we like routine
we can coast on autopilot to avoid thinking through every task to be completed. the simplification of process allows us to devote our finite mental resources to more important things. routine is such a powerful abstraction we seek it everywhere
the problem is that routine is easy to find
rearrange your furniture and it reshapes your habits. temperatures that are cold in fall are warm in spring. change shampoo and you notice the smell of your hair
our brains only search for what interrupts the ordinary. our systems are designed to exploit this reflex
billboards flash. hazards painted neon. notifications cover your screen
but if you experience this often enough, even the things meant to stand out become routine
scream in city streets and only tourists turn their head
dosing absurdity dulls its edge. scroll your feed and observe how memes optimized to stand out collapse into static. we are overstimulated
this is the nature of our current media economy, fighting for attention in a competitive landscape. we become enveloped by our filter bubbles, instinctively learning the ideologies and shared language. we open the comments on a short-form video to read what we already expect. we check the news only for our trusted commentators to affirm reactions we already had
It is unsettling to break from routine.
When you see an article written from an opposing point of view, it is hard to imagine how anyone could arrive at those thoughts. When you join a new social platform, it feels foreign as you struggle to adapt to the culture.
We are comfortable. Our algorithms shield us from perspectives that challenge our beliefs. We avoid turning the lens back on ourselves to analyze the absurdity of our own beliefs. Our thoughts have become routine. They are so natural that they pass unnoticed.
We have more information at our fingertips than ever before, but we have never felt more isolated.
We cannot break this cycle by building more platforms with the same algorithms and incentives.
We cannot break this cycle by spinning up more newsrooms running the same business model.
To break the cycle, we need a new system. One that is diverse in ideology, aligned in its incentives, and transparent in its operation.
This is our mission with Aemula. Through an open-source, community-governed, human-readable algorithm, we can recommend relevant articles from independent writers that align with your current beliefs while gradually introducing new perspectives over time. We provide an intentional, focused reading experience so you can be present as you discover new ideas, expand your worldview, and become better equipped to navigate the complexity of our world.
“stimulos dedit aemula virtus”
[rivalry in excellence spurs them on]
— Lucan, Civil War (c. 61-65 AD)
As each person seeks to enrich their individual knowledge, the community as a whole improves. We can set course for a better future, starting by refining the information we use to construct the foundations of our worldviews. You can start today.
This week, we highlight writers who are stepping back from the expected trends of our media environment to analyze their effects on reality. We encourage you to explore their work and consider subscribing to them directly.
The Honest Broker
Written by Ted Gioia, a cultural critic, music historian, record producer, jazz pianist, former president and editor of jazz.com, former faculty at Stanford, and author of 12 books, previously featured in our spotlight, “Evolving Landscape”.
“For a start, we need mechanisms for preserving the past that can’t be tampered with by technology. Physical books are an example—I have thousands of these, and every one of them is immune to the schemes of bots and technocrats.
But books aren’t enough. We need other things that are like books in their impregnability. Institutions and organizations could play a role in this—but do any of them even grasp the magnitude of the threat, or the role they now need to play?
I also have hope that technologies with built-in documentation and resilient safeguards—maybe like a blockchain or the Internet Archive—can help us. We absolutely need more and better technologies like this.
In fact, I have a hunch that the next BIG thing in tech just might be fixing the mess created by the current BIG thing in tech.”
After Babel
Written by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at NYU’s Stern School of Business and author of multiple books including The Coddling of the American Mind and The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, along with editor and researcher, Zach Rausch, as previously featured in our spotlight, “Curation”.
The featured post is a guest post written by Gaia Bernstein, “a law professor, founder and co-director of the Institute for Privacy Protection at Seton Hall Law School, and author of ‘Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies’, who recently launched a new Substack, ‘Digital Crossroads.’”
“To address the crisis of youth anxiety, depression, and loneliness to which the tech industry itself was a major contributor, companies like Meta, Replika, and Character AI now offer a synthetic antidote: the AI Companion. These bots can act as friends, consultants, and even intimate partners. Mark Zuckerberg predicts a future where humans have more AI friends than human ones, saying, ‘The average American I think has, it’s fewer than three friends, three people they’d consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more...’”
Reasonable People
Written by Tom Stafford, a cognitive scientist at the University of Sheffield and author of Mind Hacks, previously featured in our spotlight, “Fact-Checking”.
“Wired has an AI copyright case tracker (paywalled, you can see with a free trial), which documents dozens of lawsuits, all but one unresolved, against all the major AI companies and lodged by celebrity authors and media companies like Disney and The New York Times, amongst others.
The core legal debate turns on whether using copyright material to train an AI is “fair use”, something like the situations of parody, news reporting, or academic research where you can repeat material despite copyright. Part of the issue is that our historical copyright laws may not exactly fit the new technology of generative AI.”
Are you writing on Substack? You can easily set up automatic cross-posting with Aemula to instantly:
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Plus, you will have opportunities to access community resources and grants to support the content you want to create!
Easily link your Substack to your Aemula account using this link or send a quick email to writers@aemula.com to get started!
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Any writers you want to see featured here? Send them our way! We are always searching for great new publications.
