When I look back at things I wrote a while ago, say months back, or years ago, I tend to cringe at how naive many of my views were. Faced with this inevitable progression, and the virtual certainty that I will continue to cringe at views I now hold, it is tempting to disconnect from social media and the internet and only comment when I am confident that something will look good in the future.
At the same time, I don’t really think this is a good attitude for several reasons:
Writing things up forces my thoughts to be more explicit, improving my ability to think about things
Allowing my ideas to be critiqued allows for a quicker transition towards correct beliefs
People who don’t understand the concept of “This person may have changed their mind in the intervening years”, aren’t worth impressing. I can imaginescenarios where your economic and social circumstances are so precarious that the incentives leave you with no choice but to let your speech and your thought be ruled by unthinking mob social-punishment mechanisms. But you should at least check whether you actually live in that world before surrendering.
In real world, people usually forget what you said 10 years ago. And even if they don’t, saying “Matthew said this 10 years ago” doesn’t have the same power as you saying the thing now.
But the internet remembers forever, and your words from 10 years ago can be retweeted and become alive as if you said them now.
A possible solution would be to use a nickname… and whenever you notice you grew up so much that you no longer identify with the words of your nickname, pick up a new one. Also new accounts on social networks, and re-friend only those people you still consider worthy. Well, in this case the abrupt change would be the unnatural thing, but perhaps you could still keep using your previous account for some time, but mostly passively. As your real-life new self would have different opinions, different hobbies, and different friends than your self from 10 years ago, so would your online self.
Unfortunately, this solution goes against “terms of service” of almost all major website. On the advertisement-driven web, advertisers want to know your history, and they are the real customers… you are only a product.
When I look back at things I wrote a while ago, say months back, or years ago, I tend to cringe at how naive many of my views were. Faced with this inevitable progression, and the virtual certainty that I will continue to cringe at views I now hold, it is tempting to disconnect from social media and the internet and only comment when I am confident that something will look good in the future.
At the same time, I don’t really think this is a good attitude for several reasons:
Writing things up forces my thoughts to be more explicit, improving my ability to think about things
Allowing my ideas to be critiqued allows for a quicker transition towards correct beliefs
I tend to learn a lot when writing things
People who don’t understand the concept of “This person may have changed their mind in the intervening years”, aren’t worth impressing. I can imagine scenarios where your economic and social circumstances are so precarious that the incentives leave you with no choice but to let your speech and your thought be ruled by unthinking mob social-punishment mechanisms. But you should at least check whether you actually live in that world before surrendering.
In real world, people usually forget what you said 10 years ago. And even if they don’t, saying “Matthew said this 10 years ago” doesn’t have the same power as you saying the thing now.
But the internet remembers forever, and your words from 10 years ago can be retweeted and become alive as if you said them now.
A possible solution would be to use a nickname… and whenever you notice you grew up so much that you no longer identify with the words of your nickname, pick up a new one. Also new accounts on social networks, and re-friend only those people you still consider worthy. Well, in this case the abrupt change would be the unnatural thing, but perhaps you could still keep using your previous account for some time, but mostly passively. As your real-life new self would have different opinions, different hobbies, and different friends than your self from 10 years ago, so would your online self.
Unfortunately, this solution goes against “terms of service” of almost all major website. On the advertisement-driven web, advertisers want to know your history, and they are the real customers… you are only a product.