Derek Thompson

Yeah. I want to be careful when I make these critiques because it's such a familiar critique. Basically, every generation, when I was doing research for this podcast, The End of Reading, every generation accuses young people of using whatever communication technology is available to them for destroying their brain. What's different is This is so important.

Yeah. I want to be careful when I make these critiques because it's such a familiar critique. Basically, every generation, when I was doing research for this podcast, The End of Reading, every generation accuses young people of using whatever communication technology is available to them for destroying their brain. What's different is This is so important.

What's different about today is that we have very clear, not just American, but international data that reading and numeracy scores are going down for both students and, in some places, for adults. And I think that the way, the communication technology that's available to us just has to shape the way we think.

What's different about today is that we have very clear, not just American, but international data that reading and numeracy scores are going down for both students and, in some places, for adults. And I think that the way, the communication technology that's available to us just has to shape the way we think.

What's different about today is that we have very clear, not just American, but international data that reading and numeracy scores are going down for both students and, in some places, for adults. And I think that the way, the communication technology that's available to us just has to shape the way we think.

I mean, to go back, say, 2,000 years, or 4,000, 3,000 years, I guess, like ancient Greece, People used to just casually memorize the Odyssey. They could just hold the Iliad in their head. I think I'm pretty smart. I think I'm really good at memorizing. I was an actor before I was a writer, so I had to memorize long parts and Shakespearean monologues.

I mean, to go back, say, 2,000 years, or 4,000, 3,000 years, I guess, like ancient Greece, People used to just casually memorize the Odyssey. They could just hold the Iliad in their head. I think I'm pretty smart. I think I'm really good at memorizing. I was an actor before I was a writer, so I had to memorize long parts and Shakespearean monologues.

I mean, to go back, say, 2,000 years, or 4,000, 3,000 years, I guess, like ancient Greece, People used to just casually memorize the Odyssey. They could just hold the Iliad in their head. I think I'm pretty smart. I think I'm really good at memorizing. I was an actor before I was a writer, so I had to memorize long parts and Shakespearean monologues.

I can't get even close to memorizing the first 0.5% of the Odyssey. But people's minds used to be like capacious in a different way to be able to just hold memory. And now we have writing. We've been able to outsource memory to computers and pages and tweets. And so we don't need to remember everything because we can read it. We can look at our notes.

I can't get even close to memorizing the first 0.5% of the Odyssey. But people's minds used to be like capacious in a different way to be able to just hold memory. And now we have writing. We've been able to outsource memory to computers and pages and tweets. And so we don't need to remember everything because we can read it. We can look at our notes.

I can't get even close to memorizing the first 0.5% of the Odyssey. But people's minds used to be like capacious in a different way to be able to just hold memory. And now we have writing. We've been able to outsource memory to computers and pages and tweets. And so we don't need to remember everything because we can read it. We can look at our notes.

But now we have something new that's come along. Some way of very efficiently sort of chunkifying all communication in this battle royale for our attention such that we're very good at grabbing people's attention briefly, but not very good maybe at holding their attention for a long period of time if there's a complex thought that we need to untangle. And so I do think that

But now we have something new that's come along. Some way of very efficiently sort of chunkifying all communication in this battle royale for our attention such that we're very good at grabbing people's attention briefly, but not very good maybe at holding their attention for a long period of time if there's a complex thought that we need to untangle. And so I do think that

But now we have something new that's come along. Some way of very efficiently sort of chunkifying all communication in this battle royale for our attention such that we're very good at grabbing people's attention briefly, but not very good maybe at holding their attention for a long period of time if there's a complex thought that we need to untangle. And so I do think that

The TikToks and Instagrams and Twitters of the world don't just shape how we pay attention. They do shape the way we think. And I think the early returns to their effect in our thinking are pretty scary.

The TikToks and Instagrams and Twitters of the world don't just shape how we pay attention. They do shape the way we think. And I think the early returns to their effect in our thinking are pretty scary.

The TikToks and Instagrams and Twitters of the world don't just shape how we pay attention. They do shape the way we think. And I think the early returns to their effect in our thinking are pretty scary.

I thought about this a little bit, especially as I've talked to people in AI who think about once we develop or if we develop something like AGI or even super intelligence, what is that technology likely to be used for? And one thing it's likely to be used for, you could say, is breaking encryption. So how is that going to be used?

I thought about this a little bit, especially as I've talked to people in AI who think about once we develop or if we develop something like AGI or even super intelligence, what is that technology likely to be used for? And one thing it's likely to be used for, you could say, is breaking encryption. So how is that going to be used?

I thought about this a little bit, especially as I've talked to people in AI who think about once we develop or if we develop something like AGI or even super intelligence, what is that technology likely to be used for? And one thing it's likely to be used for, you could say, is breaking encryption. So how is that going to be used?