How to use internet as a human.
Since a long time back, we as a species have stored information as a collective. We’ve gathered information and managed to store it by telling each other about the information. As we were able to write the information down, capturing it in a variety of letters, we’ve managed to store even more. As we’ve moved forward over time, the amount of information that we’ve been able to take care of has grown enormously, which has been our advantage over other species. As the printing press came around, we’ve also made it possible for more people to access the information or the stories that we’ve gathered. Nothing really changed for a long time after the printing press was invented in terms of information exchange. Until a couple of years ago, when we had a new revolution. Internet.
The reason to why I’m going to stress this revolution is that I constantly hear people underestimating the power internet holds. I feel like I’m talking to priests about how good it would be for the general welfare if people could just read for themselves. I think we need to get our minds around this beast and start figuring out how we best can use it. That’s what I want to ignite in you, a thought on how you can make the internet work for you at scale.
I’ve been interested in optimisation and improvement of my body and mind for the past couple of years. It’s led me to self help books, listening to podcasts at double speed to listen to more and to taking cold showers. The other day, I once again was introduced to the thought of optimising ones brain capacity by giving it some extra nourishments. I was listening to Ray Kurzweil, who takes about 100 pills every day in order to ease his body and ultimately live forever. I didn’t quite want to stretch that far, but rather just explore what pills could give me. I started googling off, and after a while realised that there’s too much information on this for me to comprehend. So I turned to Facebook.
This can really be the best and the worst of ideas. Not seldom both at the same time really. What I realised was that there must have been some people that I know who’ve been digging in to this before, or at least friends of friends. Instead of eating through literally tons of information, I could get some kind of hum on the matter. I could tap in to the collective bank of information. In that bank, I need to be aware that there’s going to be part information and part opinion. There’s also going to be a hierarchy of information, as people have various sources to their knowledge. But overall, I usually get a pretty good starting point when I ask the hive if I can tap in to the collective mind.
That’s really the punchline here. You can use the internet and social media for tapping in to that enormous library of information and knowledge faster than ever before. We’ve never been able to connect as quickly as we are now, which is an advantage. Also, the collective library of information used to be controlled. There used to be a much more hard core hierarchy of what information even made it to print, let alone to the market. I mentioned priests before. They didn’t want people to become literate as it might disrupt the church’s power, and literacy was delayed immensely by them. That hierarchy doesn’t exist to the same extent today, as we’re talking to each other directly instead of through other people.
Do the right thing because it’s the right thing.
I want to give some attention to the how of all of this. I know that all of this might seem like it comes naturally to me, as I tend to tap in to the collective mind in this way quite often. Naturally is to stretch it, but I’ve trained and worked hard to get to the place I’m at now. In order to tap in to a hive mind, there needs to be a hive. I’ve got several ones that I use for different purposes. My Facebook wall is usually my go-to, as I have a diversity of competence and knowledge in my group of friends. If I decide to write a post, I make sure to tag the people I think might have some input on the matter. If not on my own wall, I tend to write in this group that I’m administrating, called “What do you need help with today buddy?”, with over 40k members.
In general, I think what’s important to remember is that in order to get people to provide value for you, you’ll need to provide value for them. In our physical life, we’re good at doing this as we trade services with each other, like the very common buying pizza for the people who help you move. In our digital lives, I think many find this hard as it’s not as clear as to what’s expected. I don’t have a definite answer to how you can create value for the community you’re looking to get information from but I have two pointers.
— Doing something is better than nothing. Tagging in a friend in a thread that you think they can help in shows that you’ve seen the issue and tried something. It gives good karma so to say.
— Deploy empathy. Depending on what kind of community you’re looking to tap in to, or even create, empathy is the key. Start by listening and to see what kind of value is missing.
Lastly, I want to stress the fact that there’s no point in playing any kind of game in these fields. Don’t start counting your interactions, don’t think of the value you provide as just that. The things I’ve voiced here are behaviours that I think are fundamental and come very natural to us in the physical world. As soon as you try to systemise them, exchanging services in terms of a like for a like or a comment for a comment, you’ve lost. Do the right thing because it’s the right thing. Provide value when you can, and ask for some value when you need. Simple as that. Start interacting with other people via internet in a more humane way.
