A Note to My Readers

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2015/01/28/a-note-to-my-readers/

by _pius • 11 years ago

142 55 11 years ago

dish.andrewsullivan.com

voidz5• 11 years ago

The second is that I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again.

A very familiar sentiment shared by myself and many of my peers who are in the technical field. Nostalgic feelings are clearly on the rise, and in fact I think this might be a good thing... and it reinforces my own feeling that "The Internet" might one day be regarded as nothing more than a phase that simply faded in and out of our human evolution.

delluminatus2• 11 years ago

There are my idle thoughts on the matter:

I have also caught the nostalgia bug, but I suspect that in the future we will come to see this as a bug in people, not in technology. And, eventually, I suspect that we will "fix" that bug, for better or worse, by more tightly integrating our consciousness with the hyper-reality which we have created.

In the end, we won't have evolved beyond the online world -- we will have evolved beyond the "actual" world, or put another way, we will have evolved beyond the human sentimentality that values reality over hyper-reality.

glhaynes• 11 years ago

I suspect that "bug" will be "fixed" by upcoming and future generations that haven't experienced a world without these things. (Which I suppose could arguably be alternatively phrased as "by more tightly integrating our consciousness with the hyper-reality which we have created.")

moultano• 11 years ago

I think it's more likely that the internet will change to serve those needs better, and we'll get better at using it.

voidz5• 11 years ago

Yes exactly. I'm not at all saying (as someone else suggested) that we will return to a pre-internet "amish" lifestyle. I'm saying that I notice how many people (in the tech field) are yearning for a much less mechanical, pressured, and "hype-obsessed" technical world. Where we are not slaves of technology, but where tech is understood as something that serves people.

drzaiusapelord• 11 years ago

This is my assumption as well. Not too long ago I had to use a text-based email reader on a computer that used dialup for a shell account.

Now I just whisper commands into my smartwatch or wait for it to send me notifications. If anything, the mobile revolution has softened the tired hand wringing of "but but I'm on the computer so much." Yeah, if you are, then that's your lack of discipline and ability to find better solutions to your problems. Everything has been dumbed down and simple. Its actually quite pleasant unless you purposely make yourself a fb, twitter, and instagram addict.

There's probably a larger conversation here about what it means to have a good life and what it means to have the discipline to make it happen. So many people fall into the traps of outrage politics, low information buzzfeed-like articles, mindless skinner boxes posing as games, etc and blame the technology. Sorry hun, the technology isn't the problem - you are. Funny how when we finally get choice, we show the world how little class we actually have.

For those of us with a little self-control, the connected world is beyond amazing. I wish it got more appreciation. I'm so getting tired of the narrative that everything sucks in life. I don't think we really appreciate the wonders at our disposal.

RockyMcNuts• 11 years ago

Yeah, the Internet is just a fad. Because people yearn for a simpler time. We will shortly revert to pre-industrial Amish lifestyle. :)

People have always been nostalgic for a simpler time.

voidz5• 11 years ago

My point is not about early pre-industrial lifestyles. It's about transitioning away from the current phone/screen/"stare into the blue hue" mentality. But, then again, I'm infamous for my optimism.

hammerandtongs2• 11 years ago

I think it's a continual and repeated mistake to equate continuously blogging/facebooking/newsreading/messaging as "the internet".

The digital world is just another tool in the human toolbox, how you use it is what defines you.

edit - I should have said something closer to "the digital world offers a very large _selection_ of tools added to the human toolbox" my sentence was guilty of the same problem that I was warning against :)

mbrock2• 11 years ago

For a counterpoint to the notion of "just another tool", see Marshall McLuhan. Forms of media have immense impact on human psychology.

See "The Agenbite of Outwit," a short essay of his that I think is a good introduction.

http://projects.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_...

rmrfrmrf• 11 years ago

it reinforces my own feeling that "The Internet" might one day be regarded as nothing more than a phase that simply faded in and out of our human evolution.

Ah, yes, much like industrialization faded after the transcendentalists. /s

voidz5• 11 years ago

Haha! Well, okay, alright. Perhaps I should have used the word "integrated", or "succeeded" even, rather than "faded". I meant that we'd have moved on, not back. Thanks for the laugh; here's an upvote. ^

jeorgun• 11 years ago

My suspicion is that, over time, our computers will become something more like the neo-Victorians' from The Diamond Age. If the Internet is as ubiquitous as electricity, it stands to reason it'd become less obtrusive; a future smart watch would be no more obviously digital than my wristwatch is obviously powered by electricity, and probably (hopefully!) no less bothersome.

metaphorm• 11 years ago

global computer network is a technology development as impactful (or more so!) as any other development in communications technology in the entire history of humanity. what we've created in the last 30 years is as historically meaningful as the invention of alphabets and writing. nothing will be the same afterwards. it literally divides cultures into distinct eras. things were simply different pre-network than they are post-network.

maybe you're just referring to a certain aspect of culture on the web when you refer to "The Internet". the culture of blogging, gossiping, and elevating online personas above other aspects of personality. that might certainly be a phase that fades away. however, there is nothing transitory about the cultural, political, and economic transformation that the global computer network creates.

georgemcbay2• 11 years ago

As someone who has been on the net since the 1980s, I (still) love the Internet and technology as a whole.

On the other hand I absolutely loathe the still-spreading BuzzFeedification of virtually everything online.

It is really starting to drive me nuts. If only I knew one weird trick to filter all this shit out from the rest of what I use the Internet for, but even when you try to avoid it it tends to seep in through all of the social connections from other uses of the net.

philwelch2• 11 years ago

BuzzFeed is basically a supermarket checkout line magazine for the Internet. (So is Huffington Post.) It's less part of the Internet and more something the mundanes brought over from print.

at-fates-hands• 11 years ago

> On the other hand I absolutely loathe the still-spreading BuzzFeedification of virtually everything online.

Agreed.

The analogy I use with my friends is to think of TV and for that matter Cable TV before reality tv and where TV is at this point - 95% reality tv, with little or no substance or redeeming qualities.

This is where I feel the internet is right now, but also take the view, the good stuff is out there, you just have to dig a little to find it.

I started taking this viewpoint after hearing Henry Rollins spoken word tour where he really thought punk rock was dead. He then related an experience where he had a friend of his in Chicago take him to a hole in the wall club where 3 punk bands he had never heard of were playing. He said it was amazing. People smelled, the club was dark, the lightening was terrible, and the sound system was sketchy. But the bands played their guts out and blew him away.

He concluded this had become a theme in his life. A lot of things, like Punk music isn't dead, you just have to dig a little deeper these days to find the good stuff buried underneath all the BS and garbage we get feed everyday.

puranjay• 11 years ago

I spend 12 hours a day before screens. I'm sick of it. I want to work in the sun and be around people again. But this Tyranny of Screens is hard to escape.

DanielBMarkham• 11 years ago

Just to continue on this riff:

Outside, with other people building some tangible thing together. Something that years later we can point to and say yep, it was tough, but we did that.

Not only are we stuck with our heads stuck up computers, in 50 years everything we've done will be superceded by something vastly more cool and interesting. Within 100 years it'll all be gone.

There was an article on HN recently about video game addiction. You don't have to be addicted to video games to spend your entire life in front of a screen, being a slave to IM and email, and miss out on all of the important things.

ADD: Instead of 50 and 100 years, make that 20 and 40 years. We'll still be here when it all vanishes.

cylinder• 11 years ago

Tyranny? Why not become a tradesman? Those are still a thing.

juliangregorian2• 11 years ago

I believe you're sick of your job, but I don't believe for a second that you'd rather be roofing or doing landscaping.

cwp2• 11 years ago

Yeah, I can understand that.

When I was in journalism school, I had several classes that were basically "do reporting." Deadline was 5pm and we had to produce radio, TV or newspaper stories by then—whatever the news of the day happened to be. During those semesters I was stupendously well-informed. I'd be monitoring the news wires all day, updating or reshuffling stories to keep up with events, writing and rewriting stories on the stuff that I thought was most important. Sure, we were just students, but I got a taste of the whole "fast-paced newsroom" thing.

Right after graduation, I completely unplugged and went on a 3-month bicycle trip. I rode all day and camped near the road each night. Sometimes I'd make detours to go hiking or canoeing at a particular spot. That summer I hardly spent any time indoors, let alone looking at screens or connected to the internet.

The effect on my mind was stunning. I had a completely different perception of time, distance, the weather, food, my own body, other people... everything! Afterwards I joined an internet startup, and went back to the connected lifestyle, but wow, I'll never forget it.

So go for it. There are ways to escape the screens, for a summer or a lifetime, if you want.

karmacondon• 11 years ago

If anything is going to fade, it's this particular form of nostalgia and not the connected culture.

As others have pointed out in the past, I'm old enough to remember how much the days before ubiquitous internet sucked. It was hard to connect with like minded people, hard to find and cross verify information, hard to communicate with the few people that you were close to. Everything was just hard. The internet makes all the things that are important much easier, in ways that are difficult to imagine and easy to take for granted. Nostalgia has always existed and will always exist, and for understandable reasons. I'm sure there were cavemen who said "Things were so much simpler before fire. Now it's always burn this and cook that. Who can keep up?" But it doesn't last, nostalgia gives way to convenience every time. People want to think about the past, but live in the future.

If I had to guess, Sullivan's problem isn't so much with the digital life but with the fact that he makes a living from being a media personality. When you have millions of twitter follows and facebook friends and whatever instragram has, life must be very overwhelming indeed. The PBS special on Edison last night mentioned that the inventor felt overwhelmed receiving a dozen letters per day. Poor Sullivan might get that many communications from strangers every minute. Of course he and others feel like they need to unplug from time to time. But that's the price we pay for the opportunities afforded us by such a powerful medium, especially those of us who choose to profit from a culture of attention and celebrity.

My lack of friends has created a digital Walden Pond of sorts. I don't use facebook, twitter or any software with insta/snap/what in it's name. Don't get a lot of email and few texts. I'm sure that most people are better informed, better connected and generally cooler than I am. But it's quiet here on the pond, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

vetler• 11 years ago

If anything is going to fade, it's this particular form of nostalgia and not the connected culture.

I agree, and would like to add I find it odd to differentiate between a digital world, and a somehow more real world, as if the digital world isn't real. The people we interact with are real, the words that form in my head as I type them are real, and the social interactions are very much real.

Unfortunately I can't remember where I heard it first, but someone said that people on their phones all the time are not anti social, but hyper social.

stuart78• 11 years ago

That is a bummer, makes me wish I hadn't let the unread count from The Dish grow so large in recent months. Not too many writers who can argue so eloquently and respectfully on politics.

When I didn't agree with his perspective I always found it extremely useful to read an honest and solid argument against my own position. I think you can ask no more from a writer than to challenge your assumptions, improve your reasoning skills and help foster empathy for those with whom you disagree.

x0x0• 11 years ago

Honest and solid aren't reasonably used to characterize Andrew's writing.

One could start with his obsession with whether Sarah Palin's son Trig was Sarah's son or grandson.

Or the McCaughey piece widely believed to have helped tank Clinton's health care reform. An article that later had to be retracted because it was written by a republican operative and wildly deceptive. But hey, mission accomplished: health care reform dead for a generation. And the fact that it was completely incorrect, and contributed to an excess of 45k deaths per year, is just another trophy in Andrew's case.

Andrew is similarly famous for "are blacks genetically inferior? Let's discuss! I bet these nazis over here have some insightful opinions on this question!"

And who can forget the way he treated people opposing the Iraq war -- people far smarter than Andrew, who grudgingly was forced to admit his stupidity. Here's a quote for you:

   "The middle part of the country - the great red zone that voted for Bush - is 
   clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is 
   not dead — and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column." [1]

Yup, I see what you mean by arguing eloquently (yet respectfully!) Americans who oppose the war in Iraq are traitors!

Finally, read anything Sullivan writes on taxes, and you'll quickly discover he's an innumerate idiot.

edit: I knew I'd seen these arguments all in one place before; read Mark Ames's article here https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/andrew-sullivan/

[1] copied here http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2...

kylebgorman• 11 years ago

Could we get a more informative title?

hacknat• 11 years ago

Oh this makes me sad. There are very few modern American voices on politics that usually make as much sense and are as well thought out as Andrew Sullivan's. It will be a loss not to hear his opinion everyday. His reasons for leaving are, of course, understandable.

I feel like Ta-Nehisi Coates Matthew Yglesias, and Johnathan Chait are the only other voices that come close.

juliangregorian2• 11 years ago

Matt Taibbi comes to mind.

tptacek• 11 years ago

Matt Taibbi is fun to read, but also shrill, predictable, and at times pretty clearly underinformed. I really like his political writing, though I don't always agree with his conclusions, but his writing on finance has often been just one or two notches more credible than ZeroHedge.

I generally always feel like Taibbi is deliberately writing to get a rise out of people. I didn't particularly like Sullivan --- my opinions of him hardened during the first term of Bush II --- but I did feel like he was trying to be careful.

I dispute the idea that it's hard to find similarly careful journalists today. What's perhaps hard is to find blogospheric gravity wells like Sullivan. This thread compared him to Ta-Nahisi Coates and Matt Yglesias, but neither perfectly fit Sullivan's mold. Coates doesn't cover politics, and Yglesias is an econ reporter. You have to assemble a Sullivan out of parts now, but I think those parts are of higher quality than Sullivan's (say) 2005 competition.

inthewoods• 11 years ago

He lost me a while back with his take on the Bell Curve.

industriousthou• 11 years ago

Man, this sucks. I'm hoping, out of loyalty to his staff and readers, he'll keep the thing going but maybe take a back seat. When he took a month off a while back, his guest bloggers did a pretty good job and his full-time staff does a great job of finding interesting content. This is a model of journalism that I can really get behind and it would be such a waste to let the whole thing just fade away.

bootload• 11 years ago

"... I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again. ..."

Is this an increasing trend?

nstart• 11 years ago

Without any hard data to back the statement, I can say that I feel it's a trend. But it might just be a trend within our always connected tech subculture. It should also be a sign to people to learn how to discipline themselves better to avoid burnout or loss of appreciation for taking it slow. I nearly hit that point 3 years ago and instead of going cold turkey on the web, I just slowed it down.

After about 3 months, I realised I didn't need to ALWAYS be on twitter to be updated about the latest piece of tech news. I didn't need to ALWAYS be on my RSS feeds for every possible update in my other fields of interest.

As a result I have occasionally missed out on updates of new programming language features, and some security updates. But none of it has ever affected me in a way that made me wish I was on to things sooner. (except for effing shellshock. I just backed up, wiped, and switched off both my servers till it became safe)

lmm• 11 years ago

No. It's something people do as they get old, so when you look at your own peer group it looks like an increasing trend, because your friends are getting older.

natecarroll• 11 years ago

I've seen several other journalists/bloggers/media-people react to this news as if Andrew's decision was clearly driven by structural economic factors rather than a more benign desire to step away from blogging as his primary form of writing. Ben Smith--of, yes, Buzzfeed--seemed to interpret this as the death knell of independent internet commentary.

What's going on here? I think we can agree we're all sad Andrew Sullivan is quitting The Dish, but are we symbolically sad over what that blog represented which will now never exist again, or are we just sad that a pretty great blogger won't be blogging any more?

cwp2• 11 years ago

The latter. I think we can take him at his word that this is about his health and sanity and he just needs to chill out for a while. It's not a failure of the business model or abandonment of his aims as an independent commentator.

na85• 11 years ago

I think twitter shows us that independent internet commentary is fine and well.

Long-form blogs are perhaps less suited to the mobile era, but who can say for sure?

frostmatthew• 11 years ago

People read entire books on their phone - I don't think the "mobile era" means the death of long-form blogs.

b1daly• 11 years ago

I've been a reader of the Dish for 15 years. I've always been astounded at both the quality and quantity of writing Andrew produces. I wouldn't be surprised if wrote more than any other blogger (among those who are actually read).

One thing I've admired him for was he was one of the few high profile supporters of the Iraq war who changed his mind and publicly announced it.

I can't say I'm surprised, his announcement is perfectly understandable!

nevergetenglish• 11 years ago

Knowing nothing about this person I thought It was a woman: "I want to spend some real time with my parents, while I still have them, with my husband ...".

He/She wants to write a book and has time for his family and take care of his health.

The writer seems to be very good: A world of mass intimacy with their reader, he loves them, he cares and that is the reason I find so hard to go away.

jordanpg• 11 years ago

One of the biggest values I got from the Dish was as a news aggregation service that I trust, and that is the thing that might put me in the wind looking for a replacement for some time.

Andrew identifies as a conservative of some flavor, which I certainly am not. As a result, on the days that I only have 20 minutes to spend on current events, getting the news from his site made me feel like I am doing something right.

What other comparable resources exist?

A Note to My Readers

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