The rise of envy from social media and the rise of individualism are having downstream effects on how we view the people around us and what goals we set for ourselves. Always looking out for number one is good for us in some respects but can make us feel lonely and rudderless.

Books referenced - Generations by Jean Twenge, Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

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"The progressive among us want our society to be equal, and yet many of the selfsame people uncritically accept the notion of meritocracy, the idea that we should receive rewards consistent with our abilities. Meritocracy is a machine for creating inequality; that is its very purpose. Only the false god of "equality of opportunity" keeps the fiction of meritocracy plus equality alive." - deBoer

Bringing together different articles, books, opinion pieces, and other audio clips of people more gifted at speaking and writing than myself together and bundling them into one dissertation is something that I feel this podcast does well. And hopefully I encourage people who are interested in the topic to read or hear it from the experts for more information.

These four charts show how the SAT favors rich, educated families The Washington Post, 2014

How Life Became an Endless, Terrible Competition - Daniel Markovits, The Atlantic, 2019

The tyranny of merit - Michael Sandel, TED, 2020

Making Sense Podcast - Michael Sandel and Sam Harris

Books referenced - The Cult of Smart by Fredrik deBoer, Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel

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Why aren't we happier? We don’t always do voluntary things for enjoyment. Leisure time is spent trying to be productive or trying to keep up with the Joneses. We let somebody else's goals become our goals. Not only that, but we usually aren't connected to the present moment when we do spend our time wisely.

Don't forget to think about what it is that you are trying to get out of life. What you're trying to get out of this moment of free time you have. We don't want to let an ad dictate what we consider to be entertaining. We don’t want social media algorithms dictating what we become interested in and to lead us down a rabbit hole. But, we do want to follow rabbit holes we are genuinely interested in. Rabbit holes that feed our curiosity, not our envy or our desire to fit in. We want to fall in love, to be obsessed with, to be engaged with what we’re doing.

"I cannot remember the books I have read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Alan Lightman's article from April 2020 -  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-is-changing-habits-of-mind/609181/

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How did the problem of misinformation and disinformation get so bad? Belonging is stronger than facts.

How do we fix it?

"Extreme opinions inspire loyalty among a minority that is ultimately more valuable than the unenthusiastic approval of the whole crowd. These are unhealthy incentives. But they are powerful incentives. Readers always, always tell me that they just want to see the academic posts, just the serious posts. What they don’t seem to realize is that if I had stuck to writing just those thoughtful essays they wouldn’t have heard of me in the first place." - Fredrik deBoer

Election Integrity Partnership report (includes six page summary and option to download full report)  - https://www.eipartnership.net/report

Article with intro quote from Renee DiResta - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/11/28/the-digital-maginot-line/

Infographic on how narratives spread online (from EIP) - https://i.imgur.com/QA00Yfz.png

Article detailing the mail dumping events in Greenville, Wisconsin by Renee DiResta - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/right-wing-propagandists-were-doing-something-unique/618267/

Article explaining why belonging is stronger than facts by Zeynep Tufekci - https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/08/14/240325/how-social-media-took-us-from-tahrir-square-to-donald-trump/

Article on why crowds are powerful by Renee DiResta - https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/09/15/crowds-and-technology/

News that Facebook is changing the way it recommends groups - https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-crack-groups-break-rules-rcna435

Timeline infographic from the EIP that shows what tech platforms did to stem misinformation leading up to the election - https://i.imgur.com/iGLGKHB.png

More information on the The Redirect Method - https://redirectmethod.org/

Article on the rise of "content cartels" and their collaboration with one another by Evelyn Douek - https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-rise-of-content-cartels

Freddie DeBoer blog post on why censoring people isn't the answer - https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-cant-censor-away-extremism-or

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Attention is one of the most precious things we have. How do we make sure that we're paying attention to the things we really want? Better yet, how do we make sure the things we pay attention to are actually conducive to our happiness and well-being? Companies like Google aren't doing us any favors in figuring this out.

Take the time to decide why you want something. Don't let others make the decision for you.

Essay on advertising and happiness by Thomas Wells - https://www.philosophersbeard.org/2014/08/if-youre-so-rich-why-arent-you-happier.html

Article on "corporate speak" by Molly Young https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/spread-of-corporate-speak.html

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The type of content that gets the most eyeballs has psychological effects and changes the conversation. Not just the tone of the conversation, the entire conversation. We read it more often because algorithms push it to the top of our feed. And we think of how best to create it in an attempt to get engagement and followers. The more we expose ourselves to this content, the more it changes what we think about, talk about, and care about. It causes us to think of different goals to reach and to rethink what's important.

The diagram/flowchart showing how the five topics mentioned in the episode are intertwined with one another and what the causes and effects are - https://i.imgur.com/25nIdMT.png

The Social Dilemma is a documentary that was released on Netflix on September 9, 2020. I recommend that everyone who is interested in this episode go watch it.

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The problem we face with social media is not just spending too much time on our phones. We have a much bigger issue to deal with:

"The problem is essentially runaway extractive capitalism that's treating human beings as a resource and dumping out externalities in the form of a breakdown of truth, a breakdown of democracies, and an inability to work on existential threats like climate change." - Tristan Harris

Many of us have heard of machine learning chess engines that can play moves no human would think of. What if we had a machine learning algorithm that, instead of predicting what the best chess move is, it predicts what the next human move is? What if it predicts what motivates a person to spend money? And what if that algorithm has already been created in an attempt to figure out how to effectively sell as many shoes as possible?

We have algorithms that are attempting to decode the human soul. And the attempts are getting more successful every day.

Zeynep Tufekci TED Talk - https://youtu.be/iFTWM7HV2UI

3Blue1Brown helps us to understand neural networks/machine learning - https://youtu.be/aircAruvnKk

Tristan Harris in a recent conversation on persuasive technology - https://youtu.be/0TZKOuQLMfM

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Electability has become the newest buzzword of the 2020 democratic primary. But, what exactly does it mean? It is a conglomeration of many things, but has no meaning without its constituent parts. A car is a combination of an engine, wheels, metal, etc. For a car to be a "car" it must have all of the necessary parts to get you from point A to B. For someone to be electable they must have all of the necessary parts to win votes.

Ted-Ed Video on Game Theory - https://youtu.be/MknV3t5QbUc

Maggie Koerth on Electability - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/youll-never-know-which-candidate-is-electable/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-knowing-whom-others-might-vote-for-change-whom-youll-vote-for/

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Why is mainstream media unable to get through to people why the president is bad for the country? It doesn't seem to be from a lack of trying. How can so many people trust a known liar more than a reputable news organization? Millennials are turning away from mainstream media for a multitude of reasons, but confusion still remains as to why organizations like CNN and MSNBC are powerless when exposing the truth about the president.

Let's go in depth about the radicalization of today's white nationalists. Not just "it's 4chan's fault" but how and why people get led to 4chan in the first place. What leads people from the moment they are born to the online white nationalist strongholds when they are becoming adults? Why them and not others? And, if a deprogramming of this mindset can be implemented, what is it?

I can honestly and uncomfortably say that I feel I was on an adjacent path to the white nationalist indoctrination pipeline and I'm lucky to come out unscathed. I feel like this puts me in an uncommon position to be able to explain this pipeline extensively and know the best ways to carve a way out of it.

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