Stuff You Should Check Out
TikTok brainwashes, David Brooks says your life isn't your own, and Dr. Twenge debunks the smartphone apologists.
Hello Bar-setters!
It’s been a busy week with Halloween, a presentation, some family sickness, and a Rangers World Series win!
Today, I just want to share a couple of links that are worth your time. Right to it!
Your Life is Not Your Own
The Good Fight podcast: David Brooks on Knowing Others (and ourselves)
An excerpt:
One vision (and this comes out in that piece on assisted suicide) is: “I control myself, my body is my own, I get to do what I want. If I want to take my own life, I get to do that.” And that has a respectable philosophical pedigree. The other strain, which I guess I would associate with, is: “I'm not my own; I inherited my life from many ancestors who came before, and I have an obligation to pass it along to those who come after, and I do not have the right to take my own life.” And that if somebody is rushing to a bridge to jump off it, I'm going to do all I can to stop them. And, not only that, but I have inherited this massive moral tradition from the West and other parts of the world. I inherited a wonderful concept of citizenship by being born in America. I inherited a sense of reading and a special moral pressure from being born Jewish. I didn't create any of that. But it was gifted to me. And my job was to continue and carry it along and to pass it down, hopefully, a little better than I found it. And so I think these are two different conceptions of how you conceive of a life: “I control myself” versus “I'm just a piece in a long chain, and there are a lot of things about which I do not have control and do not have a choice and should not have a choice.”
This was a great podcast conversation that got better as it went along. I really love David Brooks’ message of late and I look forward to checking out his new book. Brooks was on the Art of Manliness Podcast recently as well and that conversation is also worthwhile.
Younger Generations Support Hamas Because of TikTok
This was a fascinating article written by Wisconsin congressman, Mike Gallagher:
An excerpt:
We know of TikTok’s predatory nature because the app has several versions. In China, there is a safely sanitized version called Douyin. That version, using much of the same technology, shows kids science experiments and other educational content, and its use is limited to forty minutes per day. Here in America, the application’s algorithm is exquisitely tuned to prioritize polarizing outrage and addictive, brain-numbing nonsense (at best) and dangerous propaganda (at worst). Put differently, ByteDance and the CCP have decided that China’s children get spinach, and America’s get digital fentanyl.
Obviously Smartphones Are Harming Mental Health. Jean Twenge Debunks All the Arguments that They Aren’t.
Here are 13 Other Explanations For The Adolescent Mental Health Crisis. None of Them Work. By Jean Twenge.
An excerpt:
Of all of the alternative explanations, only #6 (declines in independence) stands up to scrutiny when examined, and it seems to be working together with the rise of smartphones and social media, not against it. If the decline in teen independence had occurred in the absence of smartphones and social media, it may have led to somewhat higher rates of depression. But if teens were still seeing friends in person about as much, were sleeping just as much, and were not on social media 5 hours a day — all things traceable to the rise of smartphones and social media — I highly doubt teen depression would have doubled in a decade.
Thanks for reading and sharing!
Carry the fire!
Shane