Consumed by the Zeitgeist
Become smarter by taking in less information
Most people haven’t updated their mental model of what a Well-Informed Person looks like.
In the pre-internet (and even early internet) era, the biggest problem was getting access to information.
If you were smart, you were the type who would gorge yourself on info any chance you got because it was so scarce. Think of the stereotype of dudes who subscribed to ten different newspapers and actually read them every morning. Those were the universally-agreed-upon Well-Informed People of the before times.
We now obviously live in a much different world.
Times have changed
What was once scarce is now unavoidable. All you have to do is pull out your phone and swipe your thumb in a downwards motion and you’re bombarded with new ‘content’.
You feel like you have to consume it all otherwise you’re missing out.
That’s because your brain is still operating in Before Times Mode.
The key to being genuinely well-informed now lies in being selective. It’s not what you consume it’s what you don’t consume that makes the difference.
Social media has a tendency to create a circlejerk around any given topic.
There are approved opinions and approved ways of expressing them. It’s not a centralized authority that decides this, but rather the godless algorithm and the ‘hivemind’ aka the lowest common denominator of what an average-IQ human can semi-comprehend and then regurgitate that has the final say.
You can see this IRL if you’ve ever had a conversation about any ‘big picture’ topic with a person who overconsumes podcasts.
Their eyes kind of space out. It seems like they’ve mentally gone to a different place because they have. You can see them visibly mashing their two brain cells together to try to remember what [insert podcast host here] said about the topic, and then they spit the talking points back out almost verbatim with a creepily-robotic affect.
(Meeting a grown man who repeats Joe Rogan quotes as if they’re original thoughts is dark AF btw)
There’s no depth to them. They can spout off one-liners about a bunch of random topics but can’t actually discuss them. They overly identify with opinions that they put zero effort into obtaining and crash out HARD when someone disagrees with them because the social media/podcast circlejerk told them that they hold the One True Opinion and the infidels can’t possibly be right.
Humans are turning into walking, talking avatars of their social media algorithms in real time and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
It’s scary to think about.
The most terrifying thing is realizing that you might be one of them. How can you tell? It’s easy. Whenever you find yourself blindly believing whatever the hivemind says on social media (becoming consumed by the zeitgeist), you’re one step closer to becoming one of the zombies of the information age.
Do you think ChatGPT is ushering in the apocalypse and humans are going to become a jobless horde of locusts who only exist at the mercy of our robot overlords?
You’ve been consumed by the zeitgeist.
Are you surprised when you hear that 80% of retail sales occur in brick-and-mortar stores and only 20% occur online?
You’ve been consumed by the zeitgeist.
Do you argue with strangers on the internet about politics (waste of time) because you think you’re part of some grand struggle for the future of Western Civilization and that your tweets will somehow save the day?
You’ve been consumed by the zeitgeist.
What you need to do to succeed
Your edge as a human comes from your ability to think differently from the masses.
Another part of your brain dies every time you swipe to refresh your social media and start scrolling.
You take in the opinions of bots and humans who are so dumb they might as well be bots.
Their opinions worm their way inside your brain, whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.
Everyone thinks they are a hyper-rational person who can consume information in a detached manner and not let it affect them.
But you can’t.
No one can. Online algorithms are designed to dumb you down and make you angry and weird.
You lose another part of yourself any time you feel even the tiniest bit of emotion while reading something.
If you’re honest with yourself, that happens all the time.
You have to only consume the information you choose to consume.
And that information should ideally be high-quality and high-effort. Long form written content (especially in book form) is the best because it takes effort to create. Podcasts are the worst because all the host has to do is point a camera at their face and start popping off. No deep thought or effort required.
There are lots of benefits to having all this information at our disposal. But you have to use it wisely, otherwise you’ll end up becoming the algorithm’s bitch.