Donald Trump did not invent political corruption. But he may be accelerating something more dangerous: the collapse of universal moral standards into a culture of endless special exceptions.
Fitness influencers using heaps of steroids. So-called “writers” copying and pasting AI generated slop. Obviously our politicians (and many pundits and streamers too) just being absolutely terrible people. And nobody is even trying to hide it anymore. It’s almost as if everyone is proud of it—a tragic nihilism all the way down. This is something I’ve thought about a lot since The Way of Excellence came out. Thank you for giving us a framework for it. I’m really only interested in people who do good work the right way. These are the people I want to work with and be around. Nobody is perfect or pure (that’s it’s own trap). But can we at least have a moral code and the intention to be good. The marketers and grifters and cynics are increasingly winning everything and that’s terrible for the world. Good people need to fight the good fight.
Marketers, grifters, and cynics know how to appeal to our emotional, path-of-least-resistance brain. I'm not sure how to counter that in an infinite scrolling world where our attention lasts <2 seconds. Alternate forms of social media? More in-person communal spaces? Both are necessary, but at scale is the sticking point.
Derek this was phenomenal. I agree with the opener that writing pieces about how Trump is corrupt tends to feel useless and repetitive, but you managed to do it in a way that felt fresh and like I was still learning a new way to think about the world.
I'm skeptical that a "decency revolution" can happen in today's climate. We've become so entrenched in our echochambers. My social media feeds are entirely comprised of liberal talking points because that's where I align. I want to see both sides, but I have to actively seek out right-leaning commentary.
Moreover, on Instagram at least, ragebaiting is very much alive and powerful. I see it now more than ever, even despite the awareness of it. Substack seems to be the best place to avoid it and get both sides. But how many voters are actually on Substack regularly?
It's quite possible to be a young man today who consumes a lot of bro-ish podcasts, whose engagement with pro sports has turned from watching football for fun to gambling, is in debt because of online gambling and crypto, watches a lot of conspiratorial TikTok, and has barely left the house for socializing since Covid ended. In such a case, it is easy for such a person to develop a rather cynical outlook based on "lol nothing matters," but this was a self-imposed way of life. American culture changed because certain subcultures embraced technology in a way that was unhealthy.
None of this is new, and it's terrifying where it's heading. I'm reading Heinrich Mann's "The Loyal Subject" (1918) right now about the death of liberal thinking in pre WWI Germany, and "vicemaxxing" is a core theme of the book. Dostoyevsky's "Demons" details a similar breakdown in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Is America really so different? They thought they were too.
The most frustrating part of this personally has been speaking with people, who when I simply bring this up in a non-threatening manner, seem to look at me with shock and a look of moral disgust as though I have been identified as being part of the "Satanic cabal of Democrats." There is a certain in-group/out-group dynamic that shocks my system. It causes me to try and consider things from the other perspective, but I cannot see how much of their outlook is based in reality.
Started listening to audio and quickly realized I should read this. Will set some time aside for later this evening. A lot of smart people are ringing the alarm on the lunatic - not many smarter then Derek. Excited to dig in.
For quite a while now, I have hoped that eventually people who enabled/were complicit with this kind of behavior would be shunned and also feel a sense of personal shame. The likelihood of this happening during my lifetime seemed kind of low, which made me sad. But now I’m not sure it will *ever* happen.
I really feel for parents trying to raise children while surrounded by examples of this version of “success.”
Perhaps the break within tribes such as the Trump/Massie episode could splinter enough echo chambers that people will have to resort to returning to a semblance of shared values, rather than just tribal values.
Why would there be a countertrend? Corruption doesn’t seem to be something that zig-zags. The prevailing pattern across the world is corruption going down, mainly because it’s anti-correlated with human development indicators (i.e. GDP per capita and everything that tracks it). Maybe there are localized increases where states lose authority or where there’s an influx of cash from resource finds, but these are blips in the bigger picture.
What’s happening in the US is unique among rich democracies. It’s probably self-reinforcing, not mean-reverting.
Fitness influencers using heaps of steroids. So-called “writers” copying and pasting AI generated slop. Obviously our politicians (and many pundits and streamers too) just being absolutely terrible people. And nobody is even trying to hide it anymore. It’s almost as if everyone is proud of it—a tragic nihilism all the way down. This is something I’ve thought about a lot since The Way of Excellence came out. Thank you for giving us a framework for it. I’m really only interested in people who do good work the right way. These are the people I want to work with and be around. Nobody is perfect or pure (that’s it’s own trap). But can we at least have a moral code and the intention to be good. The marketers and grifters and cynics are increasingly winning everything and that’s terrible for the world. Good people need to fight the good fight.
Marketers, grifters, and cynics know how to appeal to our emotional, path-of-least-resistance brain. I'm not sure how to counter that in an infinite scrolling world where our attention lasts <2 seconds. Alternate forms of social media? More in-person communal spaces? Both are necessary, but at scale is the sticking point.
There seems to be a correlation between the decrease in attention span and the increase of polarization.
Derek this was phenomenal. I agree with the opener that writing pieces about how Trump is corrupt tends to feel useless and repetitive, but you managed to do it in a way that felt fresh and like I was still learning a new way to think about the world.
I'm skeptical that a "decency revolution" can happen in today's climate. We've become so entrenched in our echochambers. My social media feeds are entirely comprised of liberal talking points because that's where I align. I want to see both sides, but I have to actively seek out right-leaning commentary.
Moreover, on Instagram at least, ragebaiting is very much alive and powerful. I see it now more than ever, even despite the awareness of it. Substack seems to be the best place to avoid it and get both sides. But how many voters are actually on Substack regularly?
It seems as though we need our social media platforms taken away from us just as students need their phones removed in schools.
The best anecdote that I have found is to seek out the reasonable folks who try and capture the essence of both sides, such as the Tangle newsletter.
It's quite possible to be a young man today who consumes a lot of bro-ish podcasts, whose engagement with pro sports has turned from watching football for fun to gambling, is in debt because of online gambling and crypto, watches a lot of conspiratorial TikTok, and has barely left the house for socializing since Covid ended. In such a case, it is easy for such a person to develop a rather cynical outlook based on "lol nothing matters," but this was a self-imposed way of life. American culture changed because certain subcultures embraced technology in a way that was unhealthy.
None of this is new, and it's terrifying where it's heading. I'm reading Heinrich Mann's "The Loyal Subject" (1918) right now about the death of liberal thinking in pre WWI Germany, and "vicemaxxing" is a core theme of the book. Dostoyevsky's "Demons" details a similar breakdown in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Is America really so different? They thought they were too.
The most frustrating part of this personally has been speaking with people, who when I simply bring this up in a non-threatening manner, seem to look at me with shock and a look of moral disgust as though I have been identified as being part of the "Satanic cabal of Democrats." There is a certain in-group/out-group dynamic that shocks my system. It causes me to try and consider things from the other perspective, but I cannot see how much of their outlook is based in reality.
Started listening to audio and quickly realized I should read this. Will set some time aside for later this evening. A lot of smart people are ringing the alarm on the lunatic - not many smarter then Derek. Excited to dig in.
For quite a while now, I have hoped that eventually people who enabled/were complicit with this kind of behavior would be shunned and also feel a sense of personal shame. The likelihood of this happening during my lifetime seemed kind of low, which made me sad. But now I’m not sure it will *ever* happen.
I really feel for parents trying to raise children while surrounded by examples of this version of “success.”
Perhaps the break within tribes such as the Trump/Massie episode could splinter enough echo chambers that people will have to resort to returning to a semblance of shared values, rather than just tribal values.
Tell it, brother! Thanks for this.
Why would there be a countertrend? Corruption doesn’t seem to be something that zig-zags. The prevailing pattern across the world is corruption going down, mainly because it’s anti-correlated with human development indicators (i.e. GDP per capita and everything that tracks it). Maybe there are localized increases where states lose authority or where there’s an influx of cash from resource finds, but these are blips in the bigger picture.
What’s happening in the US is unique among rich democracies. It’s probably self-reinforcing, not mean-reverting.