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Mike's avatar
Nov 17Edited

Amazing and intelligently written piece. Put into words what I have been feeling lately. Just read the "Monks in the Casino" piece a few days before this. What is all this headed? Analyzing ourselves until death... the fate of the modern human in the 21st century. I will be returning to this piece often.

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Shreyas Hariharan's avatar

Appreciate it! It’s worth documenting what’s happening so we can find our way out of it. Monks in the Casino was an excellent post.

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James Young's avatar

Great read, pairs well with Alone By Choice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsaeFYGbK2M

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Shreyas Hariharan's avatar

Loved the video, especially the part about how we can learn from the Amish. They only accept technology into their lives if it’s in service of a pre-existing value, e.g. no to TV but yes to solar panels.

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Pareen's avatar

Brilliant take with amazing implications for those designing digital products.

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Shreyas Hariharan's avatar

Thank you! Yes, a core part of consumer product design is building something that functions as a mirror you keep returning to.

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Michael Bateman's avatar

Should you take this instead as a call to avoid making *more* mirrors? Or is the takeaway that the narcissistic urge is too much a part of human nature to avoid the desire for more mirrors?

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Shreyas Hariharan's avatar

Both are true! It’s like the warning “don’t judge a book by its cover” tells people to not judge something by how it looks. But the lesson as an author is that the book title and cover are the most important drivers of sales.

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