Seething Monkeys, Striking Writers: Let's Make Data Taboo Again
Q: “ChatGPT how do I come up with a title that’ll make the hyper-rational blogosphere click on it?”
A: “Oh that’s simple, just make a relatively benign point but use a number of unnecessary abstractions, analogies, and anecdotes.”
Meandering intro part one — monkeys and grapes and stuff
As of late I have been thinking about the degree to which our happiness is a relative measure — which is to say, in comparison to other people. For the majority of us, no matter how much we try to be “above it” we will always be stuck in one sort of status game or another.
It reminds me of the lyrics in the song Kiln, by Hail Mary Mallon
You’d like to think you’re cool enough
To not care if you’re cool
But the spirit gets distracted
The flesh is f—ng cruel
On some evolutionary level, playing the status game is hardwired into us. As proof, here’s a video.
For those who didn’t watch it, it shows two monkeys getting paid differently for the same task. Specifically, the monkey who gets the short end of the stick (paid in cucumbers instead of the much yummier grapes) gets extremely upset.
At a neurological level, we share these same brain circuits with monkeys — a fact that “thought leaders” such as Steven Pinker tend to downplay in their commentaries. They heavily imply the poorest of society should be happy, considering a poor person today has more access to entertainment and calories compared to the kings and queens of yesteryear.
On an absolute level this is true, but I also think it’s condescending.
Take the following thought experiment. A medical breakthrough occurs in which people can get a procedure that will enhance their lifespan — the only downside being that the procedure must be taken at a regular interval (every few years, let’s say). Moreover, the procedure is not cheap, costing anywhere between $8,000 and $10,000 for each iteration.
As a result, those who have the means will get the operation more frequently, and will therefore increase their lifespan by 30 to 50 years. Conversely, those who are relatively impoverished will only be able to increase their lifespan by 5 to 10 years, if that.
According to the Pinker, the poorest of society should be overwhelmed with joy, considering they can now reliably live to the age of 85 instead of 75. They should simply ignore the fact that there are now billionaires leveraging the same technology to live to the age of 140.
And make no mistake; this thought experiment will quickly become a reality in the coming years considering the twin revolutions in processing power and biomedical technology.
Point being, it is justified to have that disgruntled monkey inside of us, if only to serve as a monitoring function. Which brings me to…
Meandering introduction part two — The Writers’ Strike
At the time of writing this post, Hollywood writers are on strike, and it’s not clear whether the production companies will capitulate. My gut feeling is that the writers will gain some modest victories with respect to residuals — and largely fail at regulating the use of AI.
The unfortunate reality is that the writers have no leverage in the situation; Netflix has a giant back catalogue of content, and if they really need to they can lean on international resources. In other words, they can play the game of attrition.
There is one aspect of the strike writers are completely in the right: the demand for content creators to access the metrics and data associated with a show or movie‘s performance. That is to say, if a comedian puts a special on Netflix, they should know the view count and retention rate just the same as if it was put on YouTube.
But it has to be done right. We’ll get back to this in a second.
Meandering introduction part three — is it really an introduction anymore? Doesn’t matter. Anyways, here’s a tangent on Jane Austen.
Jane Austen’s books are timeless considering they give us an intricate look into the regency era. Her lavish yet cutting prose gives us an excellent commentary into the social structures and hidden forces of her time — especially around the latent expectations of class and gender. We get to see the unspoken taboos and norms through the eyes of the Bennetts, Dashwoods, and Elliots.
One thing that was a relatively less taboo during this time, however, was the open discussion of class, and the corresponding degree of wealth a person might have in relation to that class. Whereas any Austen protagonist can spend the better part of 300 pages summoning up the courage to tell a guy that he’s got rizz, the same protagonist has no problem openly speaking of his 20,000 pounds a year. In today’s money that’s, like, a lot.
The point being that openly flexing in this way wasn’t that much of a norm violation — provided it was done within the expected framework of their rank. It’s only in the generations afterwards that it became taboo.
Nowadays the taboo still holds — which is to say, if you’re flexing this way you have to make it abundantly clear that you earned it through the sweat of your brow, no matter how patently untrue this is.
OK no more introductions, I’ll get to the point now
So far I’ve written about the disgruntled monkey, the writers strike, social taboos, Jane Austen, and Brooklyn Beckham — it’s about time to tie it all together.
Here’s my attempt:
The comparative nature of happiness is making us miserable under the current socio-technological landscape.
The first step in remediating this is to make the constant publishing/broadcasting of certain kinds of information taboo once more. This includes veiling things like follow counts on Instagram, Twitter, subscription counts on YouTube, and the number of likes one receives for a given post.
To be clear, any user on these platforms should have full access to the data for themselves. Without this information you have no idea how well you are doing, which can be a disorienting experience and its own right. That’s why I am completely in support of the creatives getting access to the analytics on Netflix shows they create. But the open broadcasting of this same information to everybody would be a mistake.
Again, whether we like it or not, we all have that disgruntled monkey in our heads. Evolutionarily speaking, it was important to our survival. But now that disgruntled monkey has gone awry in the current media landscape.
That’s why teen depression, suicide, and political polarization is at an all-time high.
Yes, I know you have criticisms
“You want to hide likes and followers counts? If you don’t like how well other people are doing, then just don’t look!”
For all the people who have this view, I offer you the following challenge: take a screenshot of your bank account balance and post it on all of your social media.
“Yeah but Instagram followers are hardly the same as bank balances.”
From the perspective of the disgruntled monkey, they’re a lot closer than one would like to admit. They’re both measures of capital — only one is fiscal, while the other is social.
I think the social media companies are already beginning to understand this. There’s a reason why YouTube no longer allows us to see the number of dislikes a video has. This is the first step, but I think likes, followers and subscriber accounts should also be hidden.
“What, you want people to stop posting their accomplishments just because you can’t handle it?”
Listen, by all means, keep posting your videos of your 800 pound dead lift, six pack abs, and $10,000 gaming set up. I’m only saying that the metrics associated with one’s profile should be kept anonymous.
Think about it this way: how do you think Instagram would change if every profile had their IQ listed right next to their follower count? What do you think the long-term implications would be if we were able to immediately stack rank our social circle in accordance to “intelligence”?
“So you want people to just ignore the inequities of society? If anything, broadcasting this information allows us to fight injustice!”
Yes, but there’s a difference between understanding the problem and constantly being inundated with it. I would argue that we are undergoing the latter, causing people to despair instead of rising to action. It’s like the difference between reading a news article about a given tragedy, and constantly being forced to read that same article every single day.
“Sure, but you’re putting a Band-Aid fix to a more deeper psychological problem. We shouldn’t hide the information because it makes people feel bad. We should give people the tools to become wise enough not to engage in this sort of social comparison.”
Fine, for adults above a certain age I can buy this. But keep in mind that it’s unrealistic for 13 year olds to have this sort of wisdom — you know, the main group of people who are suffering the worst because of these changes.
Moreover, I would argue that even the “winners” of this system don’t even have this kind of wisdom. The fact that billionaires are trying to launch their own brand of rocket into space is proof of it. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are seriously contemplating a cage match with one another is another proof of it.
As actual smart person Will Storr writes about in his book The Status Game we never stop playing this game, only the players and the circumstances change.