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LM: #389: Digital barbarism
Civilization is a set of standards around how to limit the base primal desires.
Systems of government and laws help us decide when, where, and by whom violence will be administered.
Constructs and rituals such as marriage and courtship establish norms around who should have sex, when.
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Nutrition science, dietary guidelines, and food-safety practices create boundaries around what and how much we eat.
There were times in the distant past when these primal drives ruled the world. They reached their points of diminishing returns. We eschewed barbarism for civility.
The primal drive that never gets talked about is our drive for information. Our appetite for information is the master drive that helps us satisfy and tame all other drives.
Notice that we have words for when our drives become harmful: wrath, greed, lust, gluttony.
Our drive for information is called curiosity. Sure we’ve got “Curiosity killed the cat,” but curiosity is overall considered a good thing.
The most negative word associated with curiosity is gossip. That’s not a surprise because for most of human history, other humans in our vicinity were our only sources of information.
Our sources of information have snowballed into this digital age, where there is more than you could consume in a thousand lifetimes.
We’ve spiraled into informational gluttony. There is more than any one of us can digest. The volume of information has shattered our shared myths, and created conflicting factions subscribing to new myths.
Because we don’t have agreed-upon standards about how much information is enough or what types of information are healthy.
We’re in an age of digital barbarism.
Aphorism: “There is nothing so unsociable and sociable as man, the one by his vice, the other by his nature.” —Montaigne
Book: The Invention of News (Amazon) traces the history of staying informed, from the days before printing to the 1800s.
Best,
David
P.S. Cal Newport was once on my podcast talking about digital minimalism.
