Interesting to get an more raw insight into Mark's thinking. In some ways its insightful and prescient, but also feels like there is desperation and a kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. I suppose Facebook has/had the resources to do plenty of spaghetti throwing though.

Another observation is that this would have been the moment for Facebook to lean into short video content a la TikTok. But it seems like the video content is just an after thought for Zuck. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose, but its interesting that they almost got there. Vine already existed at this point and I guess Zuck did not view it as a threat. Perhaps that's one downside of the "defensibility" mindset that seems to pervade this writing and most of the ideas. I get the sense that this is Zuck responding to competitors, and not really crafting a unique vision for Facebook as its own entity.

> older sects of society still believe those signals exist.

I'm only in my forties but it's incredible how much this has changed in my lifetime.

I remember talking to an intern a few years ago and they made a comment about what a joke Columbia is (in regards to master's students). I was shocked because when I was a teen Columbia was seen as incredibly prestigious. I argued with them that Columbia is a really prestigious, well regarded school, but they and a few other interns just laughed and rolled their eyes.

Looking into it more it became obvious how this view had changed. It turns out Columbia, like many top tier schools from when I was a kid, has basically turned into get fancy version of a degree mill for master's students. Even though the school boasts some impressive faculty in many departments, it's also clear, based on the grads from there I have worked with after this conversation, that very little of that prestige is passed on.

As someone who used work in academia, it's wild how rapidly the entire system has decayed. From publisher or perish culture creating a mountain of non-reproducible work, to schools across the spectrum rushing to exchange credibility for cash. There have been so many systemic errors made that I don't believe academia will recover.

I suspect we'll see a fairly massive contraction in higher ed in the next decade or so.

I can't help but feel like this could really make a mess of things.

What I think would be nice is if there we tools that better allowed us to create "social gardens" on platforms like Twitter, platforms that allowed us to better cultivate the topics we care about while allowing us to keep out some stray topic from someone who we otherwise follow because of something entirely different.

There is of course the argument that this could lead to even worse echo chambers, but for me the more pressing concern is preserving my mental health and disengaging entirely from the political conversation. Doesn't matter what side of the aisle they're on, Twitter pundits are unhinged and I want to stay out of the twisted world they inhabit. Meanwhile, I find that Twitter is actually a really useful platform if you carefully curate the people you follow. There are some powerful ideas if you know where to look.

Ah, but who am I kidding, people would much rather possess a nuke than a garden.