Politics isn’t a per se bad. It’s a process. Making politics more productive and substantial make society better. Having people “nope” out of society whenever they get uncomfortable doesn’t help with any of the hard work politics does for things like allocating scarce resources, justice, or equity.

Poignant. I love this web comic.

With greater access to news on social media and the internet, Americans are more deluged than they used to be by depressing stories. (And the news cycle really can be pretty depressing!)

This is leading to a kind of perma-gloom about the state of the world, even as we maintain a certain resilience about the things that we have the most control over.

Beyond the diverse array of daily challenges that Americans face, many of us seem to be suffering from something related to the German concept of weltschmerz, or world-sadness. It’s mediaschmerz—a sadness about the news cycle and news media, which is distinct from the experience of our everyday life.

I’m really not sure how my journalism friends maintain their sanity.

I’m also not sure how to interpret this theory other than “this is what I’ve been trying to articulate for two years now, but with some data.”

Turn off the news, delete your social media accounts. Your weltschmerz and mediaschmerz will thank you for it.

My longest friend recommended Sam Harris' podcast to me about a year ago, and I've been hooked ever since. Some episodes are easier to get into than others, but this one is definitely worth a listen.

We've got a lot of work to do as a nation to address the implications and aftermath of Russia's use of social media during the 2016 election, but as an app developer, it gives me all the more reason to help steer people towards building software that makes society an objectively better place.

(By "objectively better", I mean taking a look at the pros and cons of social media and ubiquitous internet connectivity and see if its use makes us wealthier/healthier/happier, or if it's only making a handful of people those things.)

I consider myself to be a podcast enthusiast, but I will be the first to admit that I have not listened to many of the most popular podcasts.

I've been a fan of Joe Rogan ever since NewsRadio, and I've seen some clips here and there of The Joe Rogan Experience, but I've never sat down and listened to an entire episode of his podcast. I had a feeling that his political views were more libertarian, but beyond knowing that he's a proponent of weed, I didn't know much about him on a personal level.

With that in mind, I went through the most recent episodes of his podcast to see if there was an episode that would help me learn what he was all about.

I can't be the only one in the world who thinks the political scene in 2018 is incredibly draining and makes me feel ultimately powerless. As soon as I saw that Ted Nugent was on an episode, my initial reaction was, "ugh, why the hell would I listen to this crap and subject myself to more of that same feeling?"

Before listening to this episode, here was the sum total knowledge of facts that I knew about Ted Nugent:

• He was a musician of some sort
• He wasn't popular in my Twitter bubble
• He tends to speak in brash, general, and oversimplified statements

In an effort to remove myself from my bubble, I thought, "you know what? A lot of folks seem to love Ted Nugent, so I'm gonna listen with an open mind and see what it's all about."

The episode was pretty long (over three hours), but if you've got the time, I highly encourage you to give it a listen. A few things I took away:

• I didn't realize Ted was all about hunting, and I noticed myself nodding my head in agreement during the discussions around being responsible with nature and treating the circle of life with respect.
• The discussion around the vegan lifestyle was also illuminating. I know a few folks who try to do the vegan thing, and it's interesting to look at it from the perspective of "look at the number of animals and plants you need to kill with pesticides in order to keep them off your land so your tofu can grow."
• The first hour or so is mostly Ted and Joe talking about how misunderstood hunters are. Of primary note is a part where Ted says that people think hunters are all fat, sloppy rednecks who go out and hunt down hundreds of animals at a time. He says that if non-hunters would actually talk to a hunter and see the world from their perspective, it would really make things better. I thought this was a profound point, which was made completely ironic by the next observation:
• No fewer than 50 times in this episode does Ted identify a group of people (liberals, politicians, the DNR, bureaucrats, anti-gun folks, illegal immigrants), caricaturize them, and berate them for their "ignorance."

Joe spent a lot of the episode silent, because Ted just would get on a rant and keep going. However, I think Joe did do a great job of holding Ted's feet to the fire a bit over some of his statements.

My favorite part of the episode was when Ted went to the bathroom, Joe monologued about how messed up the gun situation is in our country and that he doesn't have any answers for it. It was refreshing to hear that, since everyone seems to have an answer that wouldn't work in practice.

Like I said above, the episode was long, but I found it to be absolutely illuminating, and I will be seeking out more podcasts like this in order to make sure my perspective on life isn't being persuaded by only one type of voice.

If anything, the biggest takeaway from this episode for me was that what we need right now as a country is to find a way to come back to the table together. Social networks seem to thrive off of exploiting the worst in us as humans, and even though the first word in that phrase is "social", it has made us anything but.

With social media being a big part of my job (and a big part of maintaining clients as a freelancer), I know I can't totally get rid of Facebook and Twitter, and I certainly can't shed myself off of YouTube. But since the latest "Google Privacy Scandal of the Week," I've really been trying to ween myself off of as many free services as I can. It's really pretty stupid: why are we willing to give so much information to these companies who are more than willing to sell it to the highest bidder?

This is a great article in the New York Times about the various organizations who mine and utilize the information we give to companies like Facebook every day. This part, in particular, really worried me:

Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy.

Even more scary:

The term Weblining describes the practice of denying people opportunities based on their digital selves. You might be refused health insurance based on a Google search you did about a medical condition. You might be shown a credit card with a lower credit limit, not because of your credit history, but because of your race, sex or ZIP code or the types of Web sites you visit.

Just searching for something like "diabetes symptoms" could disqualify you for health insurance, even if you were just doing research for an article on the disease.

I bet the first person who makes a social network that values its users' privacy and operates on a model that can make money without selling out their users will become very, very wealthy.

Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the Altimeter Group, said society was adopting new behaviors and expectations in response to the near-ubiquity of Facebook and other social networks.

“People may start to ask the question that, if you aren’t on social channels, why not? Are you hiding something?” she said. “The norms are shifting.”

I don't know if people ever think that because you're not on Facebook, you are hiding something. It can be frustrating to organize an event and try to remember all of your friends who aren't on Facebook, but besides that, I think a lot of my friends have a bit of respect for those who can get away.

As soon as something better comes along, or as soon as Facebook screws up big (like GoDaddy big), people will move to greener pastures.