Why is Ricochet Special?

From the perspective of this stubborn old rational materialist, this makes a lot of sense. When I watch the video later this evening I may be surprised by the magnitude of the effect or some other detail, but the basic idea seems completely reasonable. We humans are social creatures, some of us perhaps more so than others. We form bonds in concentric circles of family, tribe, region, nation. We are more generous and self-sacrificing toward those in the inner circles. We all know this.

I did a lot of scuba diving when I was young and unencumbered by life's wonderful, and now grown and out on their own, burdens. One of the things that struck me about diving was how poorly our bodies are designed for rapid tripling or quadrupling of air pressure. All sorts of things start hurting, or threaten to burst, or become toxic as one changes depth by a hundred feet or more.

But of course that makes sense: there simply aren't occasions when humans would experience such changes in pressure (other than, say, falling off a very high cliff), so there's not much point in paying the biological price of evolving, and then hauling around, whatever unused anatomical equipment would be required should such an unlikely event occur.

Similarly, there's nothing in nature to prepare us for a networked world. We weren't evolved to establish close relationships -- any relationships -- with people a hundred miles away, much less three thousand.

When I was a kid, everyone I spoke with was, or easily could be, someone my parents knew. The family, someone at church, a school friend, a neighbor, or someone I knew because my parents already knew them. There was no scenario in which an eleven year old me might have a hundred faraway followers on Instachat or Snapbook, strangers who knew what I looked like and cared about and planned to do that day. Strangers who had any idea that I even existed.

We weren't made for this.

Henry Racette (View Comment):

From the perspective of this stubborn old rational materialist, this makes a lot of sense. When I watch the video later this evening I may be surprised by the magnitude of the effect or some other detail, but the basic idea seems completely reasonable. We humans are social creatures, some of us perhaps more so than others. We form bonds in concentric circles of family, tribe, region, nation. We are more generous and self-sacrificing toward those in the inner circles. We all know this.

I did a lot of scuba diving when I was young and unencumbered by life’s wonderful, and now grown and out on their own, burdens. One of the things that struck me about diving was how poorly our bodies are designed for rapid tripling or quadrupling of air pressure. All sorts of things start hurting, or threaten to burst, or become toxic as one changes depth by a hundred feet or more.

But of course that makes sense: there simply aren’t occasions when humans would experience such changes in pressure (other than, say, falling off a very high cliff), so there’s not much point in paying the biological price of evolving, and then hauling around, whatever unused anatomical equipment would be required should such an unlikely event occur.

Similarly, there’s nothing in nature to prepare us for a networked world. We weren’t evolved to establish close relationships — any relationships — with people a hundred miles away, much less three thousand.

When I was a kid, everyone I spoke with was, or easily could be, someone my parents knew. The family, someone at church, a school friend, a neighbor, or someone I knew because my parents already knew them. There was no scenario in which an eleven year old me might have a hundred faraway followers on Instachat or Snapbook, strangers who knew what I looked like and cared about and planned to do that day. Strangers who had any idea that I even existed.

We weren’t made for this.

An acute observation.

Who are you callin' nice?

Henry Racette (View Comment):

From the perspective of this stubborn old rational materialist, this makes a lot of sense. When I watch the video later this evening I may be surprised by the magnitude of the effect or some other detail, but the basic idea seems completely reasonable. We humans are social creatures, some of us perhaps more so than others. We form bonds in concentric circles of family, tribe, region, nation. We are more generous and self-sacrificing toward those in the inner circles. We all know this.

I did a lot of scuba diving when I was young and unencumbered by life’s wonderful, and now grown and out on their own, burdens. One of the things that struck me about diving was how poorly our bodies are designed for rapid tripling or quadrupling of air pressure. All sorts of things start hurting, or threaten to burst, or become toxic as one changes depth by a hundred feet or more.

But of course that makes sense: there simply aren’t occasions when humans would experience such changes in pressure (other than, say, falling off a very high cliff), so there’s not much point in paying the biological price of evolving, and then hauling around, whatever unused anatomical equipment would be required should such an unlikely event occur.

Similarly, there’s nothing in nature to prepare us for a networked world. We weren’t evolved to establish close relationships — any relationships — with people a hundred miles away, much less three thousand.

When I was a kid, everyone I spoke with was, or easily could be, someone my parents knew. The family, someone at church, a school friend, a neighbor, or someone I knew because my parents already knew them. There was no scenario in which an eleven year old me might have a hundred faraway followers on Instachat or Snapbook, strangers who knew what I looked like and cared about and planned to do that day. Strangers who had any idea that I even existed.

We weren’t made for this.

One thing I noticed when Facebook was the ubiquitous social media app and hadn't yet turned into the dreck of AI engagement farming that it eventually became, is that facebook didn't actually help you keep in touch with friends, it gave the illusion of keeping in touch with friends.

After some time of getting daily or at least several times a week little blurb updates about what out of town [about an hours drive away] friends were doing, I realized that I was actually interacting with them much less in real life than I had been before. Fewer phone calls to catch up, fewer trips to spend a day at their place or them coming to my place to just hang out for a while.

Social Media is what you make of it. I joined X in November of 2022, when Elon Musk bought Twitter. I had heard all the tales of people being banned, slimed, doxxed, and flamed for years on Twitter (and all the other platforms like Facebook), so I waited awhile to join. What I discovered there was a thriving community of Washington State locals, who spoke about all the benefits and drawbacks of living here. There are wildlife photographers, ranchers, politicians, and just everyday citizens who I would never have interacted with if not for X. I expect to meet them in person, to get together and just get to know each other, and strategize the best ways to stay sane in the bluest state in America. I made X work for me, even though I sometimes have lowlifes calling me all the usual slurs. I make use of the "block" function, and I did find a very useful meme, that I have employed often.