It feels amazing to read your thoughts. A lot of times it feels like you are converting my thoughts to eloquent words, and a lot of times it feels like I'm learning something completely new and something obvious that I have missed. I hope your words reach more and more people.
My mission in life is somewhat similar to yours, I want to work on reforms in the (Indian) education system that will enable a space for students to think critically. So I get to learn a lot from you. I hope someday I'll also be able to write about my experiences like you do.
It was around the early months of the COVID pandemic that I realised how our minds are conditioned to market economies. In my early years of college, I came to believe that in a free country, where one doesn't have to bend to authoritarian lies out of fear, humanity would pursue what was most beneficial to it: the truth. Instead, we conditioned our minds to consuming exactly what satisfy and discard anything that doesn't. Information ended up becoming a product in itself, it needs to be excessively tortured and warped for mass appeal and consumption. A moment spent in silent reflection was instead replaced with a litmus test measuring every insecurity against every imperfection. That was my "black pill", a phase that I'm still stuck in but I think I'll come to accept ourselves for our imperfect design.
In a single decade, our lifestyles have undergone so many radical changes faster than we could realise, let alone comprehend, them. Everything you write shines a bright light of clarity in this confusing age. I've found my abstract thoughts described perfectly into words in a way that I couldn't, even had them challenged and won over by more reasonable ideas, and my perspective fine tuned in the end.
So kudos and all the power to you, mate. Looking forward to see you climb.
Gurwinder, I cannot wait to see your Substack go from strength to strength. This really gets to the heart of the free speech debate online: "as if it were possible to quarantine fools from falsehood." Onward and upward my friend!
I agree that the stated principles (equality of opportunity, freedom of expression, primacy of truth) are fundamental and welcome the approach to truth as a horizon.
Being a data nerd, this hierarchy of states of cognition listed below helps me classify content with the understanding that there are distinguishable processes to compile content from one stage to the next. I suggest using it for identification thinking that the deconstruction enabled by this view can help clarify - even on what level a discussion is taking place.
The list is a compilation of elements described by Edgar Codd (normalizing facts to data), Clifford Stoll, data to wisdom, Frank Zappa adds truth (and the rest for fun).
I too was an idiot...well beyond my teens. I'd like to hold those same principles close to my self - equality of opportunity, freedom of expression, truth no matter how inconvenient. Thanks for this. 2023 is the year I divorce social media & get back to real life and do right by those values and encourage others to the same.
Stumbled on your blog. Wonderful insights. Thank you Gurwinder.
When I used to read about dictators like Hitler and Stalin and how they got their countrymen to yield and rapturously support their agenda I blamed it on lack of information and thought that we had progressed beyond that sectarian mindset. In American, Indian & other societies the same divisiveness is being used by political leaders, which is to be expected since they only want to win elections, and being vociferously adopted by the populace at large. I don't know whether there is a hope in hell for humanity as a species since bigotry, global warming, war, racism, pandemic are just a few of the issues in which one thought picking the right choice would be a 'no brainer'. Apparently a lot of us are no brainers which does not augur well for the future.
Very well-said. More and more I am still left curious, eager in trying to understand what little I can. Trying to comprehend and evaluate and articulate and discover and recognize and be aware and notice and compute and imagine. What a scary yet awe-inspiring feeling.
I really liked the way you explained the twisting of information through jig saw analogy. I was aware of it but never really understood it completely. This analogy made it clear.
Interesting to see how your story with the pursuit of truth is also tangled up in Jihadism. While I cannot say that I am exceptionally well studied in Jihadism I spent a couple years studying it and even had a subreddit dedicated to investigating Jihadist content.
I remember to a write up in school on what was done specifically to counter ISIS propaganda and one of the most shocking things to me looking back on it (I wrote this write up in 2022) was that social media companies were refusing to take down ISIS content due to Freedom of Speech concerns.
In 2014, Google and by extension YouTube took a stand and said they were not going to remove ISIS content from their platform because they considered it to be News and to remove it from their platform would be a suppression of Freedom of Speech. Twitter made a similar stand at the time.
Today something like this seem almost impossible to imagine, tech giants standing up for freedom of speech, not only of the reasonable man, but of the terrorist, of the unreasonable man.
Governments, and more importantly, advertisers, put pressure on the tech giants to start suppressing ISIS content, and one could only imagine the vast majority of the public agreed that this should be done. So the tech giants did start suppressing ISIS content. They created algorithms that learned to detect Jihadist language and ISIS iconography. These algorithms were highly effective. ISIS content went from a simple google search away to something you had to scour the internet for. We all saw this as a good thing. ISIS' physical caliphate eventually collapsed in 2019. ISIS was gone.
What was however not gone was the algorithms that were used to suppress ISIS content. These systems were not put on a shelf and left to collect dust but were instead harnessed to suppress content that was deemed "Not suitable for advertisers." Much like WW2 left us with a new super-weapon, the nuclear bomb, the war on ISIS left us with a new super-weapon, though this time the weapon did not destroy the homes or people, it destroyed *ideas*, and only time will tell how destructive such a weapon can be.
Thank you for your wisdom. There is nothing more important than being aware of our own unconscious and conscious bias. We all have it. And no matter how much anyone pays attention to it, they can never get rid of all of it.
Your arc toward understanding how the self-delusion habit has led humans to a terrible place really resonates with me. I’ve had a similar arc.
As discouraging as it is to read your ideas and see how hard it will be for them to take root in society, it is encouraging to see that many people have discovered your ideas before me. Let’s hope many will arrive after me as well.
Hello Gurwinder!
It feels amazing to read your thoughts. A lot of times it feels like you are converting my thoughts to eloquent words, and a lot of times it feels like I'm learning something completely new and something obvious that I have missed. I hope your words reach more and more people.
My mission in life is somewhat similar to yours, I want to work on reforms in the (Indian) education system that will enable a space for students to think critically. So I get to learn a lot from you. I hope someday I'll also be able to write about my experiences like you do.
It was around the early months of the COVID pandemic that I realised how our minds are conditioned to market economies. In my early years of college, I came to believe that in a free country, where one doesn't have to bend to authoritarian lies out of fear, humanity would pursue what was most beneficial to it: the truth. Instead, we conditioned our minds to consuming exactly what satisfy and discard anything that doesn't. Information ended up becoming a product in itself, it needs to be excessively tortured and warped for mass appeal and consumption. A moment spent in silent reflection was instead replaced with a litmus test measuring every insecurity against every imperfection. That was my "black pill", a phase that I'm still stuck in but I think I'll come to accept ourselves for our imperfect design.
In a single decade, our lifestyles have undergone so many radical changes faster than we could realise, let alone comprehend, them. Everything you write shines a bright light of clarity in this confusing age. I've found my abstract thoughts described perfectly into words in a way that I couldn't, even had them challenged and won over by more reasonable ideas, and my perspective fine tuned in the end.
So kudos and all the power to you, mate. Looking forward to see you climb.
Gurwinder, I cannot wait to see your Substack go from strength to strength. This really gets to the heart of the free speech debate online: "as if it were possible to quarantine fools from falsehood." Onward and upward my friend!
Thank you for everything Clyde, this blog wouldn't have happened without you!
I've come away from so much of your writing feeling like I've been foolish my whole life. Please continue making that happen.
I agree that the stated principles (equality of opportunity, freedom of expression, primacy of truth) are fundamental and welcome the approach to truth as a horizon.
Being a data nerd, this hierarchy of states of cognition listed below helps me classify content with the understanding that there are distinguishable processes to compile content from one stage to the next. I suggest using it for identification thinking that the deconstruction enabled by this view can help clarify - even on what level a discussion is taking place.
The list is a compilation of elements described by Edgar Codd (normalizing facts to data), Clifford Stoll, data to wisdom, Frank Zappa adds truth (and the rest for fun).
Facts are not data.
Data is not information.
Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not understanding.
Understanding is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
(Music is THE BEST.)
I too was an idiot...well beyond my teens. I'd like to hold those same principles close to my self - equality of opportunity, freedom of expression, truth no matter how inconvenient. Thanks for this. 2023 is the year I divorce social media & get back to real life and do right by those values and encourage others to the same.
Stumbled on your blog. Wonderful insights. Thank you Gurwinder.
When I used to read about dictators like Hitler and Stalin and how they got their countrymen to yield and rapturously support their agenda I blamed it on lack of information and thought that we had progressed beyond that sectarian mindset. In American, Indian & other societies the same divisiveness is being used by political leaders, which is to be expected since they only want to win elections, and being vociferously adopted by the populace at large. I don't know whether there is a hope in hell for humanity as a species since bigotry, global warming, war, racism, pandemic are just a few of the issues in which one thought picking the right choice would be a 'no brainer'. Apparently a lot of us are no brainers which does not augur well for the future.
Very well-said. More and more I am still left curious, eager in trying to understand what little I can. Trying to comprehend and evaluate and articulate and discover and recognize and be aware and notice and compute and imagine. What a scary yet awe-inspiring feeling.
This was beautifully written.
Beautifully written! Well done!
I really liked the way you explained the twisting of information through jig saw analogy. I was aware of it but never really understood it completely. This analogy made it clear.
The last paragraph is just so beautifully put. Looking forward to new content.
I agree. You may like David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity it has similar theme.
Interesting to see how your story with the pursuit of truth is also tangled up in Jihadism. While I cannot say that I am exceptionally well studied in Jihadism I spent a couple years studying it and even had a subreddit dedicated to investigating Jihadist content.
I remember to a write up in school on what was done specifically to counter ISIS propaganda and one of the most shocking things to me looking back on it (I wrote this write up in 2022) was that social media companies were refusing to take down ISIS content due to Freedom of Speech concerns.
In 2014, Google and by extension YouTube took a stand and said they were not going to remove ISIS content from their platform because they considered it to be News and to remove it from their platform would be a suppression of Freedom of Speech. Twitter made a similar stand at the time.
Today something like this seem almost impossible to imagine, tech giants standing up for freedom of speech, not only of the reasonable man, but of the terrorist, of the unreasonable man.
Governments, and more importantly, advertisers, put pressure on the tech giants to start suppressing ISIS content, and one could only imagine the vast majority of the public agreed that this should be done. So the tech giants did start suppressing ISIS content. They created algorithms that learned to detect Jihadist language and ISIS iconography. These algorithms were highly effective. ISIS content went from a simple google search away to something you had to scour the internet for. We all saw this as a good thing. ISIS' physical caliphate eventually collapsed in 2019. ISIS was gone.
What was however not gone was the algorithms that were used to suppress ISIS content. These systems were not put on a shelf and left to collect dust but were instead harnessed to suppress content that was deemed "Not suitable for advertisers." Much like WW2 left us with a new super-weapon, the nuclear bomb, the war on ISIS left us with a new super-weapon, though this time the weapon did not destroy the homes or people, it destroyed *ideas*, and only time will tell how destructive such a weapon can be.
Thank you for your wisdom. There is nothing more important than being aware of our own unconscious and conscious bias. We all have it. And no matter how much anyone pays attention to it, they can never get rid of all of it.
Wow wow- I am just reading “your story”! Fantastic! Very deep and so so true and sincere. Thank you.
Your arc toward understanding how the self-delusion habit has led humans to a terrible place really resonates with me. I’ve had a similar arc.
As discouraging as it is to read your ideas and see how hard it will be for them to take root in society, it is encouraging to see that many people have discovered your ideas before me. Let’s hope many will arrive after me as well.