Tristan Harris: “Social Media: Bringing the Ring to Mordor” | The Great Simplification #16
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- Опубліковано 26 кві 2022
- On this episode, we meet with Co-Founder of the Center for Humane Technology and co-host of Your Undivided Attention Podcast, Tristan Harris.
Harris explores the intersection of society and social media technology. How does modern social media pose an existential risk for society? How can we create a healthier, sustainable relationship between our social technology and culture?
Harris explains how privacy, liability, and antitrust could contribute to a healthier tech ecosystem. Why is it not enough to reduce the harm of technology, and how can we use technology to strengthen democracy?
Tristan Harris has spent his career studying how today’s major technology platforms have increasingly become the social fabric by which we live and think, wielding dangerous power over our ability to make sense of the world. Along with Aza Raksin, he is the Co-Host of “Your Undivided Attention,” consistently among the top ten technology podcasts on Apple Podcasts, which explores how social media’s race for attention is destabilizing society and the vital insights we need to envision solutions. Tristan was also the primary subject of the acclaimed Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” which unveiled the hidden machinations behind social media.
Show Notes - (linked notes at thegreatsimplification.com/epi... )
00:15 - Tristan Harris info, Center for human technology
02:03 - The Social Dilemma
02:54 - Facebook market stock
05:32 - Nate’s Book and Animated Videos
06:03 - Social Dilemma production team
07:04 - Race to the bottom of the brainstem for attention
08:33 - Tiktok automatic beautification
09:12 - Collective action problem
10:59 - Runaway growth imperative
11:50 - Captured facts and shared understanding/reality
14:03 - Tiktok surpasses Facebook for time spent on Android
14:52 - Externalities of digital infrastructure
16:25 - Walter Cronkite
17:17 - E.O. Wilson
17:37 - We were evolved for a different environment
18:34 - Fitness matters more than truth
19:36 - Energy blind
21:36 - Frances Haugen
21:48 - Parents in the age of social media
23:02 - Downward causation and the financial market
25:22 - Aza Raskin - infinite scroll + TGS Episode with Aza Raskin
28:45 - Highly intelligent species eventually try to understand themselves
29:17 - Loss aversion
31:59 - Frank Luntz
33:31 - Laura Borodinsky
33:55 - George Lakoff Metaphors We Live By
34:37 - Evolutionary Psychology
35:24 - Ontological design
36:53 - We assume others think like us - but they don’t
42:03 - Countries manipulating social media algorithms
45:25 - AI can predict big 5 personality traits based on mouse/eye movement
45:53 - AI can predict our micro expressions
48:53 - Tech Fiduciaries Act
49:47 - Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
50:38 - Superorganism
51:17 - Social media undermines mindfulness efforts
52:40 - More in Common
53:03 - Extreme voices and overrepresentation
53:20 - False beliefs between about opposing political parties
56:20 - Taiwan and digital democracy and online polling system
57:20 - Your Undivided Attention - Audrey Tang
1:02:22 - TGS Episode with Jamie Wheal
1:03:39 - Nate’s Earth Day Talks
1:05:18 - TGS Episode with Nora Bateson
1:09:27 - Don’t Look Up
1:13:19 - The Maybe Story
1:16:52 - Biden State of the Union
#TristanHarris #NateHagens #TheGreatSimplification
I know this podcast is quite new, but its still wildly under-watched for how high quality it is. I'm excited to watch these videos go from 12 comments to 1000s.
Did you catch the part were this concern is noted to be an AI dictated dynamic? Nate’s efforts to skate the edge of ‘doomism’ is a poorly considered strategy.
And in part because a lack of information is only a human problem for those on the spectrum./?
Deeply agree
My mum has been mentioning in conversations nearly everyday "Nate Hagens says this . . ." and "Nate did this great interview with . . ." as if referring to a smart, kind friend! I thought it was time to explore who this Nate Hagens guy was! What a pleasant and refreshing surprise. A youtuber with depth who totally understands the predicament we are in. Thank you for your work. This was an excellent interview.
Just adding a comment here to say: yes, keep going. There are people watching, listening and working in their own ways to move the ball forward.
Thank❤🌹🙏 you, Tristan Harris ad Nate! Social media is just the Dumbing Machine... 😢😢😢
This is a fantastic post. The quality of Nate's videos is next level. He should have millions of subscribers. It disgusts me that blabbering idiots can attract masses of viewers while quality content like this gets buried by the algorithms.
I think it's an extension of peoples inability to navigate information.
People lack the self awareness to recognize the self deception at play when they go to seek information on something, and often just seek a sense of comfort or excitement.
I’m sooo happy I found this channel mindlessly scrolling UA-cam.
These videos need to be clipped down into 10 min chunks of reusable content. So other podcasters can reference them.
Thank you for the wealth of knowledge :)
Just copied, pasted, shared this podcast right before Tristan told the Steve Jobs story at the end. Appreciate you both immensely.
Excellent. Thanks Nate and Tristan.
Thank you so much for hosting these talks, Nate.
Loved this episode. Personally I control my social media, I don't let it control me. My phone only makes phone calls. I don't follow people on FB that post useless information and only check my messages twice a day. This is my favourite UA-cam channel for valuable insight. Thanks Nate
The simple fact that Nate Hagens and Tristan Harris are communicating on parallel wavelengths is a source for optimism. There really ARE genuinely intelligent and good people around. Sadly, though, few of them seem to reside in Congress.
Nate truly is one of the few people in the right direction; I've never seen someone talk to so many experts in a range of fields
Nate, this was fantastic. You mentioned time constraints about 1 hour in and appreciate that may well have been for Tristan's benefit, but just putting it out there, I think there would probably be appetite for longer form 2hr+ discussions. I was gripped, and could easily have joined you both for much longer. I'll also add, I'm already forwarding this to a few of my friends who caught the social dilemma before me, I think they'll enjoy this immensely and hoping it acts as a gateway to your other conversations. As ever, thanks for your efforts!
I’d to hear you talk with Gabor Maté, his work on addiction and trauama would dovetail nicely with our culture’s inability to deal with the energy-waste of both social media and energy. I’m only 15 minutes into this one so far but it’s great and I’m glad you had Tristan on. Thank you!
The best would be to make Gabor Mate go to new paths and ask him about the ANS role further than trauma, but for everyday life!
Trauma is much more than "big things" and the Nervous System also reacts to small things, and we hardly know that our species has some genetic behaviours. It's due to our brain stem + cranial nerves, our whole ANS - Autonomic Nervous System - and our ignorance is used to manipulate us!
@@xiscanicolas6009 most of what you're saying is over my head, but interesting none the less! thanks for sharing
So glad I found this channel a few weeks ago. Thank you Nate.
Comparing social media as a malware on society was absolutely brilliant. I guess you could say our anti-malware hasn’t been updated in awhile.
Thank you both. Great conversation. Am thinking on ways to bring your very valuable program to wider audience. Although your Great simplification is terrific, need to reach beyond us nerds-- and soon.
We served each other better when we lived in smaller tribes.
The internet gives the illusion of being connected but the physical isolation is killing us from within.
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
Trying to use my engagement to push this video in the algorithm to more people! This needs to be know, thank you for your work
What an eloquent and inspiring orator Tristan really is.
Tristan Harris a friendly note, I prefer for Nate to finish speaking before you start up your motor. Tristan thanks for deep thought, idea of extending fiduciary responsibility, concepts & regulations that keep up with tech, fascinating interview Nate.
What a great episode.
Great conversation. Thanks Nate and Tristan. Culture is capable of changing much faster than biophysical or economic systems. It’s hopeful to know more people are looking for ways to utilize technology as a means to more clearly reflect our shared reality and build connections across in/out groups (rather than the current “race to the bottom of the brain stem” - that’s a good one and I will be using it haha!).
Also thank you Tristan for sharing Nate’s work within your sphere of influence. We need more influential voices seeing how the pieces fit together.
There is alot of wonderful praise here. Yeikes!
Brilliant podcast! All of them really! Congratulations Nate, keep up the good work!!
I love how you are carefully broadening your message while also clearly speaking of the same predicaments.
Thank you both for all you are doing.
Great guest!!!
Brilliant suggestions for overcoming this seemingly unavoidable polarization on social media
Nate, what you're doing is fantastic. Understanding where we find ourselves right now and how we got here -- culturally, technologically, and biologically -- framed in an ongoing conversation about what is obviously the most important issue of our time... Global warming... And all from a broad-lensed, deep-probing perspective that is mind-opening, emotionally authentic, and supports a proactive attitude... This is exactly the understanding I've been actively seeking, piecing together, and trying to share with others, pretty much on my own, for the last 22 years. It feels incredible, almost like a miracle, to finally run into someone like you after all this time. I wish I had known about you sooner (but that was then). I'm going to do everything I can to help spread the word about you and what you're doing. The conversations in these podcasts are grounded, informative, luminous and inspiring. And so needed. If there were just some way to get more people to slow down long enough to listen to discussions of this length... I keep working on it!
Well the amazing conversations keep on coming. There is much to recommend this episode with Tristan Harris. The "We are in a race to the bottom of the brain stem" quote was stunningly clarifying, and only the beginning of the insights.
This conversation increased my ongoing questions of how we can speak our (small "t") truth without adding excessive snark and shrillness, which often thrusts others further into their differing perspective.
And when you consider that the business model of many social media organizations is to be a constant "outrage machine" to increase $$$, the challenge is real.
I studied the martial art of Aikido for many years which is in some ways in the same neighborhood, meaning practicing changing a context of aggression to one of reconciliation. (Much easier to describe than do!)
My own bias is to believe poetry has a role in helping. I'm working on a podcast episode for later this month called : "Poet William Stafford... An Aikido of Politics" which will feature his poetic version of truth telling without lighting up the lower brain stem. It seems to me, we each need tools to help us defy the anger and outrage machine which (much of) social media has become.
I fear that unless we (systemically) go upstream to address polarization, precious little will ever get done on the many "overshoot" ecological issues that are coming at us like speeding bullets...
Thanks again, Nate!
Fascinating conversation, thanks so much for bringing this forward.
Mind blown. Thanks. Excellent
Nate Hagens is all about objective, measurable, quantifiable reality. "Truth", in other words. His frustration with disseminating that truth, as admirable and insightful as his efforts have been, is discouraging and even terrifying.
This is one of the best conversations I’ve seen about these topics ever !
Superb interview - thank you both so much! I will be passing this along, yes - via the internet. I was making vegetable-black-bean stew while listening, which is a favorite thing i like to do. I think I will listen again and take some notes!
I’d like to hear the metaphoric theme “Bringing the Ring to Mordor” brought into even tighter focus - or maybe the metaphor breaks down a little, that’s ok too. You seem to be referring to using the power that attracts, binds and destroys us to destroy itself and then to open the way for a new kind of world to be made. Is that what we are doing? Is that even possible? It certainly seems to me to be worth a shot - even if it is only a long shot. When I think of the odds and possible outcomes right now, living in a loving, caring, pro-future way seems to be the most deeply satisfying approach.
Another theme: many who are aware of the severity of the human predicament may disagree about the best or even “right” way(s) to be pro-future and/or otherwise approach life. How can we be authentic and yet not allow our differences to cause us top devolve into antagonistic tribalism?
A third theme: while our technology seems to be particularly good at multiplying disinformation, confusion, antagonism, and despair, we seem to be increasing certain “wild cards” increasing the prospect of near term human extinction. For example war has terrible impacts - even if we do not escalate into conflict including nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. Another example is the error of doubling down on the very economic behaviours and understandings of the “household management” that economics really is. We might try to use the same economic paradigms couple with the same technological strategies that have gotten us into this mess and are only going to make things worse without a very radical change in our expectations and behaviour rooted in a better understanding of who we are in relation to our habitat.
I guess that last topic is about “first order change” (doing more of what we are doing in response to crisis because we are already heavily invested in what we are doing, and yet hoping for better results” and “second order change” which involves transforming the way wee see ourselves and our world, and changing our behaviour to get better results.
You touched on these all somewhat in this interview, and I’m glad for it.
Again, it will take a second listen for me to really hold on to the info and analysis, but it will be well worth the time!
Thank you, again!
Wow, thank you for this podcast!! What an interesting guest! I'm going to try to absorb all this and decide if I feel more hopeful or gloomy after all this. Thank you once again!
Awesome work, Nate-dogg!
lol, I'm on a youtube binge right now
Wonderful conversation- thanks Nate and Tristan. xx
Thank you, Nate and Tristan. How do we actuality this? I wandered from industry as the Big Tech Tristan rode-in on came to dominate and was growing a family, but recently decided to roll-up sleeves and engage. Trying to develop locally has had zero response to my own hippocratic oath of designs… I get nice-noises, but nobody local wants to invest in anything beyond immediate returns and I wonder if corporate is only area with budgets?
ADDENDUM : keep an eye on Panquake for better model built around community and privacy.
Such a fascinating conversation
Thank you so much for this, the walking worried, you bet!
22 minutes in. Everything is just so well put. 🤔 the issue that social participation is colonized online is really very concerning, I don’t know what to do about it. Feel like a fish out of water.
This is great!!!
37:38 great monologue right here. whole thing was great, but this is one highlight.
great podcast Nate and Tristan... Nate we just had general elections in Australia. For your interest the old major parties both lost ground 33% and 35% the rest was independents... the shift is on.
Wonderful! love you guys! I loved when he mentioned the story of the Zen farmer! One of my favorites
Very good interview, thanks. It would be interesting to know if there are discussions on the Taiwan democracy platform about the need for rapid population reduction policies, since nothing else will help with our overshoot predicament. I'm betting not. Addressing social media problems is important but acknowledging our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities is even more important. Social media simply amplifies an already loud denial problem.
Praise the Algorithm for bringing me here... O.o
It is very interesting to watch these guys talking about bias while at the same time completely following the ecology narrative/climate change as if that is a given. As if it cant be questioned.Almost like the people who say: everybody is biased...except me. This whole earth overshoot, Gaia theory is ALSO a narrative. It is the main problem of this age, not understanding you are taking a position while claiming to be a neutral observer..
What a fabulous voice Nate! 💖
Dr. Hagens, pls let me suggest potential interview/discussion guest: Dr. John Vervaeke, PhD neuropsychology researcher, author, speaker, thinker. Whom studies and reveals the intersections between several fields. AND, in his 12 part series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis," based upon his co-authored book, on UA-cam just a few years ago. I feel certain that you will not only find it fascinating and prescient to some of your work; BUT, also to the Crisis of the Earth's Biosphere, being culturally relevant as well as Eco-psychologically important.
I am just wondering why this stuff is not default curriculum to any and every school? We should understand on the deepest levels who we are why and what we do and how we can use all the options in this reality we live in, instead of it is using us. Can we set up a program @Nate?
When abstention is unthinkable...
1:08:52 thank you
Ponieważ jak wiemy medal zawsze ma dwie strony , dlatego i od tego my ludzie mamy rozum , serce i sumienie aby ich używać w życiu zanim coś powiemy i zanim coś zrobimy .
Osobiście tak jak do niektórych ludzi mam ograniczone zaufanie , tak moje zaufanie jest ograniczone kiedy chodzi o tzw. technologię .
There are small groups in my town, summer softball, pool league, darts, bowling league, chicken Qs, adult ice hockey, 5k races have a huge following. Maybe since we have an 8k race for cancer research, we can make a 5k for energy blindness or social dilemma awareness?
Nate, I know you want to speak more about being than doing but I truly am convinced to have found exactly what we need to do to solve these challenges. I know it may seem pretentious but it is true. I would love to have a conversation with you to try to convince you about the efficaciousness of the method and how urgent it is that we tell it to everyone. I know that the fact that the method can be summarized in a sentence is a bit boring for many but in fact that is its virtue. Of course it can be unpacked in countless books and podcasts and I am working that too. Still, being able to pack it into a sentence is important even though people have a hard time believing there can be a specific set of actions that will solve our challenges, despite that is precisely what everyone is looking for.
It often seems like people insist on discovering the solution themselves and are willing to put everything at risk instead of just listening to someone else and trying what they suggest.
Did you have spotify podcast?
Here is another language trick I caught Art on : China doesn't PRODUCE enough natural gas. Oil PRODUCTION makes us much more important in the use of oil than we actually are, they support energy blindness.
👍
If there are a finite number of marshmallows, not everybody can have 1 marshmallow, let alone wait for 2.,
The term he's looking for at approx. 38 minutes, I believe, is: "Collective Illusion."
👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Should children, teens and young adults maybe spend more time with the older generations of family, to offset the effects? Should the elders pass down their knowledge and really get involved more in raising kids?
Off topic, but using the out of focus Social Dilemma poster on the wall behind Tristan as an ink blot test, I can see a wise old woman.
1:12:00 (personal timestamp)
Great "Recentering" at min 43- WHY LAWMAKERS SOLUTIONS WON"T WORK ...
"Privacy, content liability (section 230 reform), antitrust or concentrated power... but you take those three levers ....and you don't get to a world where technology is strengtehning democracy, you might get to a world where technology is maybe 10% less toxic for society than it is now ...our goal here shouldn't t be how do we reduce the harm of social media we have to ask what technology + democracy = stronger democracy"
Not let "market values" and "digital toxic economy" being given priority over efforts to build a stronger democracy... not let METAVERSE take off...
I think it is not accepting personal responsibility to blame Russia for dividing America, when all you have to do is look at the media and social media landscape. Blaming Russia is just outsourcing the responsibility which leads to further conflict.
The problem is that you don't have to prepare yourself to go to Twitter or Facebook.... as you prepare yourself when going to a theater, or a concert in a theater, or on vacation.
Therefore you go to Twitter 50 times a day because it requires no preparation. Then the experience is more shallow and less memorable than the experience of a concert or vacation. It´s a maybe good experience on Twitter in the morning because in the morning you are pumped with melatonin and serotonin which are pleasure chemicals, so you feel like you are in a meditation state or some happy state of mind, but during the day the mind is in state of beta. Low Beta means studying or working. High Beta means stress. So we should use it less.
45:00
Commodify everything!! You don't need to have air, water, food and sanity.
Humans and their minds are the new commodity, according to Yuval Noah Harari.... he's the senior advisory to Klaus of the WEF.... so it's likely happening as we speak
Commodification has become the curse of the midas touch.
The algorithm isn't responsible for ppl not searching other sources. It's what ppl want to see is what they seek I love seeing all the trash.
Maybe I'm a victim of consumption of global news and I have the opportunity. Is it true? Who knows. All day fox News is definitely something to be studied.! Who's in!
Great question about linking our genome to being more attracted to what triggers us than inform us!
Information is mental, cognitive, and pre-empted by the SOMATIC mind, the embodiment of emotions (that's a different part of the brain, the most ancient.
What is paleolithic is not only "emotions and brains" but mainly the brain stem + the cranial nerves forming the so-called "second brain", which is actually the first!
So, which part of the mind makes us BEHAVE? ... 😉
LET'S LEARN ABOUT IT, to be less manipulated!
Good lord, Tristan, let Nate finish a sentence, please?
SOLUTION: the method to escape the rat race to the bottom is making sure everyone's needs are met unconditionally so no one has to compete for more clients or for the job in order to make a living and survive. We all can work towards this by prosocialising: 1. Advocating altruism 2. Organising altruism with Free Collaboration Networks 3 Teaching others to prosocialise.
If anyone does this just 30 min a week they will greatly improve their community and society in less than a year.
Let's go!
So, everybody should be christian?
@@jetmad79 prosocialising (fostering altruism) is essentially implementing the golden rule. All religions teach it.
You need to literally pay people to not use fossil fuels and social media. Not with debased currency either. That's incentive.
Yep, there are much less conspiracies than we think! It's just the vortex effect coming from the need to be successful in business!
Think about vortexes each time you remove your spoon from your hot drink... It goes on turning, and changing side needs... turmoils.
Basically nobody believes in a conspiracy theory, they believe they know the truth and everybody else is idiots.
Include women
So what you're saying is the internet is gonna lead to societal collapse
Please bring Daniel back
The more we are on Social media, the less we work, the more we need fossil energy!
Pick up a copy of "The Hacking Of The American Mind" by Dr. Robert Lustig. Here's a better idea, let's unplug the whole damn thing, go back to AM/FM/CB radios and flip-phones - how 'bout that? =P
You guys are circling the drain around Socialism, but it's so frustrating to see you pull back at the last minute, decrying the "far Left" as a problem. Yet, you have the same dialectical Materialist understanding of history, the same conclusions about Capitalism, everything in your life-view supports a Communist/Marxist understanding of the world, yet you shy away at the last minute.
This applies to every video of you I've seen, and I've been binging your channel for the last few days. You coalesce and summarize many issues, without taking the jump into the sphere of solutions that have explored those problems and have been debating the solutions for a long while.
You are in the Jason Hickel area, understanding Capitalism and its many problems, wanting a different system, without articulating in detail how we need a much more direct democracy, especially in the workplace, and the implications about the ownership of the means of production. Taking that jump would lead you down a rabbithole of effective democratic and decentralized planning strategies for production, of learning on attempts made toward versions of this ideal and the strategies that ensues. Maybe you'll end up falling in the more Anarchist crowd, or would prefer a more classical Marxist approach (btw, read Marx, or at least books like "Why Marx was right" by Terry Eagleton, or "Understanding Marxism" by Richard Wolff), but either way, you'll see your current world view match Socialism, up to the question of how to go forward from here.
I've watched your serie with David Schmachtenburger, and it's the same frustration, where even in his other interviews he functionnally describes the need for the end of Capitalism, while still saying the solution is not in the Left... It's just clear you'd benefit from at least understanding more on this world view.
If you want book or youtuber suggestions, I'd be glad to recommend some. I only dove into the subject 2 years ago, while I was, like you, very immersed into environmental issues, cramming my brain constantly of the many ways in which our system was destroying us, but my priors blocked me from learning much about socialism. I saw the issues, was politically engaged to try to change things, yet it was becoming clearer and clearer that reforms within the system were never going to be enough. I was then recommended a video from Richard Wolff about how democracy at work was the missing element in the application of some prior socialist experiments, at least opened me to this space, and I deep-dived into the litterature on the many branches of the Left, the main authors for the different movements. It's a neverending quest, but with an understanding of the many existing and prior debates on the differences in social goals of those different groups, I can refine my own views, and see where certain lines of thinking are leading. To see these paths does give hope, though it forges an imperative to act, to engage in class struggle, since we either manage to gain democratic control over the means of production, or the incentives of the "superorganism" (contained within the logic of Capitalism) will consume the earth.
Thank you. The superorganism would destroy earth under (standard) socialism or communism too just much faster under capitalism. If you’ve been binging channel pls watch John Gowdy and Jon Erickson episodes. I’m not unaware of what you’re saying- there’s a nuance and complexity involved not reducible to a single podcast. Whatever ‘ism’ might work in the future is a secondary-and important-question. A more important and urgent question is navigating the Great Simplification in between 🙏❤️🌏