Hello friend,
We've entered August, if time means anything anymore.
Those are the three ideas I thought were worth sharing this week:
- The Internet and digital media are creating distorted senses of time for every one of us
- The gig economy is being replaced by the hustle economy, powered by platforms such as Patreon, Twitch, and OnlyFans
- Slower-thinking often leads to better opinions
BOX OF RANDOM
🎬 A collection of lockdown filmmaking made during recent tough times
🛹 Japanese skateboarder Isamu Yamamoto (2-minute video)
🚶 CGI artwork of an ever-evolving walking figure (6-minute video)
⏳ 30 year thinking, by Nat Eliason (4 minute read)
"It's easy to fall in the "one day" trap. Believing that once you make more money, have more time, finish this project, you'll suddenly be free of the obligations standing between you and your ideal self.
But "one day" never comes. We have to start creating that day now."
💡 Ideas that changed my life, by Morgan Housel (5 minute read)
“Start with the assumption that everyone is innocently out of touch and you’ll be more likely to explore what’s going on through multiple points of view, instead of cramming what’s going on into the framework of your own experiences.”
🎵 Another remarkable music video from The Weeknd's new album
🐱 A quote I've been pondering about independent thinking:
BRAIN FOOD
The Garden of Forking Memes: How Digital Media Distorts Our Sense of Time
20 minute read
This is one of the best pieces I've read in a long time, and it helps explain a lot of things currently going on in our society.
Twentieth century time was imposed on people from the top-down. Twenty-first century time is a bottom-up choose your own adventure story that allows people to make their own time machines and live anywhen.
Thanks to the “perfect memory” of digital media, internet subcultures are able to create their own visions of past, present, and future. The internet has freed them from the top-down schedules and narratives of mass media.
Social media algorithms are becoming an externalized version of our subconscious - they "find" old memories and "project" them onto our eyes. But they’re not optimized to help us survive; they have a financial interest in prolonging our state of timeless confusion.
The Gig Economy Is Failing. Say Hello to the Hustle Economy
12 minute read
The US has continued to see record unemployment numbers in the last months. As a result, we're seeing a shift to what is being called Hustle Economy. Patreon, Twitch, OnlyFans, and more providing a platform for money to be earned.
Caitlin Dewey
I'm a very slow thinker
2 minute read
I relate very much with this article.
When someone asks me a deep question, I say, “Hmm. I don’t know.” The next day, I have an answer.
This probably makes me look stupid in the moment, but I don’t mind. I’m not trying to win any debates.
People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.
Sometimes, it's better to say "I don't know".
Want to support this newsletter? You can buy me a beer (you'll get a picture of me making a toast to you 🍺) or share this with a friend or two - they can subscribe here.
And if you come across anything interesting this week, send it my way. If there's something I like more than beer, it's finding new things to read through members of this newsletter.
Stay classy,
-Gian
Buy me a beerP.S. I got some of this week's ideas from Nat Eliason, Keagan Stokoe and Brandon Zhang. They're awesome and worth checking out.