There is a lot of informal content on the internet. I think that's part of the point. You can write something informal and we can focus on the idea before doing the hard work of rigor, structure, comprehension, and the like. I find linking as I'm writing the idea easier than maintaining a bibliography.
I also find it funny that people are creating a crusade about informal content. If anything the focus should be advocating for the benefit of well-written content. Why are there so many people more interested in attacking ideas instead of finding ways to integrate them?
The link is, in a way, a technologically advanced form of a footnote. It’s also, distraction-wise, a more violent form of a footnote. Where a footnote gives your brain a gentle nudge, the link gives it a yank. What’s good about a link – its propulsive force – is also what’s bad about it.
I never imagined there were hyperlink bears in the world, yet I agree they are distracting at least when reading long form. I do have an impulse to click a link that I don't have with a footnote.
Dunno if you ever read David Foster Wallace's magnum opus Infinite Jest, but it's basically his fault that everyone who thinks they're really smart started putting eight zillion footnotes in things just under thirty years ago. But DFW was my first experience with it, I was like, dude, I just want to read the fucking story.
And yet I do see the appeal. In that case, he was being clever in a very particular way. But if you can get over the desire for a linear flow, and the ability to know when you've completed the thread -- the thread being the novel, in that case, but really, can be anything -- then there's something lovely there. It's expansive to imagine that you can just keep going deeper, following threads. That's kind of what got me into btc, tbh.
I wonder if people who come of age in a world of infinite fan out will feel differently about this stuff? The human brain does not change its working memory size, so whatever new norms develop will still have to work in those constraints. But maybe the idea of completionism will just fade out?
But maybe the idea of completionism will just fade out?
I see this happening in goal actualization already. The fantasy of A Goal is The Goal. I've been thinking it's social/economic rot. Others would argue its social media. Either way, I've been attributing it to reversible processes that we should seek to reverse. If it's technology overwhelming us as it fans out, it's not reversible and is even undesirable to reverse.
Edit: Wooo this post modern stuff is fun. I didn't understand the appeal before.
David Foster Wallace's magnum opus Infinite Jest
I haven't but @plebpoet has brought it up a few times as has my wife. tbh I couldn't get past dfw's bandana when I first considered reading him. Not my best instinct lol.
But if you can get over the desire for a linear flow
I'd be interested to see if I could. I'm kind of sucker for classical structure/flow which is still hard to find executed well in books picked at random.
If it's technology overwhelming us as it fans out, it's not reversible and is even undesirable to reverse.
A thing I think about a lot is how to get in front of this lag time. It takes a long time to internalize the new affordances of the world; in some cases, people never internalize them, and instead, science (and the world) moves forward one funeral at a time.
But for things that are sufficiently inevitable, due to technological force or some other reason, can you force yourself into the new way? Many of us are familiar with this when our parents resist x, where x could be {the internet, social media, cell phones, texting, gay marriage, exercising on purpose} or a million other things. And we think: how stupid you are, to resist this obvious thing? And then we turn around and are equally stupid, but about something else.
So what if you were on the lookout for this, and said to yourself: how natural or "right" this feels is not a reliable guide to how important it is, and I'm going to jump in all the way and try to adapt to this, and take advantage of its unique features? Such a strategy might actually be optimal because the "natives" to the new way will not understand the virtues of the old way. So you can, at the cost of great personal discomfort, get the best of both.
A thing I think about a lot is how to get in front of this lag time.
Me too! My hack is to just assume I'm wrong and being stupid like past old people. It tends to cancel out my historical bias. Being relatively uncertain appears unnerving, but it's actually just being honest. The more a world changes the more fact-like non-facts change.
I'm going to jump in all the way and try to adapt to this, and take advantage of its unique features?
I fall short of this I think. I haven't used Tik Tok for instance. Homework!
I'm afraid of using TikTok since I might like it too much. Getting rid of Reddit was already hard enough.
So I think it's fair to not "jump in all the way" if you're pretty sure you know what it's all about and you already have some experience with similar things.
But maybe TikTok is different, yes. But I think it's different in the sense of being a even worse attention sucking experience than Reddit.
But maybe that's the point? Should I try it out to see if I am right? And if there is indeed some advantage to gain by having some first hand experience with TikTok?
Even if this experience is just confirmation of my worries?
hello I am here for DFW discussion. I just read Infinite Jest and I really appreciate the footnotes because it's like the author is just fucking with you. It's a really fun puzzle for people inclined to want to read voraciously like that. I think that translates to what you guys are saying about links. although, I'm not sure I'm understanding it.
> I think that translates to what you guys are saying about links. although, I'm not sure I'm understanding it.
In contrast to footnotes, hyperlinks, [like this one that links to a video of kittens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS9M6zQI3AU), are relatively distracting is all.
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In contrast to footnotes, hyperlinks, like one that links to a video of kittens[^1], are relatively distracting is all.
[^1]: [kittens](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS9M6zQI3AU)
Also you should join our Broken Money book club. We are set to finish part 3 this week.
Footnotes