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I'm Scared of 2024...So Here's 3 Optimistic Thoughts

2024-01-05 · letter vlog · Hank · 7:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Internet & YouTube (also: US politics & society, Economics) · mode: Personal essay · tags: timely hook, self promotion, heavy topic

Hank lists his worries for 2024 (AI and young people, nationalism and war, Trump on the ballot, higher education costs, outrage-driven platforms, inequality), then offers three optimistic thoughts: creators' pushback slowing generative AI, a US economy that avoided recession and tamed inflation, and signs people are healing from the twin shocks of content platforms and the pandemic; he is not optimistic about humanity but forgiving of it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Dumpster-fire years since 2016; worries for 2024: AI and young people, nationalism and war, Trump, higher education, media disintegration, inequality

  • ★ Hank recalls that in 2016 everybody started talking about dumpster fires, and the brothers even made a 2016 dumpster fire shirt. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank worries AI will make it even harder for young people to find a place in the American economy, already hard because policies and systems steer wealth to older people. — 00:00:29 · United States, economic inequality
  • ★★ Hank worries about rising nationalism and nativism, which he says increased global conflicts, with deaths in wars rising for the last three years. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank is fairly certain the number of people dying in wars will increase again in 2024. (hedged) — 00:01:03
  • ★★ Hank is certain Donald Trump will be on the ballot in November, which puts him way too close to being president again, something absolutely possible. — 00:01:03 · Donald Trump, United States presidential election
  • ★★ Hank worries about a general attack on higher education, enabled by the industry's inability to control its costs, while public talk turns to culture-war nonsense instead. — 00:01:03
  • ★★★ Hank blames the culture-war talk and nationalism on the disintegration of the media landscape, caused by platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube maximizing time on platform, where moral outrage sticks best. — 00:01:32 · TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, attention economy
  • ★★ Hank worries that those harmed most by any disruption are those with the least, and hears far too little about cycles perpetuating inequality globally and at home. — 00:01:32 · economic inequality

00:02:02 — Optimistic thought one: creators push back against generative AI, which may slow it down

  • ★★★ Hank's first optimistic thought: unlike content platforms, which met much optimism and little pushback, generative AI is not being allowed to have its way with us. — 00:02:02 · social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok
  • ★★ Hank says the people and companies whose words and art trained the AI models are pushing back, partly because they never gave permission for that training. — 00:02:31
  • ★★ Hank thinks this pushback is going to slow generative AI down. — 00:02:31
  • ★★ Hank thinks slowing AI down is probably good: after many recent shocks, more time before the next big shock would help; he notes some disagree. (hedged) — 00:02:31

00:03:00 — Optimistic thought two: no recession, inflation reined in, lower interest rates ahead

  • ★★ Hank's second thought: the expected big recession did not happen; the US had a stronger economy and labor market than nearly any developed country and reined in inflation best. — 00:03:00 · United States
  • ★★ Hank says inflation coming under control means interest rates can fall again, encouraging investment, hopefully more homes, and letting more people sell their homes. (hedged) — 00:03:00

00:03:29 — Optimistic thought three: two shocks (content platforms, pandemic), signs of healing, humans are new to this; not optimistic but forgiving

  • ★★ Hank says lower interest rates won't fix the housing crisis, but they are directionally correct. — 00:03:29
  • ★★★ Hank's third and biggest thought: since 2016 we have lived through two massive shocks, first the mass adoption of many-to-many content platforms, when many newcomers to the internet maybe lacked long-time users' defenses. — 00:03:29 · social media, YouTube
  • ★★★ Hank believes the future will see the advent of content platforms as significant a shift as the printing press, though he might be wrong. (hedged) — 00:03:58 · social media
  • ★★ Hank says humanity's biggest shifts come with shifts in communications technology (speech, storytelling and plays, radio, the printing press), and such revolutions always bring societal upheaval. — 00:03:58
  • ★★ Hank says the second shock is a pandemic that has killed millions of people and disabled countless others. — 00:03:58 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ Hank says the pandemic left many people socially isolated for a long time, and social isolation is very bad for people. — 00:04:42 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ Hank's optimistic take: considering those huge twin shocks, most people have actually handled them fairly well, and there are signs we may be healing a bit. — 00:04:42 · social media, COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ Hank says for a while social isolation and fear of others, plus social media's outrage bait, led a fair number of people to think it was their job to suck. — 00:05:11 · attention economy, social media
  • ★★ Hank says that in the last year incidents of disruptive passengers on airplanes went down 80%. — 00:05:11
  • ★ Hank suggests the disruptive-passenger rate might be a decent metric of how society is doing, worth tracking alongside GDP. (playful, hedged) — 00:05:11
  • ★★ Hank calls it a very good sign that people are posting less, leaving Twitter not for Threads but for group chats with friends or for walks. — 00:05:40 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank thinks that almost ten years on, some immunities to the platforms might be kicking in, though many people still post through it. (hedged) — 00:05:40 · social media
  • ★★ Hank says people are not very forgiving of themselves, and even less forgiving of other people and of the species as a whole. — 00:05:40
  • ★★★ Hank says he often catches himself thinking he cannot believe humans, mammals evolved for small groups where status loss could mean death, are so bad at platforms under ten years old optimized for some 12 weird guys in California; he tells his brain to cut us some slack, since we invented agriculture five minutes ago. (playful) — 00:06:09 · social media
  • ★★★ Hank says he is not ultimately optimistic about humanity: we could really go either way. — 00:06:09 · optimism

00:06:38 — Sign-off; Southern California dates of Hank's stand-up cancer show

  • ★★★ Hank says what he is instead is forgiving: a lot more forgiving of humanity than most people. — 00:06:38

    “But what I am is forgiving.”

  • ★★ Hank says humans are the weirdest thing in the known universe, and his least optimistic, most forgiving take is that it is very hard to be this weird. — 00:06:38

  • ★★ Hank announces he will be in Southern California in a couple of weeks performing his one-man stand-up comedy show about cancer in Oxnard, Brea, San Diego and downtown Los Angeles. — 00:06:38 · Los Angeles
  • ★★ Hank says the downtown Los Angeles show will be recorded and eventually released in a way he cannot yet discuss. — 00:06:38 · Los Angeles
  • ★★ Hank says these will likely be the only times he does the show again, maybe his last stand-up ever: he loves it but doesn't want to do it professionally. (hedged) — 00:06:38

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In the description Hank says he has long said the internet-and-society situation will get worse before it gets better, and still thinks so. — video description · social media
  • ★★ In the description Hank says he has seen signs that things will get better, though he does not believe it every day. — video description · optimism

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: artificial intelligence · moral outrage · social media

Also: People: Donald Trump

Works: Dumpster fire shirt

Organizations: Facebook · Threads · TikTok · Twitter · YouTube

Concepts: agriculture · air rage · attention economy · copyright · economic inequality · evolutionary mismatch · gross domestic product · higher education · housing crisis · inflation · Interest rate · nationalism · optimism · printing press · recession · social isolation · stand-up comedy · war · Youth

Places: Brea · California · Los Angeles · Oxnard · San Diego · Southern California · United States

Events: COVID-19 pandemic · United States presidential election

Also centred on artificial intelligence: Google in your Brain · Question Tuesday Except I'm an AI · Asking an AI Image Generator for Pizza Johns · AI tells me if AI will write novels. · Things are Changing Very Fast · After 12 hours in LA I'm a stand-up comic doing ASMR with a side gig as a music promoter

Also centred on moral outrage: Addicted to Outrage · Feeling Thankful in Portland · Crime and Outrage · Ending the Age of Outrage (at least in ourselves, if not in the world) · I Keep Thinking About Taylor Swift · The People I Hate Most in the World

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