In our scary new memetic fitness landscape, I think I’ve started to develop a default skepticism toward pith and sass. These days, the pithier and sassier something is, the more likely it is to trigger my deception alarms.
When something 240 characters or less sounds really good, it is increasingly likely that this is because it evolved to sound good to me, rather than because it has any deep wholesomeness.
Interestingly, for me, pith and sass have always been suspect. It’s only recently that my skepticism of longer, more factual-appearing (but even if true, very often cherry-picked and misleading) posts and articles has started to catch up.
I believe a default skepticism toward all group and mass communication is appropriate.
In our scary new memetic fitness landscape, I think I’ve started to develop a default skepticism toward pith and sass. These days, the pithier and sassier something is, the more likely it is to trigger my deception alarms.
When something 240 characters or less sounds really good, it is increasingly likely that this is because it evolved to sound good to me, rather than because it has any deep wholesomeness.
Interestingly, for me, pith and sass have always been suspect. It’s only recently that my skepticism of longer, more factual-appearing (but even if true, very often cherry-picked and misleading) posts and articles has started to catch up.
I believe a default skepticism toward all group and mass communication is appropriate.