Jekyll2024-03-16T16:40:03+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/feed.xmlDerek KedzioraThe place on the web where I do more procrastinating than writingDerek KedzioraNow: March 20242024-03-16T16:30:00+01:002024-03-16T16:30:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/now/now-20240316<p>It’s been months since I’ve written here and nearly a year since I’ve published a <em>now</em> update. Somehow time both flies and stands still.</p>
<p>I’ve spent the last few days reading Cal Newport’s <em>Slow Productivity</em>, which I happily pre-ordered, and there’s something about the whole thing that deeply resonates with me. Our society judges productivity with the wrong cadence, measuring the outputs of days and weeks at most. While the most productive people across history had weeks and months of simply staring at the wall and letting their minds wander.</p>
<p>And so it’s taken me awhile to figure out what I even want to do with this site. There’s a lot about UX, typography, and some hobbies that I’d like to write about. There’s no rush. I’ll get around to it. There’s also plenty that I <em>won’t</em> be publishing here. Not that I have anything shocking to say; I’m boringly mainstream. But having a site under your own name should have the sort of content you’d feel comfortable chatting about with a stranger. This is my gentle push against the culture of oversharing.</p>
<p>So yes, back to <em>Slow Productivity</em>. The sorts of things that Cal Newport describes can be life-changing. Really. I sold my iPad. I keep my phone tucked away in a downstairs closet so it’s not distracting me. More often than not I venture outside without the thing; oddly enough I learned that you can pay for stuff <em>without</em> Apple Pay. And then I spend my time doing things I find rewarding: reading, long walks with my wife, spending time with friends, and engaged in hobbies far away from the virtual world. I’ve even made it a point to start cooking most nights.</p>
<p>It’s kind of wild how this has become something so unusual, despite it being how nearly everyone lived when I was growing up in the 90s.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I’ve read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. Thousands of pages of Brandon Sanderson, just sticking my toe in the water of Adrian Tchaikovsky, which reminded me I should probably reread Gene Wolfe.</p>
<p>I deeply enjoy the change of the seasons, the visible march of time. Each spring is something special, the days lengthening of the days, the first signs of warmth after months of cold damp darkness.</p>
<p>I have some gardening projects planned for the spring, but best not to talk about them ahead of time. 🪬🧿🪬</p>
<p>Strangely enough it feels like I haven’t done much of anything since I last wrote here, and I think that’s why I feel so good about everything these days.</p>Derek KedzioraIt’s been months since I’ve written here and nearly a year since I’ve published a now update. Somehow time both flies and stands still.A new blogging home2023-12-09T10:29:00+01:002023-12-09T10:29:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/blog/a-new-blogging-home<p>And so I’ve gone an done it. I’ve started a pseudonymous blog that will run much the same as my notes have.</p>
<p>Here’s the RSS feed: https://theodoric.us/feed.rss</p>
<p>And the site itself: https://theodoric.us</p>
<p>It’s not much to look at, but I’m really enjoying blot.im. There’s plenty of documentation to spruce up the template, it’s easy to add content from any device, and it checks all the indie web boxes I want.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who’s read thus far! I really appreciate the emails, kind words, challenges to ideas, and suggestions. The small web is a beautiful thing.</p>Derek KedzioraAnd so I’ve gone an done it. I’ve started a pseudonymous blog that will run much the same as my notes have.Algorithmic conveyor belts2023-11-29T18:05:00+01:002023-11-29T18:05:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/algorithmic-conveyor-belts<p><a href="https://www.afterbabel.com/p/algorithms-hijacked-my-generation">Algorithms Hijacked My Generation</a> really hit me. It explains a lot of things happening in the world that I can sense, but not put together into a system, into the single term of <em>algorithmic conveyor belt</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I remember first hearing conversations about mental health in the mid-2010s when I was 12 or 13. The first YouTube stars started opening up, tentatively, about their anxiety and depression. Celebrities confessed to struggling. Mental health communities formed on Tumblr. I learned about anorexia, self-harm, and disorders like ADHD. It all felt important to talk about.</p>
<p>But things quickly began to change. Some of us got hitched to the algorithm. Platforms like YouTube began to reward cheap, clickbait posts to boost ad revenue, meaning that users were being served more and more sensational content. Slowly we went from watching influencers talk about anxiety to live-streaming their panic attacks, describing deeply personal traumas along to pop songs, and even capturing split-personality switches on camera. TikTok came out and suddenly everyone seemed to be sharing their symptoms of mental illness. Next, they started telling us we might be mentally ill! We began to see TikToks telling us we have anxiety, autism, ADHD, and traumatic stress disorders. Companies caught on. Soon we were served customized ads, micro-targeted ads, solutions to our specific struggles. Videos with vaguer and vaguer symptoms. Distracted a lot? You might have ADHD. Have ADHD? You need Ritalin. Pay for this virtual therapy app; get medication delivered to your door; buy some ADHD merch!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And that’s how we’ve come full circle, with too much <a href="/notes/20231119095129">therapy <em>making</em> people unwell</a>.</p>
<p>This is also an important point:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So, I believe we have some personal agency. But I also believe that a 12-year-old’s mind is no match for a giant corporation using the most advanced AI to manipulate her behavior. Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both personal agency and determinism can coexist. But it’s such a waste that we squander so much of our agency on social media and the second order effects thereof.</p>
<p>My kryptonite is Reddit. I can stay off of it with sheer will power, tricks like deleting the app from my phone. And it works. Sometimes.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t take much before I notice that I’m a bit more on edge, slightly rougher around the edges, and convinced I need to take my hobbies to extreme lengths — at least I’m down to only hobby subs.</p>
<p>That’s a massive amount of energy, and not everyone is going to win that battle each time. And once you’re down the rabbit hole, it can be long time until you come back.</p>Derek KedzioraAlgorithms Hijacked My Generation really hit me. It explains a lot of things happening in the world that I can sense, but not put together into a system, into the single term of algorithmic conveyor belt:An Online Identity Crisis2023-11-27T12:56:00+01:002023-11-27T12:56:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/blog/an-online-identity-crisis<p><strong>TLDR</strong>: I’m thinking of leaving this site up as business card and portfolio page and moving my blogging to pseudonymous site. Would appreciate it anyone else that’s done something similar would <a href="/contact">drop me an email</a> with advice.</p>
<p>I like having a domain that’s my first and last name, which is one of the perks of having a relatively uncommon but still recognizable English first name and a fairly rare Polish last name. But, I feel like it’s an increasingly bad idea to have that domain be a catchall for <em>everything</em> about me.</p>
<p>It looks snazzy to direct a recruiter to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">derekkedziora.com/cv</code> or <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">derekkedziora.com/portfolio</code>, but I don’t necessarily want that recruiter to be two or three clicks away from my thoughts about religion or my social views. To deal with this, I snapped up a €5 domain that’s perfect, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">uxcontent.design</code>. But that defeats the whole purpose of separating these sites out — that adds an extra click or two to pop over to the search bar.</p>
<p>Self-censorship is another option, and it’s one that I’ve been doing a lot of lately. But that defeats the purpose of the indie web, which is to use this wonderful invention of the World Wide Web to find other weirdos, talk to one other, gently disagree, support each other, and simply see something that’s very human instead of the ugly corporate face of Facebook and Google.</p>
<p>And so what I’m leaning towards is switching my real blog to a pseudonym. Not that I’m planning to go to great lengths to hide my identity, I’d simply prefer my personal blog not be on the first page when searching for my full name. That way I can geek out to my heart’s content about pretty much anything, without it spilling into buckets of my life where it doesn’t belong.</p>
<p>This could fall in the old trope of having nothing to hide, and I really don’t have anything that genuinely <em>must</em> be hidden. But I’d rather introduce myself and share bits of my life to people at the tempo I’d like, rather than dumping everything all at once. Sort of like a nice chat over a cup of coffee is as far a first date really needs to go.</p>Derek KedzioraTLDR: I’m thinking of leaving this site up as business card and portfolio page and moving my blogging to pseudonymous site. Would appreciate it anyone else that’s done something similar would drop me an email with advice.Anti-fascism2023-11-25T08:58:00+01:002023-11-25T08:58:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/anti-fascism<p>Just before an election in one of the most democratic societies on this earth, <a href="https://www.dutchnews.nl/2023/11/thierry-baudet-attacked-with-beer-bottle-in-groningen-bar/">a candidate was physically attacked</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Forum MP Freek Jansen who was with Baudet at the time told the Telegraaf the pro-Russia party leader was bleeding from the head after the attack. The attacker, who was arrested, shouted something about being “done with fascism”, Jansen said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Amsterdam, large protests broke out against the elections — in the name of stopping fascism, of course. And not surprisingly, the “anti-fascist” demonstration turned to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/nederlands/comments/182smza/ben_ik_de_enige_die_dit_heel_ironisch_vindt/">chanting for the elimination of Jews</a>.</p>
<p>In multiple real life conversations, I’ve heard the sentiment that “this is why we shouldn’t let stupid people vote”.</p>
<p>The irony that’s not lost on me, is that I almost certainly would have voted for the left-wing coalition, had I been able to vote in this election. But I feel increasingly less comfortable in these circles.</p>
<p>It seems that fewer and fewer of those on the left believe in classical democracy and liberalism. Instead, there’s a deep yearning for a left-wing authoritarian movement.</p>
<p>The beautiful part of Dutch democracy is that even with a right-wing party winning a serious mandate, they can’t govern without coming to the center, moderating their policies, and working with others who have vastly different views.</p>
<p>And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this, the huge number of unassimilated and partially assimilated immigrants is really pissing off a lot of people. I’m part of that problem.</p>
<p>Thankfully, I can do something about that. I’ve been putting off anything beyond speaking rudimentary Dutch for too long. I haven’t been involved with much in the actual community. Time for that to change.</p>Derek KedzioraJust before an election in one of the most democratic societies on this earth, a candidate was physically attacked:Translating birds2023-11-21T08:48:00+01:002023-11-21T08:48:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/birds<p>Many Buddhist mythological texts speak of a bird called a haṃsa in Pali and Sanskrit. Finding it curious that this is often left untranslated or noted as a goose or a swan, I decided to take a closer look. From <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa_(bird)">Wikipedia</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jean Vogel, in 1952, questioned if hamsa is indeed a swan, because according to Dutch ornithologists George Junge and E.D. van Oort he consulted, swans were rare in modern India while bar-headed geese (Anser indicus) were common. According to Vogel, Western and Indian scholars may have preferred translating hamsa from Sanskrit to swan as the indigenous goose appears plump while the swan (and, Vogel adds, the flamingo) appears more graceful.</p>
<p>Some have criticised Vogel’s view as being over-reliant on artistic representations from south India and Sri Lanka, where the white swan is rare. American ornithologist Paul Johnsgard, in 2010, stated that mute swans (Cygnus Olor) do migrate to the northwestern Himalayan region of India every winter, migrating some 1000 miles each way. Similarly, the British ornithologist Peter Scott, in his Key to the Wildfowl of the World (1957), states that northwestern India is one of the winter migration homes for mute swans, the others being Korea and the Black Sea. Grewal, Harvey and Pfister, in 2003, state that the mute swan is “a vagrant mainly in Pakistan but also northwestern India” and include a map marking their distribution. Asad Rahmani and Zafar-ul Islam, in their 2009 book, describe the three species of swans and 39 species of ducks and geese found in India.</p>
<p>Dave stated, “the present position according to Hume is that Swans do not occur anywhere within Indian limits outside the Himalayas except in the extreme North-West”, and suggested that they were perhaps more common in the “hoary past.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This serves as a powerful example of the complexity of translating across centuries and cultures, the limits of just how much we can know about the <em>other</em>, and academia can really get stuck on some arcane points.</p>Derek KedzioraMany Buddhist mythological texts speak of a bird called a haṃsa in Pali and Sanskrit. Finding it curious that this is often left untranslated or noted as a goose or a swan, I decided to take a closer look. From Wikipedia:Mass psychology2023-11-19T09:51:00+01:002023-11-19T09:51:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/mass-psychology<p>Just because a certain medication is useful, even revolutionary, in specific circumstances, doesn’t mean it should be used for everything. The obvious example is antibiotics, which will save your life if you need them, or wreak havoc with your guy microbiome and cause resistance if you don’t need them.</p>
<p>There are signs the same is true with psychology. Check out fellow indie webber Robert’s post on <a href="https://micro.canneddragons.net/2023/11/13/ubiquitous-therapy.html">ubiquitous therapy</a> and <em>the Atlantic</em> article he links to, <em><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/teen-mental-health-dbt/675895/">These Teens Got Therapy. Then They Got Worse</a></em>.</p>
<p>Of note, none of this discredits psychology as a healing art. Rather, the issue is the mass “mental health” movement that tries to psychologize everything and everyone. The way to destigmatize people getting the treatment they need for mental health problems, isn’t to suddenly claim <em>everyone</em> has depression, anxiety, ADHD, or neurodivergence.</p>
<p>I’ve seen something of this first hand, but more with the mass mindfulness movement. I don’t think everyone should meditate or “be mindful”. It’s a part of the Buddhist path that, historically, not all that many Buddhists even participated in. If you’re not starting out from a stable, well-adjusted place, you’re going to end up being mindful of misery. And that’s a mess for everyone involved.</p>
<p>And so my hope is that there’s a more discriminating look at who should seek out therapy, and who just needs to relax a bit. A day in nature, some time away from screens, losing yourself in a good book, movement — I’d rather see more emphasis on these for everyone.</p>Derek KedzioraJust because a certain medication is useful, even revolutionary, in specific circumstances, doesn’t mean it should be used for everything. The obvious example is antibiotics, which will save your life if you need them, or wreak havoc with your guy microbiome and cause resistance if you don’t need them.Superficial simplicity2023-11-11T20:26:00+01:002023-11-11T20:26:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/superficial-simplicity<p>From <a href="https://jarango.com/2022/09/15/against-superficial-simplicity/">Against Superficial Simplicity</a> by Jorge Arango:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many designers have internalized the quote attributed to Leonardo, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” We love to make things simple. Simple things are easier to use than complicated or messy things. Simple is more beautiful and desirable.</p>
<p>But simple isn’t always better. Sometimes, in trying to make things simpler, we make them harder to use. The fact that something looks simpler doesn’t mean it’s easily understood. Case in point: notifications in macOS.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I’ve completely <a href="/blog/sordid-state-of-apples-notificiations">given up on using any of the fancy iOS / Mac focus modes</a>. They’re just the right blend of too complex but also not customizable enough, making it easier to simply make a point of not having any of my devices around when I want quiet.</p>Derek KedzioraFrom Against Superficial Simplicity by Jorge Arango:Resource allocation2023-11-10T08:41:00+01:002023-11-10T08:41:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/resource-allocation<p>I’ve heard the argument that the best minds of our generation are going towards tweaking the engagement of Facebook, Instagram, and Google instead of building rockets to the moon.</p>
<p>This is a variation on that, but for writers, <a href="https://blog.nateliason.com/p/getting-too-good-at-the-wrong-thing">Getting too Good at the Wrong Thing</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I worry that some of the best writers of our generation are stuck making tweets and newsletters.</p>
<p>How many newsletters have you printed out and put on your bookshelf?</p>
<p>How many articles from five or ten years ago do you still go back and read? Or recommend?</p>
<p>And what about tweets? Are there any threads that rise to the level of books?</p>
<p>Yet, as increasingly unvaluable as blogging feels, there would be no book without this blog. If you aren’t a conventionally laureled writer, your worth is your email list. No other metric particularly matters. And so, to some extent, you must focus on a newsletter to build that initial base of readers so you can convince a publisher that you’re worth paying attention to</p>
<p>So, this has been my conundrum. I can’t deny this publication’s importance in getting my career to this point. But I also can’t deny the ways it might distract from my ultimate goals moving forward. And I’m unsure how much of my sense that “I need to keep publishing here and on Twitter” is an accurate assessment of the best use of my time, or merely some combination of FOMO and a desire to make numbers go up.</p>
</blockquote>Derek KedzioraI’ve heard the argument that the best minds of our generation are going towards tweaking the engagement of Facebook, Instagram, and Google instead of building rockets to the moon.Adaptations2023-11-08T08:10:00+01:002023-11-08T08:10:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/adaptations<p>I finally got around to watching the <em>Dune</em> movie, and it certainly captured something magical of the <em>Dune</em> universe.</p>
<p>We also started our annual rewatching of <em>Lord of The Rings</em>, which got me thinking that both of these adaptations did exactly the same thing.</p>
<p>The pacing of novels was almost painstakingly slow. <em>Dune</em> is primarily a psychological novel, an exploration of what Bene Gesserit are capable of doing. Little of that makes it to the big screen.</p>
<p>The <em>Lord of The Rings</em> movies contain only a tiny fraction of what fascinated me when I first read them as a kid. The movies are mainly battle scene after battle scene.</p>
<p>I enjoy all of these films, but they are something a bit different than the originals.</p>Derek KedzioraI finally got around to watching the Dune movie, and it certainly captured something magical of the Dune universe.Entertainment2023-11-05T13:55:00+01:002023-11-05T13:55:00+01:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/entertainment<p>While this number might be inflated, <a href="https://newsletters.feedbinusercontent.com/97f/97fa35a491d53c0136b65ea133438a2a97b81edb.html">people spend half of their waking hours being entertained</a>.</p>
<p>That’s a lot.</p>
<p>I’m just coming off of a meditation retreat, and enjoyed not being online. Not popping over to the internet for constant hits of instant entertainment was transformative. I was exhausted during the the first couple of days. My guess is that the constant stimulation of being online masks sleep debt. But then a quiet, joyful energy emerged.</p>
<p>I like entertainment. I enjoy my epic fantasy books, sci-fi, and all sorts of low-brow things. The problem, I think, is in the constant drip of it, not ever being bored for a few minutes and and there.</p>
<p>Hat tip to <a href="https://cagataytanyildiz.com">Çağatay</a>.</p>Derek KedzioraWhile this number might be inflated, people spend half of their waking hours being entertained.Shame and guilt aren’t synonyms2023-10-12T19:49:00+02:002023-10-12T19:49:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/shame-and-guilt-arent-synonyms-<p>Previously I wrote about the <a href="/notes/20231004211037">benefits of shame</a>, but it’s also worth exploring the differences between guilt and shame, as they’re often confused.</p>
<p>Shame keeps you from doing something stupid because of a visceral understanding of the wider consequences of an action. Hence shame plays a protective role.</p>
<p>Guilt serves no constructive purpose because it gnaws at you <em>after</em> the fact. Even worse, guilt usually mixes cause and effect: you’re upset at the negative results you’re experiencing rather developing a plan to deal with that which has caused them.</p>
<p>To use my drinking analogy again, guilt is moaning that you have a bad headache, are tired, and feeling you are a “bad” person because you had a heavy night of drinking. None of these are constructive. In fact, intense feelings of guilt along the lines of “I’m such a bad person” are very likely to induce <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness">learned helplessness</a>, which in turn makes you more likely to go off and have another night of heavy drinking.</p>
<p>The shame approach is to apologize and make amends wherever reasonable, accept the negative results as inevitable, and figure out ways to prevent the root cause from happening again, thereby completely sidestepping the whole “I’m a bad person” routine.</p>
<p>It looks like a lot of the “self help content” stuff obsessively tries to fight against the already inevitable results of an action and then latches onto the identity of “I’m a bad person”, or “I can’t help it because I’m neurodivergent / depressed / have anxiety”.</p>
<p>To clarify, I’m not dismissing these condition when diagnosed and treated by actual professionals. What I’m questioning is the increasingly common case of people diagnosing themselves with whatever after reading a blog post. It’s become increasingly common in the US to go to your GP or equivalent, who likely has almost no training in clinical psychology, share your self-diagnosis, and be prescribed powerful, life-altering drugs after a five-minute conversation. We don’t take <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iatrogenesis">iatrogenesis</a> seriously in the current model of mental health in the West.</p>
<p>From the Buddhist perspective, this definition of guilt maps to <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaukritya">kukkucca</a></em>, which is usually translated as “worry” and is <em>always</em> an unwholesome mental state. It is essentially a form of aversion towards oneself.</p>Derek KedzioraPreviously I wrote about the benefits of shame, but it’s also worth exploring the differences between guilt and shame, as they’re often confused.Rethinking shame2023-10-04T21:10:00+02:002023-10-04T21:10:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/rethinking-shame<p>I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the juxtaposition of mental health, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia">eudaemonia</a> or flourishing in the classical sense, and the sort of “mental health movement” that’s a heavily marketed form of online content — not to be be confused with actual professional help.</p>
<p>I’ve been noticing that people who go all in on “mental health content” are miserable. The gist of the narrative is that you’re a victim, everyone else is toxic, and that indulgence of some form or another is the key to happiness. Even when they take bits and pieces of respected spiritual traditions, it’s in the most self-indulgent way possible. <em>My</em> mindfulness practice reinforces obsession with <em>my</em> feelings, <em>my</em> needs to the exclusion of anyone else.</p>
<p>In contrast to online mental health content, Buddhist philosophy sees shame as part of each <em>positive</em> mental state. Here’s the definition of shame (<em>hiri</em>) from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s <em>Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shame has the characteristic of disgust at bodily and verbal misconduct…[its] proximate cause is respect for self and respect for others.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not unlike the Abrahamic traditions, where “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”</p>
<p>Whether we’re talking about shame or fear, it’s often understood to be a negative thing, whereas in reality they’re rooted in respect, love, and humility.</p>
<p>To put it more concretely: I won’t drink today because I respect myself. I respect the person who’s going to wake up energetic and feeling good tomorrow morning, and I don’t want to sabotage that. I respect my wife; she shouldn’t have to put up with the annoyance of me drinking. I respect the sacrifices my parents made to bring a healthy child into this world and raise me.</p>
<p>And this is why I think so much “mental health content” fails. Every wisdom tradition paves the way to flourishing with restraint, concern for others, understanding yourself in the greater context of society, and balancing how your actions affects those around you. That’s the exact opposite of self indulgence.</p>Derek KedzioraI’ve been thinking a lot lately about the juxtaposition of mental health, eudaemonia or flourishing in the classical sense, and the sort of “mental health movement” that’s a heavily marketed form of online content — not to be be confused with actual professional help.Listening to the canary2023-10-03T08:00:00+02:002023-10-03T08:00:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/listening-to-the-canary<p>With the proverbial canary in the coal mine, you can ignore it, try to silence it, or you can accept that the canary might be presenting you with a chance to change course.</p>
<p>And so it goes when a tech billionaire tweets a meme mocking Zelensky and Ukrainians.<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup></p>
<p>Most Ukrainians have shared their outrage. But canceling the man won’t do any good. Instead I propose learning from him.</p>
<p>This is a man who’s never had an original thought. If he’s posting a meme, it’s already well established in right-wing circles. The narrative that Ukraine is a beggar nation isn’t new, but it’s gaining traction.</p>
<p>This should be a wakeup call for Ukrainian PR to do a hard pivot. The images and narratives that worked so poignantly during the first days of the war no longer have the same impact. It’s not a David and Goliath fight with scrappy volunteers stringing together victory against the odds anymore. Instead we’re in a WWI style war of inches and attrition that’s going to require <em>years</em> of industrial support.</p>
<p>The message needs to change.</p>
<p>I don’t really know how exactly. But here are a few points to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees. Letting Ukraine fall means the end of “carrot” nuclear non-proliferation, leaving us with only the “stick”.</li>
<li>It’s almost certain that Russia’s next move after Ukraine is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwałki_Gap">Suwałki Gap</a>, the tiny stretch of land that separates Belarus from Kaliningradskaya Oblast. This means either a full NATO-Russia war, or the dissolution of NATO. Neither is a great option.</li>
<li>If Ukraine falls and the world quickly returns to business as usual with Russia, it makes a Chinese invasion of Taiwan all but inevitable. The chances of the US being dragged into a wider conflict with China over Taiwan or the South China See are high.</li>
<li>The collapse of the rules-based international order makes more nationalist wars a certainty. Serbia’s troop buildup on the border of Kosovo wasn’t a fluke. There will be more.</li>
</ul>
<p>Packaging this into a quick narrative isn’t easy. But, I’ll give it a try.</p>
<p>Giving Ukraine the tools it needs to decisively end the Russian occupation costs little more than a rounding error in the US defense budget. The chances of escalation are small; bullies flee when pressured. Stopping the war in Ukraine means there is no wider NATO-Russian War in Europe, China will see the West is committed to its defense obligations, Western defense guarantees remain a viable alternative to nuclear proliferation. All of this without needing to put a single American or European solider in Ukraine.</p>
<p>Even that’s probably too abstract. But we’ve got to stop with the victimhood and constant begging.</p>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>If you’ve been on the interwebs lately, you’ve seen it. No need to give it more “engagement”. And there’s also no need to mention that tech billionaire’s name nor the reality TV star turned politician whose name is ubiquitous. Had we all just ignored them, we may well have skipped all of <em>this</em>. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Derek KedzioraWith the proverbial canary in the coal mine, you can ignore it, try to silence it, or you can accept that the canary might be presenting you with a chance to change course.The NYT and India2023-10-02T08:21:00+02:002023-10-02T08:21:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/the-nyt-and-india<p>Jatan sent me his own article about low-quality journalism: <a href="https://blog.jatan.space/p/the-nyt-continues-to-misrepresent-indian-space">The New York Times continues to misrepresent Indian space</a>. I recommend going through the examples, which are, unfortunately, typical of the Times.</p>
<p>To quote from the conclusion:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It might seem to some that I’m nitpicking but consider that a renowned publication with their (outsized) influence forms, shapes, and bends people’s opinions at scale. It’s an ability the NYT must certainly be aware of. With the responsibility it brings, not only should they know better but be mindful of the impact of the reporting tone alone.</p>
<p>It baffles me that the New York Times, a publication capable of hiring reporters, writers, and freelancers dedicated to covering niche beats—and that too locally as needed—either cannot find anyone suitable enough to get the most basic facts about Indian space right or simply doesn’t care to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don’t get it. The NYT has the resources to be so much better, and they just aren’t.</p>
<p>And if you think it’s <em>only this topic</em> that the NYT and other Western outlets are wrong about, keep in mind <a href="https://derekkedziora.com/blog/journalism#the-phenomenon-of-gell-man-amnesia">Gell-Man Amnesia</a>.</p>Derek KedzioraJatan sent me his own article about low-quality journalism: The New York Times continues to misrepresent Indian space. I recommend going through the examples, which are, unfortunately, typical of the Times.Coaching vs. coaching content2023-10-01T17:20:00+02:002023-10-01T17:20:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/coaching-vs-coaching-content<p>I recently had to help some people with what could be called coaching or consulting, albeit now about a professional matter. They have a big personal project and had become so emotionally involved and overwhelmed that they needed a slightly outside perspective to help set up a coherent set of next steps that would ultimately move them along to their desired end goal.</p>
<p>This is what coaching should do. Not necessarily have <em>any</em> answers but give you some tools and perspective to solve your own problems. To be effective though, this sort of intervention needs to be rare.</p>
<p>I also know a few people who are constantly drinking from the firehose of what I’d call the Tech Bro Bullshit Industrial Complex. You know, the types that listen to Tim Ferris, evangelize about microdosing, have “frank discussions about mental health”, and have every productivity app ever built.</p>
<p>Theres’s this weird infantilism among this crowd. All the talk of mental health has sapped any vitality. Sometimes, you just gotta suck it up and deal with the unpleasant aspects of life rather than “oh my therapist says I need to cut out this toxic stuff”.</p>
<p>And once you’ve read more than one or two productivity type books, you stop being productive. You no longer have the gumption to just grab the bull by the horns do things.</p>
<p>Ok, I’m rambling a bit.</p>
<p><strong>TLDR</strong>: real coaching and consulting moments can be incredibly valuable, and should be sought out. Rarely. If you’re constantly indulging in productivity content, reading about “mental health”, or self help, you probably need to get real instead. Or just <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhQGzeiYS_Q">stop it</a>.</p>Derek KedzioraI recently had to help some people with what could be called coaching or consulting, albeit now about a professional matter. They have a big personal project and had become so emotionally involved and overwhelmed that they needed a slightly outside perspective to help set up a coherent set of next steps that would ultimately move them along to their desired end goal.Circular reasoning2023-09-28T20:06:00+02:002023-09-28T20:06:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/circular-reasoning<p>This <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37659475">HN comment</a> made me chuckle because I could imagine it happening to me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had a similar experience trying to find a justification for a “House rule” we use when playing Catan (aka “the penny rule”). In trying to find a reputable source, the first result was to an HN comment… that I wrote. The folks we were playing with were not convinced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The more serious <a href="https://twitter.com/8teapi/status/1706520893621784780">original post</a> is that there’s a lot of circular reasoning going on with LLMs. Essentially, they spit out low quality content or outright nonsense, and that pool of content goes on to become source data for the next round of LLMs in a feedback loop of nonsense.</p>
<p>This is related to point that I’ve previously made in <a href="https://derekkedziora.com/notes/20230516200529">the closing of the canon</a>.</p>
<p>I’ve started using <a href="https://kagi.com">Kagi search</a> and what I really like about their LLM, called <a href="https://kagi.com/fastgpt">FastGPT</a>, is that it provides footnotes. Thereby LLMs become great research aides and librarians, which is where is there true utility lies, once the novelty wears off.</p>Derek KedzioraThis HN comment made me chuckle because I could imagine it happening to me:The Times and Karabagh2023-09-27T21:26:00+02:002023-09-27T21:26:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/another-one-from-the-times<p>I think it’s important to repeat just how low quality the journalism and general writing standards of the New York Times have become.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1707101251568111674">latest exhibit</a> is a headline talking about the latest fighting in Karabagh as “almost no one saw it coming”.</p>
<p>For anyone at all familiar with the region this was the inevitable outcome of the 2020 war. The fact that the Times didn’t seem to understand or report on that or the lead up to the current conflict is a damning indictment of their “journalism”. I keep repeating this specifically about the Times because they are held in such high esteem. They’re just Fox News with less odious political views.</p>
<p>The fates of Karabagh and Ukraine have become linked. In 2020, Azerbaijan proved that it was possible to unfreeze a conflict and, with the aide of far more modern weapons, render a Russian “peace keeping” mission completely irrelevant. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was ultimately the tipping point in Russia’s decision to go to war.</p>
<p>The dust is far from settled, but if the current Armenian government holds <em>and</em> Azerbaijan doesn’t attempt to bite off a land bridge to Naxcivan, Russia’s relevance in the region has dramatically diminished. The handwriting has been on the wall since the 2020 war.</p>
<p>There’s a lot that can be said about the humanitarian tragedy of the Karabagh wars. Unfortunately the Western press seems to be utterly incapable of covering complex stories, instead always wanting simplistic victims, heroes, and villains. It’s hard to find good in the leadership of any of the groups. That doesn’t diminish the suffering of the thousands of Azeri refugees from the first Karabagh war, nor does it diminish the suffering of Armenians fleeing from Karabagh right now.</p>
<p>The other aspect that’s not being heavily reported in the West is how Armenian leadership in Karabagh consistently refused <em>any</em> compromises towards a final peace settlement. Getting 99% of what they wanted wasn’t good enough. And now they’ll end up with 0%.</p>Derek KedzioraI think it’s important to repeat just how low quality the journalism and general writing standards of the New York Times have become.The ad tax2023-09-26T08:58:00+02:002023-09-26T08:58:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/the-ad-tax<blockquote>
<p>I believe advertising has become a tax that the poor and the technologically illiterate pay. Advertising sucks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From an <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/6/15/15809226/transcript-nyu-business-school-professor-l2-founder-scott-galloway-advertising-brands-recode-decode">interview with Scott Galloway</a>.</p>
<p>Every once in awhile I have to use the internet without an ad blocker, and it ain’t pretty.</p>Derek KedzioraI believe advertising has become a tax that the poor and the technologically illiterate pay. Advertising sucks.Apps and slow productivity2023-09-21T21:45:00+02:002023-09-21T21:45:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/apps-and-slow-productivity<p>I simply don’t trust Notion and the myriad of other clones enough to use them for anything in my personal life. Even Evernote, a paragon of software longevity, isn’t looking great.</p>
<p>To quote from <a href="https://twitter.com/kepano/status/1694731713686196526">@kepano</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The plan for Obsidian is to never grow beyond 10-12 people, never take VC funding, never collect personal data or analytics.</p>
<p>Continue building with the assumption that software is ephemeral, files matter more than apps. Use formats that are open and durable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And hence all of my personal stuff, notes, blog posts, thoughts, ideas are in simple, mostly markdown files. Sometimes I open them with Obsidian, sometimes iA Writer, sometimes VS Code, depending on what I want to do.</p>
<p>But the companies that take a more sane pace and approach to development are few and far between.</p>
<p>Take <a href="https://www.raycast.com">Raycast</a>. I like the product (except the annoying release notes that keep getting in my way and I can’t figure out how to opt out of), but they are at least <a href="https://www.raycast.com/careers">21 people on the team</a>. <a href="https://www.alfredapp.com">Alfred</a>, which does basically the same thing with a bit less polish has 2ish (my guess from looking at LinkedIn).</p>
<p>If I had to bet, Alfred will be around in 10 years. Raycast won’t.</p>
<p>Lately I’ve been around a lot noise. AI this, some new bot for that, more push workflows, more, more, more, and fast!</p>
<p>And the more value I see in things like Cal Newport’s slow productivity.</p>Derek KedzioraI simply don’t trust Notion and the myriad of other clones enough to use them for anything in my personal life. Even Evernote, a paragon of software longevity, isn’t looking great.Technically correct isn’t always the right UX2023-09-19T14:46:00+02:002023-09-19T14:46:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/technically-correct-isnt-always-the-right-ux<p>In iA Writer you no longer delete files. Instead, the menu text is “Move to trash”.</p>
<p>That’s technically correct. Your files will not be deleted, but moved to the trash, where they will be deleted in 30 days.</p>
<p>But this doesn’t sit well with me. My intent has <em>never</em> been to move something to the trash. I want to delete a file. Each time I delete a file, it takes me a couple seconds longer to find the menu item because the interface text is written in the mental model of the developer, not the end user.</p>
<p>I know some people insist on every text being <em>technically</em> correct, but this isn’t always helpful. If you really insist on adding some caveat, still call the primary action delete and consider a success toast the first time the action is done, “File moved to the trash”.</p>Derek KedzioraIn iA Writer you no longer delete files. Instead, the menu text is “Move to trash”.Just talking normal2023-09-17T10:10:00+02:002023-09-17T10:10:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/just-talking-normal<p>I’ve noticed that simply talking or writing on the internet in a relaxed, natural way is increasingly harder for many people, especially Americans.</p>
<p>Everyone talks like an influencer, even in casual conversations, in niche hobby subreddits. I notice so many people always talk in brand names as if everything is a product review. My guess is that they’re consuming ungodly amounts of influencer content and started talking like that unconsciously.</p>
<p>I also notice a lot of really awkward phrasings. One example that jumped out at me was a booked that mentioned checking your “communication device”. Simply using “phone” would have been perfectly understandable and I’d wager every reader would get that it applies to tablets, smart watches, and iPod touches — I know they’re still out there. Incidentally, a few pages into this book, the author was already hawking her courses. It feels like everything now is content marketing and an up-sale platform.</p>
<p>The reasons for this are more complex. There’s a misguided belief that in order to “inclusive” you have to have worked out every rare edge case. I suppose it’s a fundamental difference of opinion, but I’d rather write and talk in a way that’s more natural sounding and covers the vast majority of cases.</p>
<p>Going back to the idea of inclusivity, I’ve <a href="/notes/20221121215924">written about this before</a>, but a quick recap:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[R]ather than ask that “women” present themselves for a smear test, NHS letters and poster campaigns might use gender-neutral language and direct the appeal instead to “individuals with a cervix”, the phrase used by the American Cancer Society. This kind of language is feted as “more inclusive”, but the question we should be asking is, inclusive of whom?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unless you speak English natively and come from an upper-middle class background, good luck understanding what on earth an “individual with a cervix” is. Thankfully, we have a word that’s much simpler: “woman”. Admittedly there are some fuzzy boundaries with words like man and woman, but understandable communication is always a tradeoff between nuance and clarity.</p>
<p>I think the real motivation to speak in these weird euphemisms is to <em>exclude</em> lower social classes and mark the speaker as educated, erudite. When people talk like this, it’s worth challenging them. Who are they trying <em>exclude</em> by using stilted language?</p>
<p>I’m on the side of simplicity and clarity. In other words, talking normal. This is especially important in a place like Europe, where English is the main way people from different countries communicate with each other despite it being spoken natively by so few people here.</p>Derek KedzioraI’ve noticed that simply talking or writing on the internet in a relaxed, natural way is increasingly harder for many people, especially Americans.The Hidden Complexity of Static Sites2023-09-16T10:55:00+02:002023-09-16T10:55:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/blog/hidden-complexity<div class="callout">
<h2 id="update">Update!</h2>
<p>Thanks to some help from readers <a href="https://micro.canneddragons.net">Robert</a> and <a href="https://www.cocktailsandcoffee.com">Jimmy</a>, I’m experimenting with hosting this on <a href="https://blot.im">blot.im</a>, which solves most of what I was looking for.</p>
</div>
<p>Every year or so, I get the urge to host this site myself, By that, I mean use one of the relatively cheap hosting companies and pay for every bit that gets served up.</p>
<p>But there’s a lot of complexity that’s hidden behind the sleek exterior of static sites. GitHub works as a <em>de facto</em> database and Netlify as a server. This allows me to update my site from my phone, which is often how I write my shortest notes. Then I push to my repo on GitHub and Netlify does a new build and deploys in the background.</p>
<p>The easiest way to do a static site that’s not deployed by some combination of the free GitHub type services and then built by another service like Netlify or Cloudflare is to just build the site locally on my computer and host the static files.</p>
<p>But:</p>
<ol>
<li>Now I can only publish from my computer, which isn’t the end of the world, but a bit annoying</li>
<li>Suddenly this requires a lot of web-admin know-how to get all the 404s redirecting properly, to not have <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">rootdomain/static</code> open a directory with every file on the site, and other odds and ends like that</li>
<li>Even things as simple as an SSL certificate aren’t that easy to provision yourself</li>
</ol>
<p>GitHub Pages, Netlify, and the rest make all of that <em>just work</em> out of the box. But the cost is that I’m now beholden to a “free” service, which is precisely what I don’t want. I have deep misgivings about the ethics of the “freemium” model. No, GitHub and Netlify aren’t the cesspool of Facebook or Twitter, but I still don’t like entire model.</p>
<p>Things get even more complex if I don’t want to build the site on my personal computer. Then I’ve got to set up a server with both Git and Jekyll, and honestly, I can barely prod all the Ruby Gems to work on my own computer.</p>
<p>There are people who do this on the likes of DigitalOcean or NearlyFreeSpeech, but, jeez, it sure ain’t easy. And I want to spend the majority of the time and energy allotted to my humble abode on the world wide web actually writing, not pleading with servers to work.</p>
<p>Granted, this problem has been solved. It’s called WordPress. For about five bucks a month there are <em>dozens</em> of companies that will have you up and running with your own site that checks all the boxes of what I want.</p>
<p>For now, I have no plans to migrate. I’ll keep pushing commits to GitHub and letting Netlify do its thing without paying either of them a dime. And the main reason I’ll continue to do that is that there’s nothing, that I know of — and if I’m wrong, please <a href="/contact">let me know</a>, that does all that for static sites and is priced for regular people, something like five bucks a month so.</p>
<p>The simplest things are often far more complex than we can imagine, as is summed up, more academically in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_conservation_of_complexity">Tesler’s law</a> or more vividly in <a href="https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm#minimalism">Chickenshit minimalism</a>. And we do end up paying for everything, albeit often in ways that we can’t predict. The freemium tiers and VC giveaways aren’t sustainable, and I don’t think any of us can say we’s going to come next. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up in a sort of knowledge desert; the easy UXes have collapsed because they weren’t profitable, and there are too few people left that actually can coax the machines directly.</p>Derek KedzioraIntegration baby steps2023-09-12T19:29:00+02:002023-09-12T19:29:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/integration-baby-steps<p>Finding opportunities to actually use Dutch in real life are surprisingly hard when you’re a native English speaker, since everyone I interact with speaks absolutely fluent English. But I’ve had my first small step in integration: I’m the only non-Dutch person in my Tai Chi class.</p>
<p>And so the class is in Dutch. I can get most of it, since it’s not exactly rocket science.</p>
<p>I hope this is the start of finding more things to do that require me to use Dutch. And of course, learning Tai Chi is a nice thing too.</p>Derek KedzioraFinding opportunities to actually use Dutch in real life are surprisingly hard when you’re a native English speaker, since everyone I interact with speaks absolutely fluent English. But I’ve had my first small step in integration: I’m the only non-Dutch person in my Tai Chi class.Tolerance & tribes2023-09-09T17:20:00+02:002023-09-09T17:20:00+02:00https://derekkedziora.com/notes/tolerance-<p>This older piece, <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/">I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup</a>, recently did another round of internet popularity (the <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37406719">comments on HN</a> are interesting). Some excerpts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: “Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?”</p>
<p>Bodhidharma answers: “None at all”.</p>
<p>The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why.</p>
<p>Bodhidharma asks: “Well, what do you think of gay people?”</p>
<p>The Emperor answers: “What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!”</p>
<p>And Bodhidharma answers: “Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, unless you’re tolerating someone whom you genuinely find repugnant, you aren’t actually practicing tolerance.</p>
<p>And as the next point makes clear, most of those praising their own tolerance are unlikely to even know a single person who actually thinks differently than they do:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are certain theories of dark matter where it barely interacts with the regular world at all, such that we could have a dark matter planet exactly co-incident with Earth and never know. Maybe dark matter people are walking all around us and through us, maybe my house is in the Times Square of a great dark matter city, maybe a few meters away from me a dark matter blogger is writing on his dark matter computer about how weird it would be if there was a light matter person he couldn’t see right next to him.</p>
<p>This is sort of how I feel about conservatives.</p>
<p>I don’t mean the sort of light-matter conservatives who go around complaining about Big Government and occasionally voting for Romney. I see those guys all the time. What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.</p>
<p>And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And thus tolerance became tribal:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Red Tribe is most classically typified by conservative political beliefs, strong evangelical religious beliefs, creationism, opposing gay marriage, owning guns, eating steak, drinking Coca-Cola, driving SUVs, watching lots of TV, enjoying American football, getting conspicuously upset about terrorists and commies, marrying early, divorcing early, shouting “USA IS NUMBER ONE!!!”, and listening to country music.</p>
<p>The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.</p>
<p>(There is a partly-formed attempt to spin off a Grey Tribe typified by libertarian political beliefs, Dawkins-style atheism, vague annoyance that the question of gay rights even comes up, eating paleo, drinking Soylent, calling in rides on Uber, reading lots of blogs, calling American football “sportsball”, getting conspicuously upset about the War on Drugs and the NSA, and listening to filk – but for our current purposes this is a distraction and they can safely be considered part of the Blue Tribe most of the time)</p>
<p>I think these “tribes” will turn out to be even stronger categories than politics. Harvard might skew 80-20 in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, 90-10 in terms of liberals vs. conservatives, but maybe 99-1 in terms of Blues vs. Reds.</p>
<p>It’s the many, many differences between these tribes that explain the strength of the filter bubble – which have I mentioned segregates people at a strength of 1/10^45? Even in something as seemingly politically uncharged as going to California Pizza Kitchen or Sushi House for dinner, I’m restricting myself to the set of people who like cute artisanal pizzas or sophsticated foreign foods, which are classically Blue Tribe characteristics.</p>
<p>Are these tribes based on geography? Are they based on race, ethnic origin, religion, IQ, what TV channels you watched as a kid? I don’t know.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>People don’t care about ideological consistency. They care about signaling and belonging to their respective tribes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The worst reaction I’ve ever gotten to a blog post was when I wrote about the death of Osama bin Laden. I’ve written all sorts of stuff about race and gender and politics and whatever, but that was the worst.</p>
<p>I didn’t come out and say I was happy he was dead. But some people interpreted it that way, and there followed a bunch of comments and emails and Facebook messages about how could I possibly be happy about the death of another human being, even if he was a bad person? Everyone, even Osama, is a human being, and we should never rejoice in the death of a fellow man. One commenter came out and said:</p>
<p>I’m surprised at your reaction. As far as people I casually stalk on the internet (ie, LJ and Facebook), you are the first out of the “intelligent, reasoned and thoughtful” group to be uncomplicatedly happy about this development and not to be, say, disgusted at the reactions of the other 90% or so.</p>
<p>This commenter was right. Of the “intelligent, reasoned, and thoughtful” people I knew, the overwhelming emotion was conspicuous disgust that other people could be happy about his death. I hastily backtracked and said I wasn’t happy per se, just surprised and relieved that all of this was finally behind us.</p>
<p>And I genuinely believed that day that I had found some unexpected good in people – that everyone I knew was so humane and compassionate that they were unable to rejoice even in the death of someone who hated them and everything they stood for.</p>
<p>Then a few years later, Margaret Thatcher died. And on my Facebook wall – made of these same “intelligent, reasoned, and thoughtful” people – the most common response was to quote some portion of the song “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead”. Another popular response was to link the videos of British people spontaneously throwing parties in the street, with comments like “I wish I was there so I could join in”. From this exact same group of people, not a single expression of disgust or a “c’mon, guys, we’re all human beings here.”</p>
<p>I gently pointed this out at the time, and mostly got a bunch of “yeah, so what?”, combined with links to an article claiming that “the demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure’s death is not just misguided but dangerous”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This has profound implications for how we should approach dialogue:</p>
<ol>
<li>There’s very little point in arguing about truth or facts as they won’t change many peoples’ minds.</li>
<li>The media and, really, all of us have a responsibility to not tribalize things. Us vs. them thinking makes it incredibly hard for anyone to change his or her mind. So if you find yourself thinking that people who disagree with are idiots, take pause.</li>
<li>Loosening various tribal identities, widening their scope, and moving them to things that basically don’t matter such as sports teams, iOS vs. Android (ok, just kidding, I really don’t get Android people) are a net benefit.</li>
<li>There’s value in seeking out true ideological diversity, and it’s often hiding in plain sight.</li>
<li>American media and tech companies have made a fortune off of building tribal identities and then pitting them against one another. Due to the dominance of American culture around the world, this is having a negative effect everywhere.</li>
</ol>Derek KedzioraThis older piece, I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup, recently did another round of internet popularity (the comments on HN are interesting). Some excerpts: