Gah! This was hard to read because it is so true. I've told my younger co-workers countless times about the dangers of Tik Tok and other social media, but it always gets shrugged off. I can't tell you how many times I've been amongst a group and was the only one not staring down at my phone.
It is incredible. We weren't designed with defenses against too. If we don't win against it as a culture, we all lose, whether we use it personally or not.
Exactly! Your comparison with the Comanche is incredibly perceptive and honestly scary in how well it applies. But how does anyone start to change a cultural trend? I like to think that setting the example of living a better way will draw attention, but it doesn't seem to be nearly enough.
I wonder the same thing. Technology is an evolutionary curveball - we have no idea what happens when enough people are plugged in. It will be a good fight.
Sam, I love when we “connect the dots”. On Sunday, Douglas Murray in his essay on great speeches in TheFreePress, wrote about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard commencement speech. He referred to the warning to the West of our demise due to the lack of courage and absence of spirituality. Is it the inevitable “anthropological evolution”?
That was a great piece - I have been a fan of the Free Press since they started. I am inclined to agree with Solzhenitsyn. When a void is left open, something will fill it. I think that is what we're seeing right now. I do hope it is not inevitable and that we course correct ourselves before we evolve to our technology instead of our technology evolving to us. I suppose time will tell.
Excellent post, as usual. People have been complaining about TikTok for years, but Sam has a way of bringing it home.
HOWEVER: There's a bit of a problem. here, "...and how to hang on to the side of a galloping horse between slinging arrows at the clumsy fools with muskets." Yes, the Spanish supplied the muskets, but they also supplied the horses. Humans in the Americas knew nothing of horses, until Europeans brought them.
Thank you, and you are absolutely right. I had to freeze time at the moment of their adoption of muskets to keep the essay short. There are a lot of ironies in how Europeans and Native Americans thought their own culture are entirely unique and separate, but almost nothing is. Plains Indians thought horses integral to their lifestyle, and European invaders adopted small unit hit and run tactics. It's all connected.
Nice post, Sam, very well written. I can relate this topic to what I learned from Ryan Holiday when he referred to the concept Alive Time, exposed by his mentor Robert Greene, as opposed to Dead Time, or what we colloquially refer to Kill Time. The author of The 48 Laws of Power suggests we stop allowing the world to waste our time and choose Alive Time instead—time to read a book, write in a journal, or perform some small deed. Dead time becomes Alive Time. Wasted time becomes growth time instead. The onomatopoeia tick tock becomes the music that accompanies fullfillment.
I do not think it changes the message of your post, with which I agree, but the demise of the Comanche began with the Walker Colt and rough men called Texas Rangers and ended with the US Army routing them and a man named Quannah convincing his people they could not defeat the white man, not so much because of use of the musket but because the Rangers and their Colts and then the US Army were simply better due to courage, skill, numbers and yes, technology, at the same game the Comanches had dominated for a 100 years.
Your point is still valid and I agree wholeheartedly.
If you have not done so, read Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon.
Gah! This was hard to read because it is so true. I've told my younger co-workers countless times about the dangers of Tik Tok and other social media, but it always gets shrugged off. I can't tell you how many times I've been amongst a group and was the only one not staring down at my phone.
It is incredible. We weren't designed with defenses against too. If we don't win against it as a culture, we all lose, whether we use it personally or not.
Exactly! Your comparison with the Comanche is incredibly perceptive and honestly scary in how well it applies. But how does anyone start to change a cultural trend? I like to think that setting the example of living a better way will draw attention, but it doesn't seem to be nearly enough.
I wonder the same thing. Technology is an evolutionary curveball - we have no idea what happens when enough people are plugged in. It will be a good fight.
Sam, I love when we “connect the dots”. On Sunday, Douglas Murray in his essay on great speeches in TheFreePress, wrote about Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard commencement speech. He referred to the warning to the West of our demise due to the lack of courage and absence of spirituality. Is it the inevitable “anthropological evolution”?
That was a great piece - I have been a fan of the Free Press since they started. I am inclined to agree with Solzhenitsyn. When a void is left open, something will fill it. I think that is what we're seeing right now. I do hope it is not inevitable and that we course correct ourselves before we evolve to our technology instead of our technology evolving to us. I suppose time will tell.
BTW, I continue to subscribe to TFP only to read Douglas Murray on Sundays. Unfortunately, some of us are seeing free speech being suppressed.
Excellent post, as usual. People have been complaining about TikTok for years, but Sam has a way of bringing it home.
HOWEVER: There's a bit of a problem. here, "...and how to hang on to the side of a galloping horse between slinging arrows at the clumsy fools with muskets." Yes, the Spanish supplied the muskets, but they also supplied the horses. Humans in the Americas knew nothing of horses, until Europeans brought them.
Thank you, and you are absolutely right. I had to freeze time at the moment of their adoption of muskets to keep the essay short. There are a lot of ironies in how Europeans and Native Americans thought their own culture are entirely unique and separate, but almost nothing is. Plains Indians thought horses integral to their lifestyle, and European invaders adopted small unit hit and run tactics. It's all connected.
Did the military/industrial complex with an attached laundromat exist already!
Nice post, Sam, very well written. I can relate this topic to what I learned from Ryan Holiday when he referred to the concept Alive Time, exposed by his mentor Robert Greene, as opposed to Dead Time, or what we colloquially refer to Kill Time. The author of The 48 Laws of Power suggests we stop allowing the world to waste our time and choose Alive Time instead—time to read a book, write in a journal, or perform some small deed. Dead time becomes Alive Time. Wasted time becomes growth time instead. The onomatopoeia tick tock becomes the music that accompanies fullfillment.
Marc, not sure how I liked this but didn’t reply to it. Much appreciated. I like this concept of Dead time and Alive time.
Brilliant!
Thank you Chris!
I do not think it changes the message of your post, with which I agree, but the demise of the Comanche began with the Walker Colt and rough men called Texas Rangers and ended with the US Army routing them and a man named Quannah convincing his people they could not defeat the white man, not so much because of use of the musket but because the Rangers and their Colts and then the US Army were simply better due to courage, skill, numbers and yes, technology, at the same game the Comanches had dominated for a 100 years.
Your point is still valid and I agree wholeheartedly.
If you have not done so, read Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon.