Short Read: Internet Crowds and Personal Space

Alex Danco | 10 minutes

Status online, in other words, is personal space. The effort you have to put into maintaining that space, which covers a whole range from keeping up a Snap streak to blocking harassers is the same as Canetti’s idea from 60 years ago. The burden of protecting this digital perimeter can be exhausting, and it’s a universal experience to anyone who spends enough time online.

Snippets

Executives at companies “stuck in the middle” are making so much money they don’t want to take risks, which keeps them optimizing for local maxima at the expense of something truly disruptive.

- Erik Torenberg, The Death of The Middle

One of the tragic elements of mimetic desire is that it induces a lot of self-deception: lying to yourself in order to reshape your perceptions, your experience and your identity to be consistent with who you feel you ought to be. 

- Alex Danco, Secrets about People: A Short and Dangerous Introduction to René Girard