We spent US independence day at an American friend's home, eating burgers, pulled pork and hotdogs - with the potato and the tossed salad provided by us. It was nice to spend some time with a few ex-colleagues, though there was some feelings of bitterness there also. Not toward them, but listening to what is going on at the company now, I am better suited than I was earlier. And I was doing a good job then. There is a lot of disruption going on and processes and roles are changing in many ways - I could help people transition more smoothly.
Oh well.
We had many discussions throughout the evening, mostly light-hearted and teasing each other. But at the start of the evening I mentioned something about the world being pretty messed up and and another continued that everywhere you look, it is failing. However, later on in the evening I realised something that I hadn't about these people earlier, and maybe most people in general. They are all very intelligent (far more so than myself), yet they do not connect the dots between events.
For me, everything is connected, meaning that if one dumpster fire is something like the current economic situation, and another is youth crime, and the third might be the healthcare system - they are all connected. But based on some later conversations, it seems that people don't think in the same way as me on these things, and I think I have an idea as to why.
The way we consume information these days.
Before, information like "news" was pretty standard and relevant to the particular day. While there might have been several main stories, there weren't that many we couldn't understand in the context of our lives and, there was often some kind of theme with them, as there was a general alignment with what was happening both locally, and around the world. We could place ourselves in the story in some way, because it was more relevant to our daily lives.
However, nowadays, information is consumed in a piecemeal fashion, delivered in parts that are often not actually connected to our daily experience. One topic is consumed, and the next topic is something completely unrelated, and the next is something else that is not related to the first. Even the medium changes, as we shift across various platforms to collect random bits of information. However, the speed at which it pours through our senses also means we don't spend time really considering firstly the topic, and then how it is connected to everything else.
And then even when something takes our attention and our interest enough to learn a bit about it, we talk about it as if it is in a silo, disconnected from everything else. We feel we know the topic, but we do not build the entry conditions for the topic. It sits in our mind as a single item, rather than a square on the chessboard, populated by multiple pieces and many players.
Of course, this is observational and I can't speak for everyone, but as I think back to other recent conversations with different people, it has been similar. People are able to talk in a narrow field, but if the conversation leads to what I see as a connected area, it is like a "does not compute" sign flashes across their eyes and they shutdown.
I am not talking about totally disconnected threads, but thinks that may lay just to the side. And what this demonstrates to me when people are talking about some current topic, is that they have consumed some information on the topic, but haven't thought much about how it relates to their world, which would tie it to other pieces of the board. This might also imply that what they "know" is actually just thoughtless regurgitation of what they have consumed. Like vomiting up lunch - if you only ate a salad, you aren't going to vomit a cheesecake.
Just so you can visualise it.
The interesting thing is, that all things have to be connected in some way, even though the connections might be distant. However, there are plenty enough close relationships between situations that we should at least be able to acknowledge that they exist, even if we don't know all the implications. But it is more like in Friends when Joey only has enough money to buy the "V" encyclopaedia and uses it to sound smart, but then the topic changes to circumstances that start with other letters, and he knows nothing.
There is a whole alphabet of information.
And perhaps this is another reason for a lot of the challenges in parsing information to better understand it, as we probably discuss less at depth with people face to face, which means our discussions are more engineered and less dynamic than they were. And likely, more narrow with topics already set, like work meetings with an agenda, rather than the sprawling conversations of people who enjoy the challenge. People want easy.
Thinking is harder than not thinking.
I might not be right with all of the connections I make, but I think that over time, I have got pretty good at building coherent connections between what might seem unrelated topics. It is frustrating for many who speak with me though, because they think I am "off topic" whilst I do not think that, because to me, it is a natural progression of the conversation.
The reason I think I am better suited to the conditions at my old workplace now?
Because many of the changes they are making, I was trying to get started two years ago, but got pushback, because people were unwilling to change, because they didn't have to. They did have to - they just didn't know it yet, because they hadn't connected the dots.
We are predictive animals that can attempt to describe the future, and then create it. But to do so with some kind of accuracy, we have to be able to understand the connections now, where they came from, and then - where they might lead.
Taraz
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Totally agree! I legitimately think that a lot of our societal problems right now come from the falling popularity of unions.
I know a lot of political leaders (Reagan, Thatcher, LNP) have done everything they could to dissolve those collective powers, but all these issues are connected.
I might also be inclined to believe that billionaire-funded media works hard to distract us with a firehose of 'unrelated news items' so that we can't focus on the bigger issue (all resources being held by a tiny minority).
Hang on.... I am now confused. I am not used to this! :D
Yep. The platform and business models are built for it - the ultimate, divide and conquer tools.
Hahahaha, I imagine we agree on probably 98% of things, haha, but that 2% is the most interesting for sure...
A lot of folks seem to see every issue as a specific thing separate from everything else. I see society and the economy as a web, but I disagree with many over what the root problems are. At least we can agree there is more at play than TV talking points.
Some people can naturally see the patterns and the big picture, some people get distracted by small details. This is our life.
Hello. I think your opinions on this sensitive issue, or I would say “problem,” are very accurate.
Indeed, we are increasingly subject (objects) to (mis)communication or (mis)information, which harasses us and, at the same time, weakens us.
We are, in general, a kind of “lab rats,” subjected to the most diverse experiments with unknown consequences. The spearhead is “information,” of which we are both victims and perpetrators, exposed to so many channels of communication.
Unfortunately, today it is very difficult, collectively, to have our own independent opinion and attitude towards the things that happen. We try to “save ourselves” individually.
Best regards, @tarazkp.
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It's interesting to think about how our current ways of communicating might restrict the depth of our conversations. As discussions are usually organized around set agendas or particular subjects, there's not much space for spontaneous dialogue that lets ideas develop and change naturally.
I completely agree with what you said. People have difficulty connecting and integrating events in conversations. We learn and consume information in a simple way. Book reading habits are decreasing. I attribute this to that. People now read social media instead of books.
Quite an interesting and important topic.
I am a professor of Geography and there is a law of the geographic envelope called the Law of Integrity which in its essence states that when you alter one component of an ecosystem all the others are also modified.
And, to me that is what happens with events in the world, if they are connected and interrelated.
There is a problem in the modern world that occurs for various reasons and it is that we are not analyzing the problems in an integral way and we only see them in parts. That is why many people think that a war thousands of kilometers away does not affect me because the bombs will not reach my territory. But, and everything that derives from there, does it affect me or not?
That is what happened with the pandemic that started in China and then what happened?
We have to learn to analyze the information and know that, many times, those who provide it are interested in us thinking in a fragmented way and we play the game.
Thank you for this very interesting topic.
Happy Saturday.
Cheers and greetings.
Everything in this world is interconnected now. And in 2020 during Covid, markets all over the world fell simultaneously, and in 2008 during the mortgage crisis. I look at Buffett's actions over the last 2 years and I see that he accumulates a lot of money, paying attention to his market overheating ratios. The next crisis is just around the corner.
Many observe the pieces, but few connect the patterns, your reflections show how essential it is to think beyond isolated events and see the bigger picture.
I think a lot of it is definitely connected. I also think a lot of it boils down to greed and apathy.
I also had a nice burger yesterday. yes, thoughts lead to actions.. 😉🙂👊
People don't like change. Sounds like you were ahead of the curve at your company, they didn't want to listen, but now they have to embrace the change anyway.
This reminded me of when I first started commenting on your articles and how I would long for a move from the US to Costa Rica. This was a year or two before Trump got re-elected. I knew that summer 2024 was going to be ugly with political attacks and fear mongering. It was even worse than expected, complete with failed (staged?) assassination attempt.
Almost a year later, and much of the bad stuff I was worried would happen has been codified into law through executive force and threats against our legislative branch. Our representatives did NOT vote for the will of the people and their constituents, with quite a few changing their vote last minute and going against the desires of their constituents because they feared for their political lives (and business handouts).
That's what strongmen and bullies like Trump do. Threats of violence. Threats of banishment. And so, here we are, all the dots finally coming together, but too late for the pathetically stupid poor people who voted for this monster because of their racism to figure out. I wish my partner would have taken me more seriously when I said I wanted to leave last summer. Now it is getting harder to even leave the country. The US isn't just restricting who can come in, but now they are actively policing who can leave.
I can't believe that for the first time in my life, I was genuinely concerned that I may face repercussions from sharing free speech on social media that criticized the government. This was a right I took for granted my entire life, but now I'm seeing stories of citizens getting stuck at the border for posting the wrong thing. For condemning acts of cruelty and violence perpetrated by the rich ruling class.
Get me out of this hellscape. I can't in good faith continue to support this country when it is turning into the authoritarian police state that saw my family flee religious persecution from the Nazis nearly 100 years ago. Never again is happening right now, and I feel powerless to stop it.