We Lobotomized Ourselves
Aemula Media Spotlight - 5.14.26
We are one big brain.
The collective intelligence of humanity — our ability to solve complex problems and coordinate at global scale — is an emergent trait of our individual decisions. We work together to create something that exceeds the sum of its parts.
Whether we realize it or not, we all collaborate as one large neural network, achieving things that no single person could possibly achieve and no single entity could possibly coordinate.
Society has become incredibly complex, but this complexity has provided us with the knowledge and resources necessary to grow the global population and generally improve quality of life. As we continue this progression, we must constantly work together to solve increasingly complex problems. Progress is not inevitable, and the solutions will not be given to us.
Our ability to solve these problems is a function of our collective intelligence. People receive, process, and share information to collaborate at societal scale, conducting the global economy and dictating geopolitics. The power of this neural network is only limited by the number of people involved and the ease at which they can communicate.
We can communicate efficiently. Anyone, anywhere can exchange messages in an instant. But are we communicating effectively? Are we ensuring the necessary information is being routed to the people most capable of processing and acting upon it?
Currently, our information environment — the collection of systems tasked with ensuring effective communication — is plagued by ideological fragmentation. Traditional publications pander to the existing beliefs of their audiences, and social media algorithms sort us into our own bespoke realities. These rifts have severed communication across ideological divides, effectively lobotomizing our global neural network. We risk losing our ability to solve increasingly complex problems.
While this represents an existential threat to our current way of life and the future trajectory of civilizational advancement, this is not doomerism. As with any problem, this is solvable, and it is solvable with current technology.
Rather than relying on systems that gatekeep institutional knowledge, fragment digital communities, and stoke ideological division, we can maximize our collective intelligence by creating a more cohesive, open information environment.
Everyone is an observer of reality. Everyone has some area of expertise, be it through their knowledge, skills, or personal experience. We need this information to be available to anyone who needs to access it, and that requires the freedom of speech.
True freedom is permissionless. You do not need permission to think. You do not need permission to contribute to public discourse.
To be effective, our information environment must be open to all, fully diverse, and truly borderless. It must be permissionless. Our ability to discover and share perspectives should be determined by individual liberty, not the authority of some institution, platform, or government.
Though permissionless systems do not entail anarchy. These systems are built on sets of rules that are transparently defined, evenly enforced, and democratically governed. Collective moderation of harmful content is critical to the health of permissionless systems.
Decentralized, open information networks are capable of developing dense connections between individuals that bridge the divides between our ideological communities, allowing us to construct a more accurate understanding of the world around us and think more clearly as a society. These permissionless networks exist. It is now just a matter of adoption.
This week, we highlight writers discussing the limitations of our ability to freely contribute to public discourse. We encourage you to explore their work and consider subscribing directly.
Media in the Media
Trend: Increasing demand for independence in media
Writers are fleeing the Substack Tax — The Verge
As independent newsletters build substantial audiences, platforms battle to attract top writers
Recently highlighted with Patreon poaching Substack publications
Most recently, Max Read departing Substack for Patreon yesterday
“[Patreon] was able offer me generous income guarantees to ease the risk inherent to a transition like this.”
“The Ankler, one of Substack’s most popular publications, left for a platform that gives it more control over its site. Others who have departed Substack within the past year voiced similar complaints and cite the platform’s increased focus on social features”
Top newsletters are choosing to migrate to platforms that charge a flat monthly fee (like Beehiiv and Ghost) to avoid Substack’s 10% platform fee
Substack’s value-add is growth, providing features to expand your audience and share your work
Once newsletters are past their growth phase, Substack’s native growth features are no longer worth the expense
“The pricing on Substack isn’t the only pain point for creators, as critics argue that it also locks writers and their subscribers into a closed ecosystem.”
“Platformer creator Casey Newton, who left Substack in 2024, says that while the publication is saving money on Ghost, ‘the more important thing is that we have a home on the open web that we control, and whatever anti-creator changes Substack is forced to make in the future to live up to its valuation we won’t be affected by.’”
Theme: Yes, narrative control is a powerful tool used by governments to influence public discourse
Calif. mayor Eileen Wang admits acting as Chinese spy, resigns after shocking plea deal — The New York Post
Eileen Wang, former mayor of Arcadia, California, admitted to working with the People’s Republic of China to spread propaganda via the news website “U.S. News Center” she operated with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun
Sun was charged in 2024 with conspiracy and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government
“Sun received and executed taskings from Chinese government officials, distorted our public discourse by disseminating Chinese propaganda, and surveilled groups in the United States that China viewed as threatening.”
Wang was ordered by the PRC to post their official articles, including denials of human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang
Theme: The effect of AI on the media
New York Times Issues Stern Warning to Its Freelance Writers About AI Use — Futurism
“Using [generative AI] tools to create, draft, guide, clean up, edit, improve, or rephrase your writing is strictly prohibited” states the email sent by the Times to freelance contributors
The warning comes after the Times issued a correction last week that revealed an article published on April 15th contained a quote hallucinated by AI
Internal staff writers at the Times follow a separate set of rules for AI use in reporting, implying they are able to use generative AI as a tool throughout the process before passing articles through review by human editors
Spotlight
Persuasion
A project of the Persuasion Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit, Persuasion is an online magazine focused on threats to the free society and reflections on how to fight back, previously featured in our spotlight, “The Lens Through Which We See”, with the below article written by Francis Fukuyama.
“Technology has also contributed to this polarization. The spread of the internet and social media has changed the nature of social interaction. Citizens who used to rely on a small number of elite-controlled media channels can now get information from anywhere in the world. The kinds of filters that used to control the quality of information have been undermined, which has led to the appearance of parallel information universes in which there is no common understanding of empirical reality.”
Expression
Written by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonpartisan nonprofit that defends free speech rights for all Americans, previously featured in our spotlight, “Many Birds”.
“The most damaging feature of McCarthyism was not simply government investigation, but the culture of fear that made institutions abandon free expression without being forced to do so. Newspapers who fired journalists, studios who blacklisted actors.
The irony was this was also how the Soviet Union and the East Germany Stasi operated — through voluntary compliance far more than coercion. Once dissent itself becomes professionally dangerous, formal censorship is almost unnecessary.”
Anecdotal Value
Written by Hollis Robbins, a Professor of English at the University of Utah and former dean of humanities, whose work spans American and African American literature while examining how language, institutions, and emerging technologies like AI shape academic life and public discourse.
“Today less formal but still exclusive gatherings have replaced the civic forms Diogenes mocked. Assemblies, courts, and marketplaces of public speech are now conferences, podcasts, newsletters, journolists, social media circuits, Signal chat groups. Diogenes understood that belonging limits freedom. οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχθροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὼ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σωθῶσιν (“Other dogs bite their enemies; I bite my friends to save them,” DL VI.60).”
Requests for Reporting
We are building out new features to allow our community to create requests for reporting, which serve as bounties to incentivize independent journalists to report on under-covered stories of interest.
Comment or message to submit a request
Requests for Reporting will be included here each week
Publish an article on a requested topic through Aemula to earn a bounty
Are you writing on Substack? You can easily set up automatic cross-posting with Aemula to instantly:
Increase your earnings
Expand your audience
Verifiably own your work
Plus, you will have opportunities to access community resources and grants to support the content you want to create!
Link your Substack to your Aemula account using this link or reach out to writers@aemula.com to get started!
No cost, no obligations, and you can stop at any time.
If you want to support any of the writers we spotlight in our Substack, we highly encourage you to subscribe to their individual publications.
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