Why friction matters
The smartest thing I read last week was Kyla Scanlon's insightful piece on why friction is the most valuable commodity — why the digital world has become friction-less while the physical, material world is filled with friction.
E.g. your phone is a friction-less world. Chatbots and AI, are one node: they will outsource everything from dating to writing papers to social moments.
Compare that with the recent horror show at Newark airport, say, or an hours long wait in traffic; the weeks long wait for government aid in times of personal or national crisis.
As Kyla notes, we're entering a new kind of economy:
"I think what we're witnessing isn't just an extension of the attention economy but something new - the simulation economy. It's not just about keeping you glued to the screen anymore. It's about convincing you that any sort of real-world effort is unnecessary, that friction itself is obsolete. The simulation doesn't just occupy your attention, right, instead it replaces the very notion that engagement should require effort. Which is… wild."
In the simulation economy, there are those who can conjure, curate, a new physical reality — a material world that feels friction-less. Wealth clears the friction and erases and hides the broken, cracked, and static reality that infrastructure (of all kinds) needs attention.
Below is some good writing that will make you think about the why an economy focused on a friction free digital world hurts the physical reality:
Kate Wagner's piece on how AI is changing the internet:
What it's like to live in a simulated space with NY Mag's piece about the West Village:
NY Mag's piece on why college is now about how well you can use ChatGPT:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html