You’ve deftly written what I’ve had an inchoate feeling for some time. I have extensive “Notes” on my iPhone which are indices of ideas I used to have in word files, laptop, disks, cassettes (!) and so on.
I used to have a game with friends where we had lists of predicted technology and dates it might surface, which has been quite fun, still not at the bottom of old lists, and my “Siri command” list is still growing. Technology development paths and outcomes are easy to see.
My experience on internet in research is that for what passes as ideas in some combination of medicine and sociology (take a “gay brain”) is mostly crapola. Hard sciences is ok (e.g. Entropic gravity vs dark matter). AMA declared declared that AIDS would be soon over in the late 80’s kind of thing - can you trust AMA papers? I’m still re-evaluating mirror neurons. My index on trans grows ever more strongly predictive.
I also find strong ideas which may be reasonable get latched onto by conspiracy theorists and the ideas curdle, and hard to discriminate with based on Internet “research”. For example, controlling for a number of factors, people in the US do not show consistent average height growth since the 70’s compared to other countries like Holland. I also have observed cock size in men across the world, at private sex parties, in advertisements and public situations, and American men under 45-55 can be quite a bit smaller than their counterparts. Americans are also fatter across the board… which started in the late 70’s. The explanation I found, the Occam’s razor was xenoesteogens, which suppress height by activating growth plate calcification, can cause anything from hypospadas to breast growth in boys, and have receptors in fat cells which can stimulate accumulation of adipose tissue (I call it the Height Length Width problem) But the world of PFA’s, Atrazine and other chemistry has huge swaths of conspiracy-driven discussion which makes most research to clarify and quantify ideas useless.
Getting people to ask the right questions as they read is so, so hard.
What I love reading this is that there is so much here I haven't read about. Of course, I also treasure your uncensored mind. It is often the only way to get at the heart of what matters, what trends are being ignored, and what people wish they could hear about and talk about.
To go with your Occam's razor concern, I just got off the phone with a reporter where they asked for my thoughts on the rise in loneliness. And this went so much longer than they probably expected - as I asked, when was the rise? and how many factors can I suggest because there is so much more to the puzzle than just smartphones and social media. And off we went for an hour. I should have recorded it as I know only 3 lines will probably make the final piece.
I'm not one for cards because I will lose them, forget to file them, begin with a hiss and a roar then abandon them quickly afterwards (thanks ADHD) BUT I have an enormous stash of digital clippings and ponderings! They're mainly filed in my Endnote library and in various folders across my electronic devices so I can find them again...
Thinking about generative AI, the main concern I have with this technology is this suspicion that serendipitous connections (like the random article found in a journal that also has the article I was looking for) won't happen and we'll be even less likely to explore intriguing ideas than we do with Google Scholar.
Aww thanks! I read in a concentrated fashion a few hours a day, and being endlessly curious and a good memory it accumulates in my mind. I could tell you about primate eyes, celestial music, sex on drugs (uncensored) … things nobody really considers seriously perhaps.
Loneliness BTW links to unsatisfied need to see faces. Akin to how Diet Coke can make you hungry. Consider that there are 40 or so muscles in the face - they’re not all used for chewing or blinking. The fine-grained motor control we have over our voice extends to the face - humans use the face heavily for communication. I think we have a deep innate need to exercise face communications, and unsatisfied it leaves us feeling isolated, and ignored. We need to feel our words reflected in the faces of others. Telephone, videoconferencing and all the different ways the face is blocked off, they all give communications with the frustration of not seeing our words to feel if we are understood, valued, connected.
The difference between remote work and in-person is staggering. It all links together.
You’ve deftly written what I’ve had an inchoate feeling for some time. I have extensive “Notes” on my iPhone which are indices of ideas I used to have in word files, laptop, disks, cassettes (!) and so on.
I used to have a game with friends where we had lists of predicted technology and dates it might surface, which has been quite fun, still not at the bottom of old lists, and my “Siri command” list is still growing. Technology development paths and outcomes are easy to see.
My experience on internet in research is that for what passes as ideas in some combination of medicine and sociology (take a “gay brain”) is mostly crapola. Hard sciences is ok (e.g. Entropic gravity vs dark matter). AMA declared declared that AIDS would be soon over in the late 80’s kind of thing - can you trust AMA papers? I’m still re-evaluating mirror neurons. My index on trans grows ever more strongly predictive.
I also find strong ideas which may be reasonable get latched onto by conspiracy theorists and the ideas curdle, and hard to discriminate with based on Internet “research”. For example, controlling for a number of factors, people in the US do not show consistent average height growth since the 70’s compared to other countries like Holland. I also have observed cock size in men across the world, at private sex parties, in advertisements and public situations, and American men under 45-55 can be quite a bit smaller than their counterparts. Americans are also fatter across the board… which started in the late 70’s. The explanation I found, the Occam’s razor was xenoesteogens, which suppress height by activating growth plate calcification, can cause anything from hypospadas to breast growth in boys, and have receptors in fat cells which can stimulate accumulation of adipose tissue (I call it the Height Length Width problem) But the world of PFA’s, Atrazine and other chemistry has huge swaths of conspiracy-driven discussion which makes most research to clarify and quantify ideas useless.
Getting people to ask the right questions as they read is so, so hard.
What I love reading this is that there is so much here I haven't read about. Of course, I also treasure your uncensored mind. It is often the only way to get at the heart of what matters, what trends are being ignored, and what people wish they could hear about and talk about.
To go with your Occam's razor concern, I just got off the phone with a reporter where they asked for my thoughts on the rise in loneliness. And this went so much longer than they probably expected - as I asked, when was the rise? and how many factors can I suggest because there is so much more to the puzzle than just smartphones and social media. And off we went for an hour. I should have recorded it as I know only 3 lines will probably make the final piece.
You rock, Todd. 👍
I'm not one for cards because I will lose them, forget to file them, begin with a hiss and a roar then abandon them quickly afterwards (thanks ADHD) BUT I have an enormous stash of digital clippings and ponderings! They're mainly filed in my Endnote library and in various folders across my electronic devices so I can find them again...
Thinking about generative AI, the main concern I have with this technology is this suspicion that serendipitous connections (like the random article found in a journal that also has the article I was looking for) won't happen and we'll be even less likely to explore intriguing ideas than we do with Google Scholar.
I didn’t know such index-card sorting contraptions existed! Running to the store now!!
I’m also using this bad boy for my new book - https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074QQTKFL?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
Aww thanks! I read in a concentrated fashion a few hours a day, and being endlessly curious and a good memory it accumulates in my mind. I could tell you about primate eyes, celestial music, sex on drugs (uncensored) … things nobody really considers seriously perhaps.
Loneliness BTW links to unsatisfied need to see faces. Akin to how Diet Coke can make you hungry. Consider that there are 40 or so muscles in the face - they’re not all used for chewing or blinking. The fine-grained motor control we have over our voice extends to the face - humans use the face heavily for communication. I think we have a deep innate need to exercise face communications, and unsatisfied it leaves us feeling isolated, and ignored. We need to feel our words reflected in the faces of others. Telephone, videoconferencing and all the different ways the face is blocked off, they all give communications with the frustration of not seeing our words to feel if we are understood, valued, connected.
The difference between remote work and in-person is staggering. It all links together.