Why.
The Societal Need for Better Communication.
This post was originally published 5/20/2024 in the Aemula Letter Archive, accessible via aemula.com
Our perception of the world — the basis for our personal beliefs — depends on secondhand information. Today, that information is abundant and cheap. In this constant barrage, each of us must separate what is relevant and useful from what is not. We capture the true value of information only through distilling it.
We depend on social media platforms to curate our information, yet their algorithms are optimized not for value but for clicks and retention — metrics that don’t correlate with the quality or usefulness of the content. These platforms exist only to win your attention for as long as it takes them to sell it.
Craving quality, many turn to centralized publications with hopes of finding reliable information. Unfortunately, those publishers fall into the same traps. Competing for share of a fragmented market, each publication panders to its readers’ existing beliefs — an approach that recursively narrows the information each reader consumes. Trapped in our respective silos, it becomes difficult to understand why anyone would perceive the world differently. We lose our ability to meaningfully converse.
Why do we continue to delegate this critical task to social media platforms and centralized publications when they are compelled by these ulterior motives?
Collectively, we are extraordinarily intelligent.
As a community, we are able to curate our own information. Doing so would enable us to remove outside influence, align incentives, and see the world more clearly – not through the distortion of someone else’s lens.
With better information, we can build deeper understanding and collaborate more efficiently, increasing our collective intelligence.
In this age of information, even marginal improvements in quality can have unimaginable impact when delivered at societal scale.
Together, we can support and promote the efficient exchange of information and ideas, optimizing our ability to collaborate.
