Video summary
The podcast explores why social media often feels saturated with idiocy, attributing this phenomenon to a disparity between posting frequency and thoughtful reflection. The core argument is that individuals who do not think before they post can publish content much more frequently than those who deliberate on their words; consequently, the average social media post is significantly stupider than the average user. This creates an environment where unfiltered feeds are overwhelmed by hastily posted nonsense, such as tired jokes or meaningless statements, which constitute the majority of online activity. The speaker emphasizes that a well-curated feed acts as a vital filter against this "avalanche of garbage," transforming what could be hellish information overload into a source of high-quality insights. Without curation to exclude people who follow their whims rather than their logic, users are exposed to content generated by impulse rather than reason. A significant portion of the discussion addresses how famous figures and ordinary users alike often tweet half-baked ideas without serious intent, which then get over-interpreted by a global audience. The speaker describes this dynamic as "the politicization of Babel," where observers take fleeting comments made off the top of one's head—often during mundane moments like sitting on the toilet—and scrutinize them as if they represent deep-seated convictions worthy of psychological profiling or extensive news articles. Examples include famous personalities posting impulsive remarks that journalists dissect for weeks, assuming these are positions the individual is willing to die for. The speaker admits to doing this himself occasionally, tweeting ideas merely to gauge reactions and calibrate his thinking later, noting that opinions can change drastically within minutes after a post goes live. To combat the dangers of misinterpreting such impulsive content, the conversation references Scott Adams' "48-hour rule," which suggests waiting two days before judging someone's posted opinion to allow them time to retract or clarify their thoughts. While not always feasible in real-time interactions, this concept highlights that much online discourse consists of untamed sensations and wild ideas released from a mental cage due to the frictionlessness of digital platforms. Unlike traditional methods like using a Gutenberg printing press, which required significant effort and reflection before publication, social media allows for instantaneous brain-to-fingertip transmission, bypassing the necessary domestication of thoughts. This lack of friction encourages users to vent immediate feelings or whims without filtering them through logic or rationality. The transcript illustrates how this dynamic is exacerbated by the tendency toward outrage over impulsive statements rather than reasonable ones. If a user spends time thinking about an idea before posting, the result tends to be calm and measured content that does not stir strong emotions; conversely, firing off the first thought that comes to mind produces unreasonable content designed to provoke reactions in "animal language" rather than reason. The speaker points out that older users on Twitter often have their tweets misinterpreted as profound philosophical statements when they were merely quick retorts triggered by external stimuli like a specific image or poor sleep caused by construction noise. Ultimately, the discussion concludes that social media inherently favors ideas born of human whim over those derived from human reason, making curation and critical thinking essential for navigating the digital landscape effectively.
Read the full video transcript
idiocy saturation online people who
don't think before they post are able to
post more often than people who do as a
result the average social media post is
stupider than the average social media
user worth remembering whenever Twitter
dumbassery drives you to despair
yeah so by Twitter domassery what I mean
is if you just go on to Twitter and
unfiltered and you're not sort of you
don't have a curated feed
and you just look at the posts it makes
you want to blow your brains out just
because there's just so much garbage
it's just an avalanche of garbage
um and it kind of like when I first went
onto Twitter I got a really low opinion
of humanity because I was fooled into
believing that this was reflective of
what humans actually think
um but it actually took me a bit of time
to realize that the stuff that you see
on social media is overwhelmingly cons
it consists of stuff that people have
posted hastily without thought
because the people who really think
about what they're posting they take a
lot longer to post and so naturally it's
going to be filled with stuff like
um oh I'm tired LOL you know I'm gonna
go to bed LOL and stuff like meaningless
nonsense like that is going to be the
stuff that makes the majority of social
media posts and I think this is why it's
so important to curate your feed
um because I always say that
um a social media feed is the worst
possible source of information you can
have but a well-curated social media
feed is amongst the very best sources of
information you can have it makes such a
difference it's the difference between
hell and heaven and um
a large part of that really consists of
filtering out people who don't think
before they post people who just give in
to their worst impulses and just follow
their whims rather than actually
following their logic and their
rationality what was that Insight you
had around how
famous people will tweet some half-baked
idea whilst they're sat on the toilet
that will then be studied by the entire
world for the next three weeks
yeah I mean I mean this was kind of like
a guess but I think that this is true I
suspect it's true I think we kind of
what's happened is that people have a
tendency to over interpret information
online so they'll read into information
a lot more than was intended and I mean
I call this the politicization of Babel
basically I think that's what it what it
actually is is a lot of people don't
look because they don't think before
they post they're just making a comment
about something that just off the top of
their head it's just something that's
come very
sort of you know quickly to their mind
and it's something that they just vomit
out they don't really think about it and
then what happens is you get people on
the other side of the world who will see
that and they will assume that this is a
hill that the person's willing to die on
something that they've spent their
entire life thinking about and they will
scrutinize it and dissect it and
evaluate it and write essays on it and
I've seen this happen a lot you know
with I mean nowadays you get whole
articles whole news articles written
about one tweak you know some if some
famous person like Elon Musk if he just
just you know farts out a tweet
uh then you'll get like a BBC journalist
who will basically
just lock onto that tweet and then
they'll just write a whole piece about
it and they'll just completely
scrutinize it as though they could sort
of give a psychological profile based on
this one tweet you know and I think
that's very dangerous because most
people don't think very much before they
tweet it's just a whim it's like when
you go and meet somebody and you have a
cocktail party and then they just start
just talking they're not they're not
really thinking they're just trying to
make conversation
um so they'll just say stuff that they
don't even mean half the time and I
think this is something that people need
to realize is that when people say
things it doesn't necessarily mean that
they mean what they're saying sometimes
people are just they're just sort of
experimenting you know they're just kind
of throwing out ideas out there just to
see what people think of it and to be
honest I do that as well I don't
actually uh firmly believe a lot of the
stuff that I tweet out I just tweet it
out just to see how people react and you
know then I can maybe sort of calibrate
what I'm thinking based on that
um so yeah we shouldn't take what people
tweet out or what they post seriously
online most of the time because they
might feel differently five minutes
after in fact I do that all the time you
know something and then I'll just five
minutes after I've tweeted it I've got a
completely different opinion and I'm
like actually what I just tweeted was a
load of [ __ ] you know and um yeah so I
think people need to to bear that in
mind Scott Adams actually had a really
good uh idea where he he calls it the
48-hour rule where he says that we
should never judge what a person has
posted until 48 hours have passed and
we've given that person a chance to
retract what they've said
obviously this is not feasible it's not
something that you could actually do in
real life because you know you can't
wait 48 hours after every opinion but I
like the idea behind it because I think
a lot of what people say
is essentially it's kind of like just a
Untamed fresen of
some Sensations they've had in that in
their mind you know something that's
just kind of triggered them to just say
something
um and they haven't really so they
haven't domesticated it they haven't
really you know tamed it so it's just a
wild idea that's just kind of unwrapping
in their head and they've just deciding
just you know let it out of the cage the
uh this is this is facilitated by the
frictionlessness of social media you
know previously if you wanted to use the
Gutenberg printing press to actually get
something down onto paper the you would
make sure that you'd spent some time
thinking about what you were going to
get this one very very small slot that
you had to be able to produce your
incredibly important pamphlet or
whatever you're talking about but you're
right the the frictionlessness allows
brain to mouth or brain to fingertips to
be instantaneous this is something that
I realized around the Jordan Peterson uh
Sports Illustrated girl furore was it
last year I think and yeah I love Jordan
he's been a massive influence on me and
he's very very kind to me but things
like that
people tried to dissect exactly what was
going on in the inner recesses of
Jordan's mind when he said sorry not
beautiful and no amount of totalitarian
overreach will convince me otherwise
everything about that tweet and almost
everything really that the older guys on
Twitter are putting out can be
understood if you remember that they're
Boomers
all that you need to do is just remember
the fact that they're about right filter
it through this isn't somebody who has a
a particularly additionally
sophisticated Twitter
habit or or process that they go through
before they construct a tweet you know
our friends some of our friends who are
way way less famous George Mac yourself
you know
these guys craft tweets over over weeks
takes weeks and weeks to come up with
these huge mega threads and George will
show me his notes and he's building him
up over time and all this sort of stuff
I guarantee that Jordan took less than
three minutes probably to type that
tweet out and yet it's then going to be
indicative of his pathologization let's
get the psychiatrists in to work out oh
is this something to do with his
unrequited jungian archetype from the
like no no no no like it's just he saw
an image of it he saw an image of a girl
on Sports Illustrated that he didn't
like and he had a crack and maybe you
know maybe he'd been gassy that day yeah
maybe exactly maybe he'd had a [ __ ]
night's sleep because of Builders next
door like yeah the frictionlessness
facilitates this and I think I think
it's the tweets that people don't think
about very much that tend to be the ones
that people talk about most oh
absolutely yeah because because if it's
reasonable if you've actually spent a
long time thinking about it then it's
going to be reasonable and if it's
reasonable it's not gonna outrage people
it's not gonna uh make people sort of
it's not going to stir up emotions in
people because it's going to be the
antithesis of that it's going to be
something calm measured reasonable but
if you are just firing off what's the
first thought that instantly comes into
your head then it's by definition not
going to be reasonable it's going to be
something that's impulsive and that's
going to make other people impulsive and
they're going to react to it in that
same kind of language as it were the
language of sort of the animal language
of of human nature rather than the
language of reason and so I think that's
one of the dangerous things about social
media is that it tends to favor ideas
that people don't think very much about
people that just sort of
are a product of human whim rather than
human reason every single morning for
over three years now I've started my day
the exact same way which is with element
in water element contains a
science-backed electrolyte ratio of
sodium potassium and magnesium and it is
the best hydration drink that I've ever
found it tastes fantastic it's super
refreshing orange is just the most OP
flavor in the world it's absolutely
phenomenal and it helps to play a
critical role in reducing muscle cramps
and fatigue it regulates your appetite
it optimizes brain health and it helps
curb Cravings they're also the exclusive
hydration partner to Team USA
weightlifting and rely down by tons of
Olympic athletes and everyday High
performers all around the world also
there is a no BS no questions asked
refund policy where you can buy a box
completely risk-free and if you do not
like it for any reason they will give
you a refund during an unlimited
duration and you don't even need to
return the box that's how confident they
are that you'll love it element of
giving away a free sample pack of all
eight flavors with your first box if you
go to the link in the description box
below or drink
lmnt.com
MW that's drink lmnt.com
MW what's happening people if you
enjoyed that then press here for the
full unedited episode and don't forget
to subscribe
[Music]