Select a result to preview

DL 209

Sometimes You Gotta Fly

Published: 2019-08-10 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to issue 209. Sometimes you gotta fly.

This week I sent out the following:

🔖 Key Takeaways

📺 Watch

Last weekend I needed a break from the news so I sat down to finally binge watch the documentary series titled Shangri-La on Showtime. The four part series follows legendary producer Rick Rubin as he tours his Malibu studio.

The series is an interesting look at the components and culture of creativity. One thing in particular that I noticed was that Rubin indicated that he wears no shoes everyday.

In a conversation with Tyler the Creator, Rubin says, "The earth actually has an electrical and magnetic energy that goes into our body if we are naked on it, and if we're covered all the time, we don't get to feel it. In terms of health and in terms of knowing things, part of the life source is being tapped into the earth."

I played this part over a couple times, and reflected on how interesting (wacky) this was. I also thought about the only other person that I knew that walked around barefoot…Dai Barnes.

I have a lot to say about this, but I'm honestly still processing. I would recommend checking out these great posts from Aaron Davis and Tim Klapdor.

Rubin's barefoot philosophy—whether scientifically grounded or not—represents intentional practice that shapes his creative approach. The Dai Barnes connection transforms abstract observation into personal grief. Barnes was a presence in education technology communities, known for walking barefoot as distinctive practice. His loss prompts reflection on how small choices define identity and how communities form around shared values. The Shangri-La documentary itself models creative retreat: Rubin's studio as sanctuary from noise, enabling focused work. In a week of mass shootings and platform crises, the escape to creativity and memory of lost friends provides necessary counterweight.

📚 Read

Mass Shootings Research Since 1966

A must read op-ed. Two researchers share findings from a National Institute of Justice funded research looking at the life histories of mass shooters in the US. They studied every mass shooting since 1966.

Here's four commonalities that they learned about the shooters:

Read more about this research at The Violence Project.

The four commonalities framework shifts conversation from individual pathology to systemic patterns. Childhood trauma suggests prevention through early intervention. Crisis points suggest intervention windows when warning signs emerge. Access to validation suggests addressing online radicalization spaces. Firearm access suggests the most direct intervention—harder to carry out plans without means. Each factor is addressable; none requires profiling or prediction of individual dangerousness. The research challenges narratives that treat each shooting as inexplicable—the patterns are clear, the interventions available, the political will absent. We know what to do; we choose not to do it.

After these mass shootings, we learn a lot about the massacres and the motivations that play into these events. As identified in the research shared above, one of the common threads in mass shootings is the dark spaces of the Internet people go to socialize, subscribe to these ideologies, and sometimes become radicalized.

On a seemingly regular basis in this newsletter I seem to find threads in which harmful discourses spread online. We may not want to peer deep into these areas, but I think that in order to be a responsible citizen of the web, we need to understand the good, and bad/horrible that is out there.

Robert Evans reports on some of his investigations of far-right extremist groups in the US and the ways in which they radicalize and communicate through the Internet.

In this post, he documents the concept of high scores on 8chan, where white nationalist terror has been gamified by lonely white men seeking identity and acclaim.

Evans's "gamification" framing captures something essential about 8chan's role in radicalization. Mass shooters post manifestos before attacks, receive celebration after, compete for body counts called "high scores." The gaming language isn't metaphor—it's literal community practice. "Lonely white men seeking identity and acclaim" identifies the demographic: marginalized within their own lives, seeking significance through violence that online communities will celebrate. The "ironic" racism becomes sincere, the "jokes" become plans, the community provides validation that offline life denies. Understanding this doesn't excuse—it explains, which is necessary for intervention.

8chan (also called Infinitechan or Infinitychan) is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. There is little to no interaction from site moderators or admins. 8chan picked up notoriety when the moderators at 4chan got serious and started banning users for illegal, or exceptionally disturbing content.

This post shares the story of Frederick Brennan, the founder of 8chan. Brennan started the online message board as a free speech utopia. But now, 8chan is known as a megaphone for mass shooters, and a recruiting platform for violent white nationalists.

Not long after the recent round of massacres, Cloudflare indicated that they would no longer protect 8chan from attacks. Cloudflare is a web infrastructure and security company. Put simply, they protect websites when others try to shut them down.

This has caused a number of members of 8chan to head elsewhere online. Please note, in an earlier issue of this newsletter, I detailed the use of Gab (and Mastodon support) to create a distributed space for these communities.

There is much more to talk about with this issue. I'll stay on top of the story and try to help explain it. Please note, this also raises important questions about freedom of speech, and the role/purpose of our online discourse systems.

Brennan's evolution from creator to critic of his own platform is remarkable. He built 8chan believing free speech maximalism would produce valuable discourse; instead it produced mass shooter manifestos and radicalization pipelines. His call to shut it down represents not abandoning principles but recognizing their limits—some speech actively prevents other speech by making communities uninhabitable. Cloudflare's withdrawal demonstrates that infrastructure isn't neutral: choosing to protect sites enabling violence is a choice, and so is choosing not to. The Gab/Mastodon migration shows these communities adapt—shutdown one platform, they move to others. The problem is ideology, not infrastructure, though infrastructure enables scale.

Really interesting survey about human opinions about workforce automation.

Scientists in Germany find that most people would rather a robot replaced them in their job than a human. On the other hand, most people would be upset if a robot took the job of a colleague.

People have different emotional reactions to being replaced by robots versus humans. I really can't figure out the logic here. What do you think?

Publication is available here.

The asymmetry reveals something about identity and work. Being replaced by a human feels like personal failure—someone else can do your job better. Being replaced by a robot feels like technological progress—no one could compete with machine efficiency. But watching a colleague lose their job to a robot triggers concern about the system rather than rationalization about progress. We apply different frameworks to ourselves (self-protection) versus others (solidarity). This has policy implications: automation resistance may be weaker than expected when individuals consider their own positions, stronger when considering collective impacts. Messaging that emphasizes community effects rather than individual replacement may generate more concern.

Scientists Discover 39 Invisible Galaxies

A much needed bit of perspective.

Scientists have found a vast array of hidden galaxies, which together could change our understanding of how the universe works.

The mysterious galaxies, which were previously unknown to researchers, were discovered by a breakthrough new approach that allowed astronomers to look more deeply than ever before into the universe.

The astronomers describe the new find as a treasure trove, representing a huge set of galaxies. It could help solve some of the most deep and fundamental questions about the universe, including the mysteries of supermassive black holes and dark matter.

The pub in Nature is here.

Cosmic perspective matters in weeks dominated by human violence and platform dysfunction. Thirty-nine galaxies previously invisible to observation—entire island universes containing billions of stars, now accessible through improved technology. The humility this should inspire: our fiercest conflicts occur on one planet orbiting one star in one galaxy among billions we're only beginning to see. This doesn't diminish human suffering or excuse inaction on shootings and radicalization. But it contextualizes: the universe is vast beyond comprehension, and our brief tenure requires us to make choices about what kind of species we'll be within it.

🔨 Do

This week was really stressful. Here in the US, we seem to be set at panic mode…for justifiable reasons.

When you go out in public the next time, look at people (yes, strangers as well) and smile first. Better yet, make it believable and smize.

Supposedly a smize, or smiling with your eyes makes you look more genuine. If you smile first, many times this will be returned with a smile from a stranger. Who knows…it may make you feel better as well.

The smize recommendation—smiling with your eyes—responds to stress with micro-connection. In panic mode, we withdraw, avoid eye contact, move defensively through space. Deliberately choosing warmth toward strangers interrupts that pattern. The "returned smile" phenomenon connects to research on emotional contagion and social mirroring discussed in earlier issues. Small gestures accumulate: one genuine smile to a stranger might shift their day slightly, which shifts their interactions, which ripples outward. This isn't naive optimism—it's recognizing that individual choices aggregate into social climate, and we can choose what we contribute.

🤔 Consider

"You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down." — Toni Morrison

Morrison's wisdom on releasing weight connects to this issue's heavy themes. Mass shooters carry childhood trauma, crisis, and radicalization—weight that explodes into violence. Communities like 8chan accumulate toxicity that weighs down the entire internet. Grief for Dai Barnes, for shooting victims, for democratic discourse weights those of us watching. Flying requires release—not forgetting, but not being trapped. Sometimes we need cosmic perspective, barefoot walks, or smiles at strangers to shed enough weight to continue.

Previous: DL 208 • Next: DL 210 • Archive: 📧 Newsletter

🌱 Connected Concepts:

Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology.