I like this a lot - and, of course, we built a whole information and communication architecture premised on this idea of removing friction - the internet - and we were somehow convinced that this frictionless environment was for our benefit, as the inhabitants of the thing, when, of course, it's not for us at all, it's for the corporations, for the machines. Reducing friction is an efficiency gain for a computer system, it's a machine value. I've always said that Tim Berners-Lee's most important decision, in designing the WWW, was NOT requiring permission to link. So we have this ultra-promiscuous system of zero-cost connection that permits any page or system to link to any other and the result, of course, is out-of-control, virus-like growth of links, which we've always kind of blandly thought must be one of the good things about the web. But Ted Nelson, who designed one of the web alternatives that used to exist but have all been eliminated now - called Xanadu - had this totally different model, where every link made was a tiny contract (which could even trigger a tiny payment) so the corporations rejected that because it was inimical to their frictionless ideal. It would have inhibited the end-to-end, transparent, zero-handshake system of observation and control they instinctively wanted to build - and that now tortures us with its lack of friction.
Interesting. Yeah, this is like a rules of the game question, and we Americans have trouble thinking of things that way, or believing that there really are "rules of the game" that in any way impinge on or channel our individual decisions. Interesting.
> Does it make sense to think of worthwhile things as inherently involving some kind of good friction/meritorious unpleasantness/etc., or is that itself a kind of conservative editorializing or judgmentalism?
I think I could maybe harmonize our views by saying something like, "friction is not important in and of itself, but many activities/practices that are vital to human connection are built upon friction, and so trying to *remove* friction indiscriminately will cause us to wipe out many foundational activities/practices that keep us together." Would you agree, or am I still missing something about your view?
I think that puts it pretty well! Someone else commented that tech/social media/marketing is about removing friction, i.e. sucking the consumer in to spend more time on your platform/product. Which backs up my supposition that some of the “friction” discourse is something like “I want to be forced to stop this bad habit that is too easy to fall into”
I feel like conservatives often have trouble with that b/c of its implications about business/capitalism, they feel the feeling but don’t articulate in the same way
“I want to be forced to stop this bad habit that is too easy to fall into” is a great way of putting it. I'm reminded of this great article by Brink Lindsey, which talks about many related issues and kinda puts full-on free-market people to task about profitmaxxing with cigarettes and gambling (https://brinklindsey.substack.com/p/productivity-growth-the-good-the)
I like this a lot - and, of course, we built a whole information and communication architecture premised on this idea of removing friction - the internet - and we were somehow convinced that this frictionless environment was for our benefit, as the inhabitants of the thing, when, of course, it's not for us at all, it's for the corporations, for the machines. Reducing friction is an efficiency gain for a computer system, it's a machine value. I've always said that Tim Berners-Lee's most important decision, in designing the WWW, was NOT requiring permission to link. So we have this ultra-promiscuous system of zero-cost connection that permits any page or system to link to any other and the result, of course, is out-of-control, virus-like growth of links, which we've always kind of blandly thought must be one of the good things about the web. But Ted Nelson, who designed one of the web alternatives that used to exist but have all been eliminated now - called Xanadu - had this totally different model, where every link made was a tiny contract (which could even trigger a tiny payment) so the corporations rejected that because it was inimical to their frictionless ideal. It would have inhibited the end-to-end, transparent, zero-handshake system of observation and control they instinctively wanted to build - and that now tortures us with its lack of friction.
Interesting. Yeah, this is like a rules of the game question, and we Americans have trouble thinking of things that way, or believing that there really are "rules of the game" that in any way impinge on or channel our individual decisions. Interesting.
> Does it make sense to think of worthwhile things as inherently involving some kind of good friction/meritorious unpleasantness/etc., or is that itself a kind of conservative editorializing or judgmentalism?
I think I could maybe harmonize our views by saying something like, "friction is not important in and of itself, but many activities/practices that are vital to human connection are built upon friction, and so trying to *remove* friction indiscriminately will cause us to wipe out many foundational activities/practices that keep us together." Would you agree, or am I still missing something about your view?
I think that puts it pretty well! Someone else commented that tech/social media/marketing is about removing friction, i.e. sucking the consumer in to spend more time on your platform/product. Which backs up my supposition that some of the “friction” discourse is something like “I want to be forced to stop this bad habit that is too easy to fall into”
I feel like conservatives often have trouble with that b/c of its implications about business/capitalism, they feel the feeling but don’t articulate in the same way
“I want to be forced to stop this bad habit that is too easy to fall into” is a great way of putting it. I'm reminded of this great article by Brink Lindsey, which talks about many related issues and kinda puts full-on free-market people to task about profitmaxxing with cigarettes and gambling (https://brinklindsey.substack.com/p/productivity-growth-the-good-the)