A world of transactional efficiency
It was a little over 4 years ago that I first brought up the increasingly transactional nature of our interactions and even existence in general. I was reminded of it while listening to Amit Varma’s podcast with Nirupama Rao. Interestingly, they brought up contexts similar to what I had used – mails and rails. I had used birthday greetings going from long mails/cards to a ‘Like’ on someone else wishing the person a birthday. Travel was the other context, and I liked Amit’s example of train journeys being a unique experience. In contrast to say, the flight from point A to B.
Last year, around the same time, I had framed it as An Efficient Existence, and used the example of Taylor Pearson’s 4 minute songs – the timeframe he had mentioned for songs in the context of certain rules that creators need to follow if they want their work to be consumed and appreciated. I had brought up an earlier era of Floyd, Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac etc whose songs didn’t follow that template. Demand or supply, what happened first, I asked. Does it have to do with the abundance of choice now, and the demands of instant gratification? While templated packages for all sorts of consumption are increasingly the norm, people also want to finish and move on to the next thing on their list. Transactions. (Generalising), there seems to be very less desire to have an immersive experience. Outside the screen, that is. As the Spotify ads show (unintentionally and literally) we’re usually in a bubble, oblivious to our surroundings.
Why do we want what we want?
But traveling in the other direction inside that bubble – creation instead of consumption – brings me to the other facet of this transactional nature I had written about very recently in An IG story. While cause and effect are still hazy, in my mind there is indeed a correlation between this instant gratification and being on stage and under scrutiny all the while. Are we efficient/transactional because rather than savouring the experience, we’re more interested in showing it to the world? Chasing what Luke Burgis calls thin desires? Desires based on what you see in others or on what you think others also want. Perfect parent and/or partner, perfect cook/baker, traveling to the best locales, fine dining in luxury, familiar with the latest pop culture phenomenon? Self image through a selfie? Converting everything into a finite game of attention or first-to-start a trend? Simultaneously competing with a peer group, and seeking their validation and appreciation? And that defining happiness as opposed to what one really wants.
Mimetic desire, as it is called, has always existed. Inspired either by an immediate friends and family circle (Freshmanistan as Burgis calls it) or through celebrities covered in the media (Celebristan). But Facebook and Instagram have accelerated this because now there could be millions in Freshmanistan – people like us. And gradually, the algorithms have been manipulating not just the feed, but our own desires. Not that we had complete control anyway, because there is some determinism through nature and nurture. But algorithms doing this is a completely different level of Schopenhauer’s “A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.” Engineering our wants, until I have to ask – can we even know what we want?
So much of our lives — from online dating, to search engines, to social-media feeds — is mediated by algorithms. And we talk about them like we actually know much about them. We complain about the Facebook algorithm and we gush (Betancourt isn’t alone) over TikTok’s. As I write this, some YouTube alpha male is out there uploading videos promising straight men advice on how to “hack” the Tinder algorithm to date like kings, and if you watch any of these videos, the site’s algorithm will use that query to offer you more unsolicited dating advice the next time you log in.
In reality, we don’t know nearly enough.
When we talk about “the algorithm” of any given platform, we’re sometimes talking about multiple algorithms that use artificial intelligence to metabolize the data that consumers (that’s us) provide through our interactions with the platform. These algorithms use that information to then curate that platform’s offering to its users (again, us). In other words: Our likes, swipes, comments, play time, and clicks provide these platforms up-to-the-minute updates on our needs and preferences and the algorithms use this information to determine what we see and when.
Because Your Algorithm Says So
Examining our (sometimes toxic) relationship with our AI overlords.
And I suspect it won’t end well.
A culture transforming the species
While all that is happening at the individual level, there is a cultural layer too. Scientists say that we have now arrived at a “special evolutionary transition” in which the importance of culture, such as learned knowledge, practices and skills, is surpassing the value of genes as the primary driver of human evolution. Last year, when I wrote Front Tier Journeys to understand what income (actually wealth) disparity is doing to the species, I’d used this quote from Freeman Dyson The destiny of our species is shaped by the imperatives of survival on six distinct time scales. To survive means to compete successfully on all six time scales. But the unit of survival is different at each of the six time scales. On a time scale of years, the unit is the individual. On a time scale of decades, the unit is the family. On a time scale of centuries, the unit is the tribe or nation. On a time scale of millennia, the unit is the culture. To add to that, from Lisa Feldman Barrett’s excellent article in The Guardian,
Cultural practices even shape the genetic evolution of our entire species, by influencing who is available to reproduce with whom, and which children are more likely to live to reproductive age. Wealth, social class, laws, war and other human inventions empower one group over another, changing the odds on whether certain people will have children together, or at all. Political and religious polarisation ensures that people with different beliefs will scarcely speak to one another, let alone date or mate. Parents who vaccinate their children against deadly diseases, or choose not to, likewise make waves in the gene pool. This is how humans, by virtue of the cultures we create, nudge the evolutionary trajectory of our species.
The big idea: is it time to stop talking about ‘nature versus nurture’?
The point – our behaviour now as individuals and collectives – what we highlight and prioritise, and what we ignore and lose – is going to alter us at a species level. Amit and Nirupama brought up a very interesting point in their conversation – the granular experiences during train journeys, and interactions with others, were a great learning mechanism. Now a screen in our palm is our biggest teacher. What are we learning, and from whom?
As for me…
While species level play is beyond me, I can operate at an individual level. How do I get away from thin desires? I have been off Facebook for years, and I unfollow those on Instagram and Twitter whom I perceive are more highlight reel than human. I didn’t know there was a name for this state until I read Seth Godin’s And maybe it’s enough. Chisoku – a Japanese concept that means finding satisfaction in what you already have. I think that is definitely a path to moving away from transactions and into developing ‘thick desires’ that are an extension of my own values and true interests. As Godin says, there is an immense freedom in this.
