Diversifying Perspectives
Aemula Writer Spotlight - 11.7.24
“If you are struggling to understand this moment, I cannot emphasize enough the need for you to get out of your echo chamber and engage arguments/ideas from across the political spectrum.”
— Isaac Saul
In a highly polarized election, it is inevitable that one side will be surprised by the outcome. It is difficult to process unexpected results when we are relying on incomplete information. In the current media environment, no one is entirely immune to this effect.
Our current information systems inherently foster silos — tightly knit clusters of highly specialized content. The influencers we follow, publications we subscribe to, and advertisers who target us all compete for our limited attention, attempting to categorize and define our preferences. It is easy to succumb to these influences while we focus on other aspects of our lives, as this powerful market for attention persistently operates.
If we could view all perspectives in one complete picture, with access to every bit of relevant information necessary to make an informed decision, we could reliably predict outcomes. Such a capacity resembles the impressive accuracy observed in prediction markets this past week — a singular, yet compelling example of their effectiveness.
Naturally, no individual can process all available information. However, by diversifying the sources of our news, we can build a better understanding of the approximate reality.
Escaping these echo chambers and reversing the trend of polarization will be an arduous journey. At Aemula, our aim is to reduce these barriers as much as possible. Information is abundant, but its structure is blurry. To achieve a clearer understanding, we must increase the resolution of perspectives we read by empowering independent writers to share their unique viewpoints.
This week, we highlight writers who embody a commitment to supporting independent thought.
“You are the media now” — Elon Musk
P.S. we have launched the Alpha version of the Aemula platform. While it is still under testing, we are slowly ramping up our number of users as we progress. If you would like to join the waitlist for free trial access to the platform, please email community@aemula.com.
Essay Writing as Personal Sovereignty
Written by Micheal Dean, runner-up in the Cosmos Institute Essay Contest on AI x human flourishing, an architect-turned-writer, and O’Shaughnessy Fellow.
“Writing freezes your amorphous, gaseous thoughts onto the page; editing is the act of dissolving prose to see and interrogate your ideas. It is a slow, often daunting process, but it is the cost of intellectual sovereignty. As you edit, you don’t just edit the words on the page; you edit the nature of your identity, your beliefs, and your morals. As author S. Kelly Harrell said, “a good editor doesn’t rewire words, she rewires synapses.”
The Elon Times
Written by Hamish Mckenzie, Co-Founder of Substack.
“The media system needs a place that celebrates independence in every sense of the word; it needs a network that marshals the power of the internet not to empower new rulers who favor different politicians, but to usher in new rules that return power to the people.”
It’s a great time to invest in independent media
Written by Simon Owens, a media industry journalists based out of DC, previously holding editor positions at PBS’ Mediashift and US News & World Report with writing in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Politico, Scientific American, Forbes, Harvard’s Nieman Lab, The Next Web, Daily Dot, PBS.org, and US News & World Report.
It’s a great time to invest in independent media
“Today would be a great day to support independent media, because corporate media certainly won't save you. Neither will the large tech platforms that control our content feeds.”
If you want to support any of the writers we spotlight, we highly encourage you to subscribe to their individual publications. If you want to support independent journalism more broadly, we offer both paid and free subscriptions for you to stay informed!
All subscription revenue is reinvested directly into the independent journalism community.
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