THE FUTURE IS EACH OTHER

During yesterday’s “WHO’S WATCHING THE WATCHERS?” conversation, we started talking about Substack’s recent partnership with Pangram, the thing to detect AI writing. The thing is, talk to a bunch of people in the real world, and they have no idea what “a Substack” is, let alone what the fuck an AI detection tool is.

Let’s not outsource our taste to these AI conglomerates, and instead rely on the decades of life experience. The magazines we read when were kids. The songs we listened to on the radio. The adventures we had when renting movies.

From “The Lost Civic Life of Movie Rental Stores,”

Video clerks and store owners fostered a true third-place atmosphere in their stores. “There was always conversation in our store,” recalls Jerry Frebowitz, owner of Philadelphia’s Movies Unlimited. “Especially on Saturdays . . . there was so much film talk going on. Total strangers were talking to each other; it was really a phenomenon.” Though his customers always came to rent a movie, Frebowitz says, “They definitely stayed to talk . . . hardly anybody came in to get the movie and leave.”

There was no shortage of slop before AI, it’s just now we have a multi-billion dollar industry behind it trying to to sell bottom of the barrel CPM ads against it. Just as the techbro vultures co-opted the vibrant blogging ecosystem of the 2000s, they’ll decimate the post-social / current newsletter landscape to the ground as well.

Just go for a walk and let it burn/ Talk to our neighbors. Gather on a Zoom call (we’re talking about this again on Monday). Send each other letters. Update your website. Hop on the phone.

Does this solve everything? Does this “grow your audience” or help you make $10,000 per month?

Friend, the future is each other. The only zen at the top of a mountain is the zen you bring with you. Find your zen.