Rob Healy

All things Media, Tech, Culture, & Science.
Tech Malthusian, Hollywood Dilletante.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

"Part of the dynamic of the internet is that human beings are so desperate for news, so desperate for a voice from the other side that is somehow going to change their present..." - David Whyte

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

@thomaschattwill There is some weird haptic relationship that happens, like a surfer to their board or a tennis player to their racquet, a kind of mimesis of machine and body that only seems to happen in pre-2017 cars for me. Endorse this take fully.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

@gmiller @eddy_machino Very underrated tweet imo. Applies to a lot of spaces w/r/t to new information topography and splintering of "shared discussion spaces." Thank you for articulating.

[John Robb @johnrobb]

Marshall McLuhan:

> "When you’re on the telephone, or on radio, or on TV, (or internet), you don’t have a physical body ...When you don’t have a physical body you’re a discarnate being. You have a very different relation to the world around you. And this, I think, has been one of the big effects of the electric age. It has deprived people, really, of their private identity. Everybody tends to merge his identity with other people at the speed of light."

The malleability of digital identity isn't matched in physical reality. It's a source of transhumanism.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

@yishan What is so alarming here is the degree to which the bulk of the comment section is missing your point entirely and by doing so, indirectly proving your point entirely.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

@chamath I am not sure one can place blame on "wokism" (very coastal US/Western Euro) phenomenon where OECD includes Japan, Korea, and Eastern Euro. Also, these ed declines have been happening in the US in very "Non Woke" states for long while before rest of OECD world "caught up".

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

I like the direction of this take, but it reminds me of nature vs nurture false dichotomy. In reality, environmental pressures reinforce gene expression and so on. Impossible to disentangle the two. Confirmation bias is traffic optimization is confirmation bias.

[Megan McArdle @asymmetricinfo]

I think people are underestimating the degree to which bad headlines on the hospital blast were driven by traffic optimization techniques, rather than bias.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

@deljamesgang Thanks for coming out man! Appreciate this.

[del james @deljamesgang]

We went to a "friends and family" screening for a badass crime thriller called MOBLAND starring John Travolta, Kevin Dillon, Stephen Dorff, and Shiloh Fernandez. #mobland is reminiscent of something Taylor Sheridan or Joe Lansdale might write and opens in theaters this Friday!

[Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ @ESYudkowsky]

The incredible, stunning, deep, amazing idea of prediction markets is that they are a genuinely effective way to manifest the collective knowledge of a civilization, even if only a few people inside it are focused on a question.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

Scrolling through this thread just hyper blasted me across the entire topography of my own emotional landscape within 2 minutes. Would highly recommend taking time with all of the videos below.

[memo akten @memoakten]

ICYMI over on tiktok AI is hitting hard on genx.
I've always said wrt AI, expect the unexpected, the future's gonna be weirder than anyone can imagine. Skynet is the last thing to be worried about.
This is the real #aiart #AIArtCommuity

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

The most important graph you'll see today.

[John Gramlich @johngramlich]

TikTok is growing as a source of news in the US. The share of adult TikTok users who say they regularly get news there has risen from 22% in 2020 to 33% in 2022, even as news use is declining or flat for most other platforms. New data from @pewjournalism: https://t.co/0M8RpeVM9N

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

Iain McGilchrist outlines this in his book the Master & His Emissary. That the ideology sends the analytical centers of the brain to do its dirty work of wrapping the entire surface area of perceptual reality around the axel of a single ideology.

[Gurwinder @G_S_Bhogal]

One problem with tribalism, whether leftist or rightist, is that it causes you to see other people's suffering as mere opportunities to promote your chosen agenda. Ideology turns tragedy into advertising.

[sam lessin 🏴‍☠️ @lessin]

The coming fall of the Kardashians in context of how entertainment is evolving... (aka why they are so pissed about tiktok)

[Kylie Atwood @kylieatwood]

"Putin is pretty much betting that the [U.S.] midterm elections will undermine Biden and that by 2024, the US will be in a great big mess," writes Fiona Hill. "It’s not just Jan. 6. It’s this idea that the US is out of control. Putin feeds on this." https://t.co/pZImuPCOHZ

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

Economics: case studies in the predictive behaviors of actors & firms in a given marketplace assuming all actors are rational.

Philosophy, Political Sci, Psychology, Sociology: case studies in the predictive behaviors of actors & firms proving that they are not rational.

[Brian Stelter @brianstelter]

Fact-checkers have "often argued that shouting about the objective truth will never work," @anneapplebaum says, "and that what is needed instead is the construction of trust."

That's a phrase that should stick: "Construction of trust" (https://t.co/S5aeeIJfWZ)

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

Traditionally it was about connecting dots amongst the available information. Whereas, in our new information environment its more about connecting the dots between information flows that should be dismissed. Lowering the background noise so you can hear the individual notes.

[Khai @ThamKhaiMeng]

Intelligence is about ignoring things that are irrelevant

[Riva @rivatez]

Conversations, as a concept, are so weird. I point my face at you, you point your face at me, we make these noises at each other and whole new worlds get born

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

Excited to see all at the @aspenideas fest. Come to our session on building group trust & connection...even at high altitude.

[Fred Dust @f_dust]

Dust&Co. is ready to prove that real connection can happen with anyone, and from anywhere — even from your kitchen table.

See you soon, @aspenideas.

[Rob Healy @PartTimeRob]

The only valuable takeaway from the #WashingtonPost Meltdown is that the very people who are so exercised re: the free speech parameters that the entire digital kingdom should adopt, are themselves incapable of standardizing coherent speech parameters inside their own village.

[VANITY FAIR @VanityFair]

The past few days at The Washington Post have been, as one reporter described it, a “clusterfuck,” following a series of Twitter flare-ups involving staffers.

@CharlottetKlein reports: https://t.co/jVE69Pkhf6