Hermeneuta

Answers are a commodity

I make sense of the connections between money, politics and technology

99%human

@hermeneuta_es

[Hermeneuta @Hermeneuta_en]

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[Hermeneuta @Hermeneuta_en]

In 1927, a three-minute phone call between New York and London cost $75. That’s over $1,400 in today’s money.

By the late 1980s, a seven-minute call between Mexico and the US cost around $10. In many Latin American households, long-distance calls were made with one eye on the clock.

Today, families separated by migration can make unlimited video calls for free on WhatsApp, a Meta app.

John D. Rockefeller was the richest man of his time. Even his entire fortune wouldn’t have bought him a video call with his grandson across the ocean...

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Consume less, create more...

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@InvestingVisual Nvidia is holding the entire economy of the US

[Hermeneuta @Hermeneuta_en]

Grocery store checkout line. A teenage girl stands with her mom. While they wait, she pulls out her phone.

She sees her friends tanning on the beach. She looks down at her belly. She scrolls. Some people she knows are heading to Burning Man.

The line doesn’t move.

Waiting in line used to be boring. And that was fine. The mind wandered.

Now we fill every quiet moment with endless comparison. And next to those spectacular lives, ours looks miserable...

If we know social media amplifies envy, why do we keep using it?

[Hermeneuta @Hermeneuta_en]

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Before social media, we compared ourselves to the neighbor, a coworker, or a classmate. Social media multiplied those comparisons by millions.

Nobody posts the boring moments. They post the trip, Coachella, the new car.

People were buying new cars, traveling, and going out dancing long before social media. The difference? We didn't know about all of it...

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@historyinmemes I never thought I’d say this, but I strongly agree with Kim Jong Un...

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Competition is democracy in real time: we vote with our money...

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[Hermeneuta @Hermeneuta_en]

Meta had spent years studying what Instagram was doing to teenagers.

In 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked that research.

A 2019 internal presentation said Instagram made body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls who were already struggling with their bodies.
In public, the message was different. Instagram’s chief said the app’s effect on teen well-being was fairly small.

When senators asked for the research, Facebook said it was confidential.

That gap between what Meta knew and what it said ended up in court...

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Meta lost two trials over the harm its platforms caused to minors.

In August, it agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion over ten years.

In a single quarter this year, Meta made $15.8 billion in profit.

In 1998, Big Tobacco agreed to pay $206 billion for hiding what it knew about cigarettes.

Twelve times more. And that’s in 1998 dollars, not adjusted to present value...

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It’s 7:30 p.m. A family sits down for dinner.

Four screens glowing around the table. Nobody looks up.

Meta studied their effects while monetizing our attention.

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An idea that nobody challenges may be a good one, but it only becomes relevant when exposed to the scrutiny of those who challenge it.

Paradoxically, friction in the world of ideas is the engine that accelerates them...

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AI can become our contrarian.

All it takes is asking it to challenge our ideas, find their weak points, or argue the opposing position.

Seeking friction has to be a conscious choice...

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AI is carrying the economy on its back.

Without this new expansion of the pie, we might be in one of the strangest recessions in history...