructures
|
||||
that shape public discourse are retreating from public access and oversight.
|
||||
Imagine social media platforms with transparent algorithms subject to public
|
||||
audit, user representation on governance boards, revenue models based on public
|
||||
funding or member dues rather than surveillance advertising, mandates to serve
|
||||
democratic discourse rather than maximize engagement, and regular impact
|
||||
assessments that measure not just usage but societal effects.
|
||||
|
||||
Some initiatives gesture in this direction. Meta’s Oversight Board, for
|
||||
example, frames itself as an independent body for content moderation appeals,
|
||||
though its remit is narrow and its influence ultimately limited by Meta’s
|
||||
discretion. X’s Community Notes, meanwhile, allows user-generated fact-checks
|
||||
but relies on opaque scoring mechanisms and lacks formal accountability. Both
|
||||
are add-ons to existing platform logic rather than systemic redesigns. A true
|
||||
public-service model would bake accountability into the platform’s
|
||||
infrastructure, not just bolt it on after the fact.
|
||||
|
||||
The European Union has begun exploring this territory through its Digital
|
||||
Markets Act and Digital Services Act, but these laws, enacted in 2022, largely
|
||||
focus on regulating existing platforms rather than imagining new ones. In the
|
||||
United States, efforts are more fragmented. Proposals such as the Platform
|
||||
Accountability and Transparency Act (PATA) and state-level laws in California
|
||||
and New York aim to increase oversight of algorithmic systems, particularly
|
||||
where they impact youth and mental health. Still, most of these measures seek
|
||||
to retrofit accountability onto current platforms. What we need are spaces
|
||||
built from the ground up on different principles, where incentives align with
|
||||
human interest rather than extractive, for-profit ends.
|
||||
|
||||
This could take multiple forms, like municipal platforms for local civic
|
||||
engagement, professionally focused networks run by trade associations, and
|
||||
educational spaces managed by public library systems. The key is diversity,
|
||||
delivering an ecosystem of civic digital spaces that each serve specific
|
||||
communities with transparent governance.
|
||||
|
||||
Of course, publicly governed platforms aren’t immune to their own risks. State
|
||||
involvement can bring with it the threat of politicization, censorship or
|
||||
propaganda, and this is why the governance question must be treated as
|
||||
infrastructural, rather than simply institutional. Just as public broadcasters
|
||||
in many democracies operate under charters that insulate them from partisan
|
||||
interference, civic digital spaces would require independent oversight, clear
|
||||
ethical mandates, and democratically accountable governance boards, not
|
||||
centralized state control. The goal is not to build a digital ministry of
|
||||
truth, but to create pluralistic public utilities: platforms built for
|
||||
communities, governed by communities and held to standards of transparency,
|
||||
rights protection and civic purpose.
|
||||
|
||||
The technical architecture of the next social web is already emerging through
|
||||
federated and distributed protocols like ActivityPub (used by Mastodon and
|
||||
Threads) and Bluesky’s [57]Authenticated Transfer (AT) Protocol, or atproto, (a
|
||||
decentralised framework that allows users to move between platforms while
|
||||
keeping their identity and social graph) as well as various blockchain-based
|
||||
experiments, [58]like Lens and [59]Farcaster.
|
||||
|
||||
But protocols alone won’t save us. The email protocol is decentralized, yet
|
||||
most email flows through a handful of corporate providers. We need to “[60]
|
||||
rewild the internet,” as Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon mentioned in a Noema
|
||||
essay. We need governance scaffolding, shared institutions that make
|
||||
decentralization viable at scale. Think credit unions for the social web that
|
||||
function as member-owned entities providing the infrastructure that individual
|
||||
users can’t maintain alone. These could offer shared moderation services that
|
||||
smaller instances can subscribe to, universally portable identity systems that
|
||||
let users move between platforms without losing their history, collective
|
||||
bargaining power for algorithm transparency and data rights, user data
|
||||
dividends for all, not just influencers (if platforms profit from our data, we
|
||||
should share in those profits), and algorithm choice interfaces that let users
|
||||
select from different recommender systems.
|
||||
|
||||
Bluesky’s AT Protocol explicitly allows users to port identity and social
|
||||
graphs, but it’s very early days and cross-protocol and platform portability
|
||||
remains extremely limited, if not effectively non-existent. Bluesky also allows
|
||||
users to choose among multiple content algorithms, an important step toward
|
||||
user control. But these models remain largely tied to individual platforms and
|
||||
developer communities. What’s still missing is a civic architecture that makes
|
||||
algorithmic choice universal, portable, auditable and grounded in
|
||||
public-interest governance rather than market dynamics alone.
|
||||
|
||||
Imagine being able to toggle between different ranking logics: a chronological
|
||||
feed, where posts appear in real time; a mutuals-first algorithm that
|
||||
privileges content from people who follow you back; a local context filter that
|
||||
surfaces posts from your geographic region or language group; a serendipity
|
||||
engine designed to introduce you to unfamiliar but diverse content; or even a
|
||||
human-curated layer, like playlists or editorials built by trusted institutions
|
||||
or communities. Many of these recommender models do exist, but they are rarely
|
||||
user-selectable, and almost never transparent or accountable. Algorithm choice
|
||||
shouldn’t require a hack or browser extension; it should be built into the
|
||||
architecture as a civic right, not a hidden setting.
|
||||
|
||||
“What if we treated these platforms as public utilities rather than private
|
||||
casinos?”
|
||||
|
||||
Algorithmic choice can also develop new hierarchies. If feeds can be curated
|
||||
like playlists, the next influencer may not be the one creating content, but
|
||||
editing it. Institutions, celebrities and brands will be best positioned to
|
||||
build and promote their own recommendation systems. For individuals, the
|
||||
incentive to do this curatorial work will likely depend on reputation,
|
||||
relational capital or ideological investment. Unless we design these systems
|
||||
with care, we risk reproducing old dynamics of platform power, just in a new
|
||||
form.
|
||||
|
||||
Federated platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky face [61]real tensions between
|
||||
autonomy and safety: Without centralized moderation, harmful content can
|
||||
proliferate, while over-reliance on volunteer admins creates sustainability
|
||||
problems at scale. These networks also risk reinforcing ideological silos, as
|
||||
communities block or mute one another, fragmenting the very idea of a shared
|
||||
public square. Decentralization gives users more control, but it also raises
|
||||
difficult questions about governance, cohesion and collective responsibility —
|
||||
questions that any humane digital future will have to answer.
|
||||
|
||||
But there is a possible future where a user, upon opening an app, is asked how
|
||||
they would like to see the world on a given day. They might choose the
|
||||
serendipity engine for unexpected connections, the focus filter for deep reads
|
||||
or the local lens for community news. This is technically very achievable — the
|
||||
data would be the same; the algorithms would just need to be slightly tweaked —
|
||||
but it would require a design philosophy that treats users as citizens of a
|
||||
shared digital system rather than cattle. While this is possible, it can feel
|
||||
like a pipe dream.
|
||||
|
||||
To make algorithmic choice more than a thought experiment, we need to change
|
||||
the incentives that govern platform design. Regulation can help, but real
|
||||
change will come when platforms are rewarded for serving the public interest.
|
||||
This could mean tying tax breaks or public procurement eligibility to the
|
||||
implementation of transparent, user-controllable algorithms. It could mean
|
||||
funding research into alternative recommender systems and making those tools
|
||||
open-source and interoperable. Most radically, it could involve certifying
|
||||
platforms based on civic impact, rewarding those that prioritize user autonomy
|
||||
and trust over sheer engagement.
|
||||
|
||||
Digital Literacy As Public Health
|
||||
|
||||
Perhaps most crucially, we need to reframe digital literacy not as an
|
||||
individual responsibility but as a collective capacity. This means moving
|
||||
beyond spot-the-fake-news workshops to more fundamental efforts to understand
|
||||
how algorithms shape perception and how design patterns exploit our cognitive
|
||||
processes.
|
||||
|
||||
Some education systems are [62]beginning to respond, embedding digital and
|
||||
media literacy across curricula. Researchers and educators argue that this work
|
||||
needs to begin in early childhood and continue through secondary education as a
|
||||
core competency. The goal is to equip students to critically examine the
|
||||
digital environments they inhabit daily, to [63]become active participants in
|
||||
shaping the future of digital culture rather than passive consumers. This
|
||||
includes what some call algorithmic literacy, the ability to understand how
|
||||
recommender systems work, how content is ranked and surfaced, and how personal
|
||||
data is used to shape what you see — and what you don’t.
|
||||
|
||||
Teaching this at scale would mean treating digital literacy as public
|
||||
infrastructure, not just a skill set for individuals, but a form of shared
|
||||
civic defense. This would involve long-term investments in teacher training,
|
||||
curriculum design and support for public institutions, such as libraries and
|
||||
schools, to serve as digital literacy hubs. When we build collective capacity,
|
||||
we begin to lay the foundations for a digital culture grounded in
|
||||
understanding, context and care.
|
||||
|
||||
We also need behavioral safeguards like default privacy settings that protect
|
||||
rather than expose, mandatory cooling-off periods for viral content
|
||||
(deliberately slowing the spread of posts that suddenly attract high
|
||||
engagement), algorithmic impact assessments before major platform changes and
|
||||
public dashboards that show platform manipulation, that is, coordinated or
|
||||
deceptive behaviors that distort how content is amplified or suppressed, in
|
||||
real-time. If platforms are forced to disclose their engagement tactics, these
|
||||
tactics lose power. The ambition is to make visible hugely influential systems
|
||||
that currently operate in obscurity.
|
||||
|
||||
We need to build new digital spaces grounded in different principles, but this
|
||||
isn’t an either-or proposition. We also must reckon with the scale and
|
||||
entrenchment of existing platforms that still structure much of public life.
|
||||
Reforming them matters too. Systemic safeguards may not address the core
|
||||
incentives that inform platform design, but they can mitigate harm in the short
|
||||
term. The work, then, is to constrain the damage of the current system while
|
||||
constructing better ones in parallel, to contain what we have, even as we
|
||||
create what we need.
|
||||
|
||||
The choice isn’t between technological determinism and Luddite retreat; it’s
|
||||
about constructing alternatives that learn from what made major platforms
|
||||
usable and compelling while rejecting the extractive mechanics that turned
|
||||
those features into tools for exploitation. This won’t happen through
|
||||
individual choice, though choice helps; it also won’t happen through
|
||||
regulation, though regulation can really help. It will require our collective
|
||||
imagination to envision and build systems focused on serving human flourishing
|
||||
rather than harvesting human attention.
|
||||
|
||||
Social media as we know it is dying, but we’re not condemned to its ruins. We
|
||||
are capable of building better — smaller, slower, more intentional, more
|
||||
accountable — spaces for digital interaction, spaces where the metrics that
|
||||
matter aren’t engagement and growth but understanding and connection, where
|
||||
algorithms serve the community rather than strip-mining it.
|
||||
|
||||
The last days of social media might be the first days of something more human:
|
||||
a web that remembers why we came online in the first place — not to be
|
||||
harvested but to be heard, not to go viral but to find our people, not to
|
||||
scroll but to connect. We built these systems, and we can certainly build
|
||||
better ones. The question is whether we will do this or whether we will
|
||||
continue to drown.
|
||||
|
||||
[64]Enjoy the read? Subscribe to get the best of Noema.
|
||||
|
||||
More From Noema Magazine
|
||||
|
||||
[65]
|
||||
[66] Essay [67]Digital Society
|
||||
[68] Reclaiming Europe’s Digital Sovereignty
|
||||
[69]Francesca Bria
|
||||
[70] Illustration by Noah Campeau for Noema Magazine.
|
||||
Audio Icon
|
||||
[71] Essay [72]Geopolitics & Globalization
|
||||
[73] Is European AI A Lost Cause? Not Necessarily.
|
||||
[74]Benjamin Bratton
|
||||
[75] Illustration by Christina S. Zhu for Noema Magazine.
|
||||
Audio Icon
|
||||
[76] Essay [77]Digital Society
|
||||
[78] A Diverse World Of Sovereign AI Zones
|
||||
[79]Nathan Gardels
|
||||
[80][noema-logo]
|
||||
|
||||
[81] Published
|
||||
by the
|
||||
Berggruen
|
||||
Institute
|
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[82]Terms of Service
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[83]Privacy Policy
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©2025 Noema Magazine
|
||||
|
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Topics
|
||||
|
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• [84]Technology & the Human
|
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• [85]Future of Capitalism
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• [86]Philosophy & Culture
|
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• [87]Climate Crisis
|
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• [88]Geopolitics & Deglobalization
|
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• [89]Future of Democracy
|
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• [90]Digital Society
|
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|
||||
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References:
|
||||
|
||||
[1] https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/#site-content
|
||||
[2] https://www.noemamag.com/
|
||||
[3] https://www.noemamag.com/subscribe
|
||||
[4] https://www.berggruen.org/
|
||||
[5] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/technology-and-the-human/
|
||||
[6] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/future-of-capitalism/
|
||||
[7] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/philosophy-culture/
|
||||
[8] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/climate-crisis/
|
||||
[9] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/geopolitics-globalization/
|
||||
[10] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/future-of-democracy/
|
||||
[11] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/digital-society/
|
||||
[12] https://shop.noemamag.com/
|
||||
[15] https://www.noemamag.com/article-type/essay/
|
||||
[16] https://www.noemamag.com/article-topic/digital-society/
|
||||
[17] https://www.noemamag.com/author/james-osullivan/
|
||||
[18] https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/x?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noemamag.com%2Fthe-last-days-of-social-media&linkname=The%20Last%20Days%20Of%20Social%20Media
|
||||
[19] https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/bluesky?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noemamag.com%2Fthe-last-days-of-social-media&linkname=The%20Last%20Days%20Of%20Social%20Media
|
||||
[20] https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noemamag.com%2Fthe-last-days-of-social-media&linkname=The%20Last%20Days%20Of%20Social%20Media
|
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[21] https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/linkedin?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noemamag.com%2Fthe-last-days-of-social-media&linkname=The%20Last%20Days%20Of%20Social%20Media
|
||||
[22] https://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.noemamag.com%2Fthe-last-days-of-social-media&linkname=The%20Last%20Days%20Of%20Social%20Media
|
||||
[23] https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/ai-spam-accounts-build-followers
|
||||
[24] https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-151
|
||||
[25] https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-632/
|
||||
[26] https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2025/jan/08/ai-generated-slop-slowly-killing-internet-nobody-trying-to-stop-it
|
||||
[27] https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/04/from-shrimp-jesus-to-fake-self-portraits-ai-generated-images-have-become-the-latest-form-of-social-media-spam/
|
||||
[28] https://www.reddit.com/user/spez/comments/1kfciml/reddits_next_chapter_smarter_easier_still_human/
|
||||
[29] https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/tiktok-content-farms-use-ai-voiceovers-to-mass-produce-political-misinformation/
|
||||
[30] https://restofworld.org/2023/ai-tiktok-creators-rewrite-history/
|
||||
[31] https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/02/06/the-vast-and-sophisticated-global-enterprise-that-is-scam-inc
|
||||
[32] https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13047
|
||||
[33] https://scienceblog.com/social-media-bots-create-more-chatter-but-less-meaningful-conversation-research-shows/
|
||||
[34] https://www.supercreator.app/automation#:~:text=Supercreator%20%2D%20Engage%20Fans%20With%20OnlyFans,more%20proactive%20in%20your%20conversations.
|
||||
[35] https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/onlyfans-payments-2023-financials-revenue-creator-earnings-1236135425/
|
||||
[36] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-promote-onlyfans-according-to-creators
|
||||
[37] https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.02627
|
||||
[38] https://aijourn.com/how-ai-is-revolutionizing-digital-content-creation-from-face-swaps-to-lip-syncing/
|
||||
[39] https://www.tiktok.com/@itstarachristina/video/7350403031969713441?lang=en
|
||||
[40] https://www.wired.com/story/onlyfans-models-are-using-ai-impersonators-to-keep-up-with-their-dms/
|
||||
[41] https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2401.02627
|
||||
[42] https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/social-media-and-news-fact-sheet/
|
||||
[43] https://www.theverge.com/24063290/fediverse-explained-activitypub-social-media-open-protocol
|
||||
[44] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/26/twitter-usage-in-us-fallen-by-a-fifth-since-elon-musks-takeover
|
||||
[45] https://time.com/6305383/meta-threads-failing
|
||||
[46] https://www.tubefilter.com/2025/01/10/twitch-lowest-watch-time-streams-charts-top-streamers-december-2024/
|
||||
[47] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-sub-section-state-of-social
|
||||
[48] https://jamescosullivan.substack.com/p/we-cant-get-enough-of-the-bullshit
|
||||
[49] https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/more-new-years-mental-health-resolutions
|
||||
[50] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jul/05/cant-pause-internet-social-media-creators-burnout
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||||
[51] https://www.apa.org/news/apa/2022/social-media-children-teens
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||||
[55] https://www.are.na/
|
||||
[56] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/utilities-for-democracy-why-and-how-the-algorithmic-infrastructure-of-facebook-and-google-must-be-regulated/
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a small sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and drawingsAll
|
||||
images courtesy of José Naranja, shared with permission
|
||||
|
||||
Through a Love of Note-Taking, José Naranja Documents His Travels One Tiny
|
||||
Detail at a Time
|
||||
|
||||
April 23, 2025
|
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[39]Design[40]Illustration
|
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[41]Kate Mothes
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From postage stamps to jetliner specifications to items he packed for the
|
||||
journey, [46]José Naranja’s sketchbooks ([47]previously) capture minute details
|
||||
of numerous international trips. “I’m lost in the intricate details, as
|
||||
always,” he tells Colossal. Everything from currency to noodle varieties to
|
||||
film references make their way into small books brimming with travel ephemera
|
||||
and observations.
|
||||
|
||||
Naranja is currently working on a thicker book than he has in the past, which
|
||||
is taking more time to fill, along with an illustrated card project called
|
||||
2050, which merges science, tech events, and his signature “beauty of
|
||||
note-taking” aesthetic. The artist has also reproduced some of his sketches in
|
||||
The Nautilus Manuscript, a small batch-printed, hand-bound edition available
|
||||
for sale in [48]his shop. Follow updates on the artist’s [49]Instagram.
|
||||
|
||||
a small sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and drawings, on a
|
||||
table with artmaking tools like pens and ink a small sketchbook with
|
||||
elaborately designed travel notes and drawings, on a table with artmaking tools
|
||||
like pens and ink a small sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and
|
||||
drawings a small sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and
|
||||
drawings, on a table with artmaking tools like a stencil and stamps a small
|
||||
sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and drawings, on a table with
|
||||
artmaking tools like pens and ink a series of small sketchbooks with
|
||||
elaborately designed travel notes and drawings a small sketchbook with
|
||||
elaborately designed travel notes and drawings a small sketchbook with
|
||||
elaborately designed travel notes and drawings, on a table with artmaking tools
|
||||
like pens and ink a small sketchbook with elaborately designed travel notes and
|
||||
drawings, on a table with artmaking tools like pens and ink the tops of a
|
||||
series of closed, small sketchbooks showing how full they have become, with
|
||||
color and details on the edges
|
||||
|
||||
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Related tags
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[57]drawing[58]José Naranja[59]notebooks[60]sketchbooks[61]travel
|
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Related articles
|
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|
||||
• [62][naranja-3]
|
||||
[63]Maps, Everyday Ephemera, and Watercolor Drawings Record José Naranja's
|
||||
Travels with Fantastic Detail
|
||||
• [64][naranja-5]
|
||||
[65]Stamps, Scientific Charts, and Hand-Drawn Maps Occupy Every Inch of
|
||||
Travel Notebooks by José Naranja
|
||||
• [66][ocean]
|
||||
[67]A New Book Plunges into the Vast Diversity of the World's Oceans Across
|
||||
3,000 Years
|
||||
• [68][sketch-6]
|
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[69]Drawn the Road Again: Inside the Travel Sketchbooks of Chandler O'Leary
|
||||
as She Explores the U.S.
|
||||
• [70][kobayashi-3]
|
||||
[71]Japanese Chef Has Filled Notebooks with Delectable Illustrations of All
|
||||
of His Meals for 32 Years
|
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• [72][DrawingMachine_03]
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[73]Crank Out Infinite Geometric Designs With The Wooden Cycloid Drawing
|
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Machine
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||||
Trending
|
||||
|
||||
• [74]a black-and-white photo by Dawoud Bey of a Black man standing on a
|
||||
street in New York next to two women in large coats and hats, who are
|
||||
turned away from the camera [75]Explore Trailblazing Street Photography in
|
||||
‘Faces in the Crowd’ at MFA Boston
|
||||
• [76]the open atrium at Calder Gardens with two large-scale sculptures in
|
||||
red and black and a large hanging mobile [77]Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled
|
||||
Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia
|
||||
• [78]a white arm with a tattoo by Nano Ponto of a vibrant gradient emerging
|
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from a black and white eye [79]Innumerable Dots Form Bright, Bold Gradients
|
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in Nano Ponto’s Entirely Handpoked Tattoos
|
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• [80]a colorfully knotted rope work by Jacqueline Surdell hanging from a bar
|
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[81]Monumental Tapestries by Jacqueline Surdell Invoke Forests as Portals
|
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to the Divine
|
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• [82]a full-room installation of red fiber and paper pages by Chiharu Shiota
|
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[83]World War II Journal Entries Float in a Web of Blood-Red Yarn in
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Chiharu Shiota’s ‘Diary’
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• [84]a beaded artwork by Dyani White Hawk inspired by Native American
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patterns in bright colors [85]Lakota and Western Art History Converge in
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Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works
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• [86]"Noche obsidiana." symmetrical natural pigment painting by Omar
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Mendoza, featuring cosmic symbols and visual motifs evoking Mesoamerican
|
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ancestry [87]Omar Mendoza’s Natural Pigment Paintings Radiate the Power of
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Ancestral Knowledge
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• [88]a photo of a large, vaulted room inside an abandoned house by Bryan
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Sansivero [89]Bryan Sansivero Documents Otherworldly, Forgotten Houses in
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[44] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#83bcf0f6e1e9e6e0f7bed7ebf1ecf6e4eba6b1b3e2a6b1b3cfecf5e6a6b1b3ece5a6b1b3cdecf7e6aed7e2e8eaede4a6b1c0a6b1b3c9ecf0a6c0b0a6c2baa6b1b3cde2f1e2ede9e2a6b1b3c7ece0f6eee6edf7f0a6b1b3cbeaf0a6b1b3d7f1e2f5e6eff0a6b1b3ccede6a6b1b3d7eaedfaa6b1b3c7e6f7e2eaefa6b1b3e2f7a6b1b3e2a6b1b3d7eaeee6a5a0b3b0bbb8e1ece7fabed7ebf1ecf6e4eba6b1b3e2a6b1b3cfecf5e6a6b1b3ece5a6b1b3cdecf7e6aed7e2e8eaede4a6b1c0a6b1b3c9ecf0a6c0b0a6c2baa6b1b3cde2f1e2ede9e2a6b1b3c7ece0f6eee6edf7f0a6b1b3cbeaf0a6b1b3d7f1e2f5e6eff0a6b1b3ccede6a6b1b3d7eaedfaa6b1b3c7e6f7e2eaefa6b1b3e2f7a6b1b3e2a6b1b3d7eaeee6a6b1b3a5eee7e2f0ebb8a6b1b3ebf7f7f3f0a6b0c2a6b1c5a6b1c5f4f4f4adf7ebeaf0eaf0e0ecefecf0f0e2efade0eceea6b1c5b1b3b1b6a6b1c5b3b7a6b1c5e9ecf0e6aeede2f1e2ede9e2aef7f1e2f5e6efaeedecf7e6e1ecece8f0a6b1c5
|
||||
[46] https://josenaranja.blogspot.com/
|
||||
[47] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/jose-naranja
|
||||
[48] https://josenaranja.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-nautilus-manuscript-for-sale.html
|
||||
[49] https://www.instagram.com/jose_naranja/
|
||||
[50] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/members/
|
||||
[51] https://colossal.shop/
|
||||
[52] https://colossal.memberful.com/checkout?plan=113464
|
||||
[53] https://colossal.memberful.com/checkout?plan=113463
|
||||
[54] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/members/
|
||||
[55] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/04/of-salt-and-spirit-quilts/
|
||||
[56] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/04/tiff-massey-7-mile-livernois/
|
||||
[57] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/drawing/
|
||||
[58] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/jose-naranja/
|
||||
[59] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/notebooks/
|
||||
[60] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/sketchbooks/
|
||||
[61] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/tags/travel/
|
||||
[62] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/06/jose-naranja-travel-drawings/
|
||||
[63] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/06/jose-naranja-travel-drawings/
|
||||
[64] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/01/jose-naranja-travel-journals/
|
||||
[65] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/01/jose-naranja-travel-journals/
|
||||
[66] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2022/07/ocean-marine-world-phaidon/
|
||||
[67] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2022/07/ocean-marine-world-phaidon/
|
||||
[68] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/07/drawn-the-road-again-inside-the-travel-sketchbooks-of-chandler-oleary-as-she-explores-the-u-s/
|
||||
[69] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/07/drawn-the-road-again-inside-the-travel-sketchbooks-of-chandler-oleary-as-she-explores-the-u-s/
|
||||
[70] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/03/itsuo-kobayashi-food-paintings/
|
||||
[71] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/03/itsuo-kobayashi-food-paintings/
|
||||
[72] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/03/cycloid-drawing-machine/
|
||||
[73] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/03/cycloid-drawing-machine/
|
||||
[74] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/faces-in-the-crowd-street-photography-mfa-boston-exhibition/
|
||||
[75] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/faces-in-the-crowd-street-photography-mfa-boston-exhibition/
|
||||
[76] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/calder-gardens-philadelphia-art-museum/
|
||||
[77] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/calder-gardens-philadelphia-art-museum/
|
||||
[78] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/nano-ponto-vibrant-handpoke-tattoos/
|
||||
[79] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/nano-ponto-vibrant-handpoke-tattoos/
|
||||
[80] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/jacqueline-surdell-rope-tapestries-the-conversion/
|
||||
[81] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/jacqueline-surdell-rope-tapestries-the-conversion/
|
||||
[82] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/chiharu-shiota-japan-society-gallery-two-home-countries/
|
||||
[83] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/chiharu-shiota-japan-society-gallery-two-home-countries/
|
||||
[84] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/dyani-white-hawk-mixed-media-lakota-modern-art/
|
||||
[85] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/10/dyani-white-hawk-mixed-media-lakota-modern-art/
|
||||
[86] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/09/omar-mendoza-solar-serpent-obsidian-night/
|
||||
[87] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/09/omar-mendoza-solar-serpent-obsidian-night/
|
||||
[88] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/09/bryan-sansivero-america-the-abandoned-architecture-book/
|
||||
[89] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2025/09/bryan-sansivero-america-the-abandoned-architecture-book/
|
||||
[98] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/members/
|
||||
[99] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/?memberful_endpoint=auth
|
||||
[100] https://nectarads.com/
|
||||
[101] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/about/
|
||||
[102] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/newsletter/
|
||||
[103] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/contact/
|
||||
[104] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/explore/
|
||||
[105] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/members/
|
||||
[106] https://colossal.shop/
|
||||
[107] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/feed/
|
||||
[108] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/legal/terms-of-service/
|
||||
[109] https://www.thisiscolossal.com/legal/privacy-policy/
|
||||
[110] https://www.instagram.com/thisiscolossal
|
||||
[111] https://bsky.app/profile/thisiscolossal.com
|
||||
[112] https://mastodon.art/@colossal
|
||||
[113] https://www.facebook.com/thisiscolossal/
|
||||
[114] https://pinterest.com/itscolossal/colossal/
|
||||
[115] http://links.thisiscolossal.com/
|
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Reference in New Issue
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