Everything Happens So Much

A Really Fake Newsletter

Another Monday, Another Naive Weekly - Curated stories on Technology and Internet Culture.

Last week Elon Musk went to Twitter to promote long working hours for anyone who aimed to do a meaningful impact in the world. A large group of people went to argue against Elon. Unsurprisingly a probably equally large sized group of people went to argue against the people arguing against Elon.

In other words: yet another day on The Internet.

At some point I’d love to have a clear opinion on working hours. The 40 hour work week was pioneered by Henry Ford and it feels odd that what fuelled the mass industrialization is the foundation of today’s work-life. It seems unproductive.

However, working hours is not a straight forward concept to talk about. At first level it requires an understanding of productivity. How we best spent our time is at the core of any discussion about work hours.

Productivity is subsequently closely linked to the actual work we do. Is it writing code? Sitting at a cashier? Teaching? Consulting? Cleaning? Each job involves different tasks and intuitively I’d guess this should be reflected in how the workers are productive.

If the ‘work’ in ‘work hours‘ was not enough of a challenge to make a statement on working hours, then wait for time. I understand that the day has 24 hours and that it is related to the Earth’s rotation around the sun… but I don’t truly understand wtf is time.

Anyway.

Humans have bodies and live in time and space. Being connected to a world wide web of other humans and bots exposes us to an overwhelming flow of information. Every day there are millions of arguments on Twitter just like Elon’s 40hr work week. Every second a news story is published.

How is life when everything happens so much?

Peak Social Media

For social media platforms it appears that the information flow favours the content at the edge. In a recent post, Mark Zuckerberg explains how the popular content on Facebook always is at the borderline of what is accepted - no matter where Facebook sets the border!

This might explain why the Ibis Hotel chain recently announced Instagram-sitters. It is as bad as it sounds. For the net sum of $90 you get an influencer to follow you and take photos of your perfect holiday. “Relax we post”.

And if going on holiday is too much of a stretch for your tight budget and busy schedule, why don’t you just sit back in a fake private jet to post real photos for Instagram of your glamours life?

I wonder if this is peak social media? How many fake over-priced shoes do we want to buy? How many fake restaurants do we want to visit? How important is it to push our isolated co-beings further into loneliness while competing for everyone’s attention?

Maybe being real with close friends is a way forward? Or maybe we should just stop consuming for identity and instead reflect on who we are without the doing?

Reader’s Corner

A few stories and links you shared with me after last week’s newsletter.

Aydo shared a recent episode of Foreign Affair’s podcast First Person. It tells the rather disturbing story of how it is to live on the edge of what is pre-scribed. It quickly involved the entire family.

Leo shared a link to CalmTech. I’m happy for any link supporting more considerate use of technology. If you are interested in the topic, I recommend to follow Center for Humane Technology, Cal Newport, SlowWeb and Hurry Slowly. And pre-order Jenny Odell’s new book: “How to do nothing”.

House-keeping

Few stories related to topics from the past weeks.

Don’t Underestimate the 9 Year Olds

PewDiePie is still the most subscribed YouTuber. Yesterday evening he was down to a 20k subscriber lead over T-Series. As I’m writing this he is up with more than 300k. What happened? MrBeast said “Subscribe to PewDiePie” 100,000 times. TheHackerGiraffe hacked 50,000 printers and made them print cry for subscribers.

China’s Social Score Isn’t Real

While things are not perfect in China, Foreign Policy says we are to withhold our worries about a single universal credit score for Chinese citizens. At least for now.

How Different is Our Times?

It is common sense to say that the Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have won. And sure they have. However, Michael Batnik puts some interesting perspective on their size and shows that there is not much new under the sun in terms of total market cap.

Naive Weekly

Hi, I’m Kristoffer and I’m one of the founders of co-matter. You just read Naive Weekly - Curated stories on Technology and Internet Culture.

Please remember, I’m only a reply away. Thanks for sending love Sabina, Geza & Callie. For sharing links Leo & Aydo. For adding me to a Telegram group Paul. For feeding me lunch Solana!

<3
Kristoffer