Summary
Junk food is to nutritious food as short-form content is to long-form content.
Companies try to beat out their competition by making their output appealing, palatable, and addictive. However, like a nutritious meal, meaningful information requires slowing down and digestion.
Not all junk information is bad — it can be enjoyed in moderation.
To reclaim our agency, we must recognize who in power is manipulating us, what is at stakes, and create a culture that is better at identifying nutritious information within an environment where junk information is battling for our attention.
Companies will do everything they can to make things that are very appealing even addictive. We have less control than we imagine that we have, and giving your agency away a little bit can be fun and, but giving it away completely isn’t just damaging to you and your ability to flourish, it’s kind of cringe. Nobody brags about the start of their second hour on TikTok.
What worked with cigarettes, and I think what is working some with food, is shining a light on the people who want to manipulate us.
notes
- Food metaphor
- Foods are optimized for taste and not nutrition
- Rather than information, cultural change is needed
- The best thing is to just avoid these things that taste unnaturally good
- Turning away from ultra-processed foods
- Reclaiming power and agency (however, we don’t have as much agency as we’d like to think)
- Food scarcity : information scarcity
- People competing to make information hyper-palatable, which makes it worse for you
- Many empty calories
- Some benign, like funny videos
- Misinformation, rage bait, conspiracy theories
- Education is ineffective on its own
- People won’t fact check what they agree with, and there’s too much information out there to fact check
- First era of information abundance
- We need to get better at identifying nutritious from junk information
- Think about simple stories and who is trying to manipulate us
clipping content
good morning John here in my notes app 0:02 list of video ideas nestled between 0:04 ranking Irish road signs and will 0:07 computers ever suffer lies a little 0:09 video called am I cigarettes which you 0:11 stole from me but of course I forgive 0:13 you for two reasons one I’ve stolen a 0:15 ton of stuff from you and second you did 0:17 a better job of that video than I would 0:18 have not least because I have never 0:19 smoked a cigarette i was so scared of 0:21 addiction as a kid which is kind of wild 0:23 considering how I use the social 0:25 internet but we’re going to talk about 0:26 that so you finished your video which I 0:28 liked a lot without any solutions and 0:31 then you just like kind of dumped that 0:32 on me well John you know I’ve got 0:35 thoughts so a quick summary the idea 0:37 basically is that the social internet 0:38 might really be quite bad for people and 0:40 at some point you transition from you 0:43 using it to it using you the way that 0:45 cigarettes are basically hacking a human 0:47 to become a person who uses them which 0:49 is just an amazing business model for 0:51 some rich guy and a terrible outcome for 0:54 everyone else but is this a good 0:56 metaphor is the social internet 0:58 cigarettes and since I live so much of 0:59 my life here and make so much of my 1:01 content for people here is it worse than 1:04 that am I the cigarettes that are being 1:06 sold by the rich guy so having this 1:08 metaphor not just be like a thing in my 1:10 notes app but something that I spent a 1:11 little bit of time with i do think it’s 1:13 probably a dangerous metaphor i think 1:15 it’s a simplifier i like simplifiers but 1:17 you always have to ask what the 1:18 simplification obscures and in this case 1:21 I think a lot i think it would be very 1:22 easy and it would get a lot of views to 1:24 have a video that’s called like we don’t 1:25 use Tik Tok Tik Tok uses us and that is 1:28 sometimes true and it might even result 1:30 in positive outcomes to make a video 1:31 like that because I think we should be 1:32 thinking about this stuff more but I 1:34 think I’ve landed on a better metaphor 1:37 that I’d like to share with you but in 1:39 the way of Vlog Brothers where nothing 1:40 is simple and we have to imagine 1:42 everything complexely it takes a little 1:43 bit of time I think to build the case 1:45 well so I’m sure that some people argue 1:47 that cigarettes provide some utility to 1:49 humans and I assume almost all of those 1:51 people make money selling cigarettes but 1:53 this is definitely BS a world where 1:54 nicotine had simply never evolved would 1:57 be a better world with less suffering 1:58 but the thing that is like the core of 2:00 the social internet isn’t nicotine it’s 2:03 not like an addictive chemical that 2:04 provides no benefit except for making 2:06 you addicted to it the thing that is at 2:08 the core here is information it’s 2:11 content for lack of a better term and I 2:13 love content i love books and music and 2:15 art and cat videos and video essays and 2:18 podcasts about the history of the 2:19 Supreme Court and dumb videos about 2:22 baseball statistics even though I never 2:23 watched baseball so cigarettes cannot be 2:25 positive but I think information 2:27 obviously can be which is why this 2:29 metaphor I think cannot lead us towards 2:31 solutions it isn’t a good enough 2:32 metaphor and so here’s my different 2:34 metaphor let’s talk about food food 2:37 definitely good definit like nobody 2:39 wants a world without food and for most 2:41 of human history the problem was not 2:44 enough access to food and honestly I 2:46 don’t mean most of human history i mean 2:47 all of human history up until extremely 2:49 recently malnutrition has likely played 2:51 a role in more human deaths than any 2:54 single pathogen or weapon scarcity of 2:57 calories has been the human story for 2:59 basically the whole time like the whole 3:01 time the first American generation that 3:03 for the most part did not have to worry 3:04 about getting enough food is still alive 3:07 up until the 1940s food shortages were 3:09 common in the 1930s they were extremely 3:12 common in the 1880s it was unimaginable 3:14 that they wouldn’t happen so we’ve moved 3:16 from scarcity to like ultraabundance at 3:18 this point we kind of have too much food 3:20 and now we’re in a society where 3:22 companies compete to create the most 3:24 delightful and engaging and inexpensive 3:28 food possible which it turns out is way 3:30 better for you than malnutrition but 3:33 also creates other problems if the 3:35 calories are cheap and they’re designed 3:37 to hack your brain into not realizing 3:39 you’ve consumed them you will eat more 3:41 food and it makes sense that companies 3:44 would optimize for that if you got a 3:45 product on the grocery shelf and there’s 3:46 a product right next to it that tastes 3:48 better and that people like more that’s 3:50 a big problem for you that’s the 3:51 competition happening on the grocery 3:53 shelf so it makes sense that companies 3:54 are optimizing for that and it makes 3:56 sense that I would have a hard time not 3:57 eating more food than I need while 3:59 simultaneously not actually getting all 4:01 the fiber and vitamins and proteins I 4:03 need because they’re not optimizing for 4:05 delivering everything I need to be a 4:07 healthy person they’re optimizing for 4:09 what I’m going to buy i want a Nashville 4:10 hot chicken all the time every meal but 4:13 important very important a hot chicken 4:16 sandwich isn’t cigarettes because 4:17 cigarettes are just a way to get 4:19 nicotine into your body while a hot 4:21 chicken sandwich is mostly food now 4:23 Coca-Cola I probably shouldn’t go on 4:25 this digression but I’m more on the 4:26 fence about sugar waters if the food is 4:29 just 20 lollipops dissolved in bubbly 4:31 water that’s calories but it isn’t 4:34 really food and perhaps I would prefer a 4:36 world where we just had never thought of 4:37 the idea of sugary drinks and yes that 4:39 includes juices juice is soda this is my 4:42 biggest take juice is soda my point is 4:44 there was a time and it was a very long 4:46 time when we did not have enough food 4:47 and now we don’t just have an abundance 4:49 we kind of have too much and we have 4:51 companies competing to make food that is 4:53 both cheap and super tasty hyper 4:56 palatable they call it the result is a 4:58 lot of people with fairly unhealthy 5:00 relationships with food and health 5:02 problems that we’ve never had to deal 5:03 with before and the question has been 5:06 how do you solve this and for a long 5:08 time we had the exact wrong idea we 5:10 thought that if you gave people 5:11 information about how many calories were 5:14 in Doritos it would make them healthier 5:16 if they knew what they were doing they 5:18 would do it less and this is wrong 5:20 nutrition is complex and no one has any 5:22 idea how many calories they need to eat 5:24 or how many calories they eat keeping 5:26 track of that and I’ve tried is like a 5:29 full-on hobby like it has to be like 5:30 your first or second priority after work 5:33 we know that we did this and we know 5:36 that it hasn’t worked i don’t think the 5:38 solution is to deeply understand the 5:40 chemical and caloric content of a Dorito 5:42 and I think that everyone who studies 5:43 this would agree with me i’m not saying 5:45 anything revolutionary here it turns out 5:46 that the solution is mostly avoiding 5:49 food that has been designed to be 5:50 extremely tasty because when you don't 5:52 do that it's very hard to not overeat 5:54 food but unsurprisingly this is 5:56 difficult and not just because Doritos 5:57 and Pop-Tarts taste so good and cost so 5:59 little it’s hard because having too much 6:02 food is a very new problem like we are 6:04 not set up for it we do not have 6:06 cultural structures to deal with it also 6:08 and I know this is a hard thing to 6:09 internalize but we don't have as much 6:11 agency as we would like to think i 6:13 really like the elephant writer metaphor 6:15 where like our bodies are the elephant 6:17 and our consciousness is the person like 6:19 driving the elephant we all have many 6:21 situations where we’ve realized that we 6:23 would like to go somewhere but the 6:24 elephant doesn’t want to go that way and 6:26 it simply will not we just can’t in that 6:27 moment stop ourselves from saying the 6:30 mean thing from making the bad decision 6:32 from finishing the burrito even though 6:34 you are stuffed full of burrito but 6:36 luckily we’re cultural and we build 6:38 cultural tools when we have to it just 6:40 takes a long time it takes a while for 6:41 us to get good at worlds that are 6:43 fundamentally differently shaped than 6:45 the ones we used to live in the way that 6:46 we get better at things when things 6:48 change isn’t entirely clear but it does 6:50 seem to happen with food part of that is 6:52 definitely going to be cultural change 6:53 like just having a vibe around 6:55 ultrarocessed foods that feel kind of 6:57 gross or a little cringe like something 6:59 that you would not allow in your home i 7:01 was raised on Pop-Tarts i have not had a 7:02 Pop-Tart in a long time i’ve never 7:04 stopped wanting Pop-Tarts but I have not 7:06 had one in a while and with food for 7:08 people who are already deeply affected 7:09 we now have amazing pharmaceutical tools 7:11 from what I can see GLP1 agonists are 7:13 basically miracle drugs like I know 7:16 people will argue with me about that but 7:17 it is really great that we have these 7:19 tools but I think that the long-term 7:20 solution will just be a turn away from 7:22 foods that are engineered to hack our 7:24 brains and like a feeling that I don’t 7:26 want to deal with them like I don’t want 7:28 to give them that power over me and a 7:30 turn toward foods that are just better 7:31 for you that are more foodshaped you 7:34 know now that’s not easy and again I do 7:36 think that this isn’t just about like 7:37 hyper palletability being engineered by 7:39 chemists i think there’s lots of food 7:41 that’s very tasty that isn’t 7:42 ultrarocessed that also has this problem 7:45 it’s just like too good and we’re humans 7:47 we’re animals it is hard to deal with 7:48 this but I think that the positive 7:49 consequences of solving this problem are 7:51 too large that we won’t get there and I 7:53 hope that you have followed the metaphor 7:55 here because I am now going to open it 7:57 up for you for the last millions of 8:00 years of human ancestral existence we 8:02 didn’t just live in a world of food 8:03 scarcity we lived in a world of 8:05 information scarcity you can make the 8:07 case that the last generation that had 8:09 to worry about too little information is 8:11 still alive today and they are my 8:13 parents and now we live in a world of 8:15 information abundance almost as if 8:17 there’s too much information and 8:19 definitely the people who package up 8:21 information to sell it to you are 8:23 competing with each other to make that 8:25 information more hyper palatable and in 8:27 many cases the process that makes the 8:29 information hyperpalatable also makes it 8:32 worse for you it makes it easy to only 8:35 consume information that you like 8:37 information that hacks your brain into 8:38 consuming more of it information that 8:40 doesn’t contain the vitamins and the 8:41 fiber and the protein that your brain 8:42 needs to have a functional useful model 8:44 of the world that helps you thrive in 8:46 your environment there’s lots of like 8:48 empty calories which I think are mostly 8:50 fine like I love myself a video of a guy 8:52 getting hit in the nuts just after he 8:55 got hit in the nuts but there’s also 8:56 stuff that’s definitely actively harmful 8:58 the trans fats and sugary beverages of 9:01 the information world the outrage bait 9:02 the conspiracy theories that alienate 9:04 you from your communities and just like 9:06 with the nutrition labels situation I 9:08 think it’s very easy to think the 9:10 solution to this problem is oh we just 9:13 need to educate people on what’s good 9:14 and bad and they’ll make better 9:16 decisions and I think that’s wrong i 9:19 think that it’s a good part of it but on 9:20 its own you will never get someone to 9:22 fact check a fact that they agree with 9:25 like the only time the red flag gets 9:28 raised for the vast majority of people 9:30 is when the information seems wrong so 9:32 when it seems right why would someone 9:34 check the fact you can’t check every 9:35 fact that you come across on the 9:36 internet you come across 600 of them an 9:38 hour there’s too much and unlike food 9:40 where like you make a Dorito and then 9:42 you try and sell Doritos to everybody 9:43 with the internet we can design an 9:45 individual personalized Dorito for every 9:47 single person and that Dorito can gather 9:49 information about what they like and it 9:50 can morph and change along with that 9:52 person’s interest to make sure that it’s 9:54 always hyper palatable specifically for 9:56 that person and as they fall down a 9:58 misinformation rabbit hole that Dorito 10:00 can keep changing shape until it’s worse 10:02 and worse for you as long as it keeps 10:04 you eating Doritos this is wild it’s 10:06 hard this is very scary but it's not 10:08 cigarettes because the Dorito is still 10:10 food it's still information at the core 10:12 it isn't just an addictive compound at 10:14 the core it is information it is 10:16 something that can be valuable or can be 10:17 harmful so I would not prefer to just 10:20 live in a world where it was never 10:21 invented i mean there are days but I bet 10:24 during the Reformation there were lots 10:25 of people who felt that way about books 10:27 this is hard and some of the smartest 10:28 people in the world are employed 10:30 designing Doritos that will be more and 10:33 more appealing to you but I also think 10:35 that we as biological entities and 10:37 cultural entities are just at the part 10:39 of this where we suck at it and I’ve 10:40 actually seen signs that we could maybe 10:42 be getting better though it’s hard to 10:44 tell but we’ve gone from millions of 10:46 years of ancestral information scarcity 10:48 which by the way could definitely kill 10:50 you back then to the first era of 10:52 information abundance and a nice thing 10:53 here is that we have a great metaphor in 10:56 food and what have we learned from food 10:58 companies will do everything they can to 11:00 make things that are very appealing even 11:03 addictive we have less control than we 11:05 imagine that we have and giving your 11:07 agency away a little bit can be fun and 11:09 rewarding but giving it away completely 11:11 isn't just damaging to you and your 11:13 ability to flourish is kind of cringe 11:16 like nobody brags about the start of 11:18 their second hour on TikTok what worked 11:21 with cigarettes and I think what is 11:23 working some with food is shining a 11:26 light on the people who want to 11:27 manipulate us there’s this TV 11:29 advertisement that was on in Florida 11:31 when I was a kid where there’s this guy 11:33 dying in the hospital maybe I’ll just 11:35 play it for you i’m going to describe it 11:36 but if I can find it I’ll just play it 11:38 for you there’s this guy dying in the 11:39 hospital and there’s these all these 11:41 like suits around him like like 11:43 professional businessmen around him and 11:45 they’re saying “Oh no like how are we 11:47 going to replace this guy?” Like he was 11:49 our greatest most loyal customer and 11:51 then the camera like pans to a young 11:53 person in the hallway of the hospital 11:55 that to me is the best messaging that’s 11:58 what we need we need to understand that 12:00 the people and the platforms and the 12:02 foods that are very good at hacking your 12:04 brain and taking away your agency and 12:06 the creators and the leaders who 12:08 alienate you from reality so that they 12:10 can keep control over you that keep you 12:12 scared of everything angry at everything 12:14 feeling superior to everyone those 12:16 people are the businessmen in that 12:17 hospital room and there are a lot of 12:19 people a lot of people who have ended up 12:21 damaged by those people and they will 12:24 always always want more customers and I 12:27 do think that eventually we will see 12:28 that stuff not just like junk food 12:30 that’s like Doritos are good sometimes 12:32 but as so manipulative and cringe and 12:35 like imagining us as tools to be used i 12:38 think that we’ll eventually see that i 12:40 just think it’s going to take a long 12:41 time john the social internet isn’t 12:43 cigarettes it is food and a lot of it’s 12:45 junk food and a lot of it’s worse than 12:47 junk food it isn’t just Doritos it’s 12:49 making us sick but a lot of it is 12:51 nutritious we have to get better at 12:54 being able to identify which is which 12:56 but it’s going to take a lot of time and 12:57 I do think there are ways to speed that 12:58 time up like I remember how successfully 13:02 we decreased smoking in America there 13:04 are things we can do things we can shine 13:05 a light on but I think that the stories 13:06 have to be much simpler than here’s how 13:09 you do fact checks and have good 13:10 information literacy it has to be a 13:12 simple story of people trying to 13:14 manipulate us into being their tools 13:17 despite the fact that it’s going to make 13:18 our lives worse that’s what we have to 13:20 think about simple stories and this was 13:22 not a good video for simple stories i’ll 13:24 say that’s not really my area of 13:27 expertise all the time there’s 13:28 definitely a TLDDR version of this video 13:30 that’s more effective and I leave that 13:31 up to everyone else john I’ll see you on 13:34 Tuesday also completely unrelated the 13:36 Awesome Socks Club Warehouse has too 13:38 many socks in it right now we always buy 13:40 a few extra and then we have too many 13:42 and we solve this problem in a bunch of 13:43 different ways one we give them away to 13:44 charity we’ve given away over 50,000 13:46 socks i mean 100,000 if you count both 13:47 of them but we also sell them as mystery 13:49 socks if you could choose the size but 13:51 you don’t know the cut or the design 13:53 you’re going to get and we’ll send you a 13:55 bunch of them your feet need socks 13:56 you’re going to have to buy them anyway 13:58 you might as well buy them from a place 13:59 where all the profit gets donated to 14:00 charity we’re selling these at a pretty 14:02 substantial discount i was planning on 14:03 uploading a different video today and 14:05 the coupon code is look at this graph 14:07 which would make sense if it were that 14:09 video but John then you made me make 14:10 this video basically so instead the 14:13 coupon code is the same so look at this 14:15 graph coupon code you’ll save an extra 14:17 $5 off the already steeply discounted 14:19 mystery socks