02 May 2017

Mark Manson: “Everything is Fucked and I’m Pretty Sure it’s the Internet’s Fault”

Economics 101 teaches us that when there’s an oversupply of something, people value it less. If we wake up tomorrow and there are suddenly 3 billion extra lawnmowers in the US, the price of lawnmowers will plummet. If suddenly everyone had a Louis Vuitton bag, nobody would care about Louis Vuitton anymore. People would throw them out, forget them, spill wine on them, and give them away to charities.

What if the same is true for information? What if increasing the supply of information to the point where it’s limitless has made us value any particular piece of information less?

If I read an article today telling me that processed grains are harmful, there will be three articles telling me tomorrow that they’re fine, and then another article telling me why all of the previous articles were wrong. By now, I don’t even care anymore. I don’t trust any of them. The abundance of contradicting information scrambles my brain and makes me just want to go play Mario Kart for an hour.

Mark Manson

Fully agree (see: fake news).

The even larger problem: the tech giants feeding us this constant stream of information have no incentive to dial it back down, because they are funded by ads and views; the more we consume, the more they earn and collect data about our habits. And few people have the discipline to cut back on this infinite online distraction.

Key quote to summarize the article: infinite information doesn’t enlighten people. It confuses them.

Everything is fucked because of the Internet

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