They forgot that the world doesn’t run on information.
People don’t make decisions based on truth or facts. They don’t spend
their money based on data. They don’t connect with each other because of
some higher philosophical truth.
The world runs on feelings.
And when you give the average person an infinite reservoir of human
wisdom, they will not google for the information that contradicts their deepest
held beliefs. They will not google for what is true yet unpleasant.
Instead, most of us will google for what is pleasant but untrue.
Having an errant racist thought? Well, there’s a whole forum of racists
two clicks away, with a lot of convincing-sounding arguments as to why you
shouldn’t be ashamed to have such leanings. The wife leaves you and you
start thinking women are inherently selfish and evil? Doesn’t take much of a
Google search to find justifications for those misogynistic feelings.^10 Think
Muslims are going to stalk from school to school, murdering your children?
I’m sure there’s a conspiracy theory somewhere out there that’s already
“proving” that.
Instead of stemming the free expression of our worst feelings and darkest
inclinations, the start-ups and corporations dove right in to cash in on it. Thus,
the greatest innovation of our lifetime has slowly transformed into our
greatest diversion.
The internet, in the end, was not designed to give us what we need.
Instead, it gives people what they want. And if you’ve learned anything about
human psychology in this book, you already know that this is much more
dangerous than it sounds.
#FakeFreedom
It must be an odd time to be a super-successful businessperson. On the one
hand, business is better than ever. There’s more wealth in the world than ever
before, profits are breaking all-time highs, productivity and growth are doing
great. Yet, meanwhile, income inequality is skyrocketing, political
polarization is ruining everyone’s family gatherings, and there seems to be a
plague of corruption spreading across the world.
So, while there’s exuberance in the business world, there’s also a weird
sort of defensiveness that sometimes comes out of nowhere. And this
defensiveness, I’ve noticed, always takes the same form, no matter whom it
comes from. It says: “We’re just giving people what they want!”
Whether it’s oil companies or creepy advertisers or Facebook stealing