Corners of the Internet 2.0
Why Alex Jones is like a beautiful woman; Boomers leaving church; Go midwest, young man; How the internet ruined homework
A friend and early blog reader once told me I seemed to know all the interesting corners of the internet. In the spirit of that compliment, COTI is a loose format for sharing what I find in these corners.
Alex Jones is a beautiful woman. He is magnetic. He fascinates. When he speaks, everything else disappears: all that matters is contained in the cadences of his beautiful voice, the low grunt rising, heaving, swelling up to that gorgeous thick naked yell. He bares his flesh for the cameras and he is not ashamed to be seen. When he goes outside people beg his name. They reach out their hands to touch him, just to brush for a moment against his rich red leathery skin. Every camera swivels around to face him, like a flower in love with the Sun.
Read and enjoy the ride for yourself, but the upshot of the beautiful woman comparison is that overwhelming levels of popularity and attention tend to change a person:
Everyone I know who became famous, even with the pissy half-fame of social-media notoriety, went insane.
Meanwhile, churches are not exactly suffering from an excess of popularity…
“For those born after 1975, never attenders outnumber weekly attenders”.
Eric Kaufmann points to similarly dramatic changes in college attendance patterns, including strikingly little political diversity at many top colleges.
His advice for students converges with my recent deep dive analysis of the FIRE free speech rankings—beware the Ivy League.
A century ago, intellectuals from small midwestern towns sought out the freewheeling intellectual environments of major East Coast universities. Today, those who hanker after the free exchange of ideas should seek out the heartland.
And while we’re on the topic of advice for students…
Or maybe we just drop homework and classes so everyone can go work for a living.
If you liked this post, check out my other writing at Infovores Newsletter. Over there I write reviews, conduct interviews, and generally try my best to navigate a world of infinite knowledge.
That's an interesting observation on homework. Paradoxically, the wealth of information available online can inhibit learning, while not having access to the internet forces you to think through things more. I'm sure remote learning during COVID-19 only accelerated this trend. When the answers are only a tab away from the assignment (and the class itself as well as other distractions), doing homework takes a lot more mental discipline.
Wonderful insights!