Short Insight
Communication: the effects of permanence, our responsibility to not pollute the information pool
Lately, I’ve been thinking about communication.
If you don’t want to read all of this, the one thought I want to leave you with is:
The way we choose to communicate has important effects on the future. In a way that could be viewed similar to climate change (bear with me), we can choose whether or not to communicate for short-term profits at the expense of future generations. Selfishly communicating for short-term profits pollutes the information pool, and forces future generations to sift through more noise. Eventually, I believe that with enough noise, the ulterior motives of information distributors (think: news), and the limited capacity of each person’s time and energy, reaching the truth becomes harder, and potentially impossible. A concrete example of what I’m talking about: low quality interviews, articles, newsletters, and news stories that are primarily concerned with generating profits for the authors rather than real, quality knowledge. With enough of this garbage floating around, there’s a world where no one can really be sure of anything (assuming we can be sure of anything now, that is).
With that, into some details:
The effects of permanence
There is an obvious, positive relationship between the level of permanence in communication and the level of scrutiny in its production and consumption. The bottom-left and top-right quadrants are pretty intuitive here, you’d put a lot more thought into writing a book than a social media post or casual conversation. But this framework prompts some interesting questions about the top-left and bottom-right quadrants.
Visualized:
Note: The x-axis, “Level of permanence,” could be replaced with “level of importance,” of which permanence is one of many contributing factors. Another large factor that often determines importance is the impact that some communication will have on one’s life outcome (think: words spoken in a job interview vs. texting a friend).
I want to spend some thought exploring the top-left and bottom-right areas.
Top-left – high level of scrutiny with a relatively low level of permanence:
This domain is largely divided between two major types:
Communication that, although short-lived, has a large potential impact on one’s life outcomes.
Probably good to still apply scrutiny here.
Unnecessary concerns.
How much of our scrutiny, worry, and stress falls into this domain? Imagine a life with less. Imagine a life with none. Imagine the increase in your own enjoyment throughout life if that were the case, and your ability to be positive forces to other people if you were worried less–to the cashier, homeless person, kids you might one day raise. Being aware of this domain and putting energy into minimizing it is good for you and everyone you touch. At some level, we owe it to others to do this work.
Bottom-right – high level of permanence with a relatively low level of scrutiny:
This domain forces me to acknowledge that since the y-axis, “Level of scrutiny” includes scrutiny in production (scrutiny you apply) and consumption (scrutiny applied by others that hear or read your communication), it varies–particularly with respect to how much scrutiny individuals apply to themselves. So some things might receive relatively low amounts of scrutiny from ourselves, others, or both. Regardless of the who, why would high-permanence things receive a low level of scrutiny?
Their level of permanence is not accurately understood.
Think: the nascent period of the internet and social media. Collectively, we had to learn the true permanence of our online presence over time, and apply more scrutiny than we initially thought appropriate. In general, you’d want to avoid underestimating the level of permanence your communication will have (think: in an argument, your partner brings up something you said months after you said it. Had you understood the level of permanence those words would have, you’d have applied more scrutiny before voicing them–hopefully). The same can be described for a low level of scrutiny applied by others–this is often the result of others not accurately understanding the degree to which something is permanent/important at the time.
Other.
There are likely other ways that this combination of permanence and scrutiny tends to come about. It’s interesting to think about what they might be.
Good versus bad scrutiny:
Typically, with more scrutiny comes a higher information density / signal-to-noise.
One caveat: improper scrutiny fails to increase information density. It increases effort/work without a corresponding, justified increase in quality of output. Think: gaming academic journals, corporate politics, etc.
It’s a good idea to avoid applying bad scrutiny yourself, which can feel like work (because it is work, but work that isn’t contributing meaningfully to achieving outcomes) and therefore feel productive and useful.
It’s also good to be aware of the type of scrutiny in the environments you choose to be in. Are you concerned with creating tangible value through your work? If so, best to avoid environments with high levels of bad scrutiny (office politics, prestige/signaling, etc.). If you’re more concerned with other things (personal success, being in a certain industry or function, etc.) then you may be better fit to tolerate and operate in environments with bad scrutiny. I just encourage you to recognize that these are decisions in the first place.
Some quotes
“But the truth of the matter is, I fear, that all that of which we complain of not knowing is not known to anyone, indeed is probably as such unknowable, i.e. not capable of being conceived.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer
“It was hard on [me], but I would rather be my own tyrant than have someone else tyrannize me.”
– John D. Rockefeller
“When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so forth, is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because the last labourer struck it for the last time with his pickaxe. In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary, and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity.”
– Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“Only he who has measured the dominion of violence and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.”
– Simone Weil, The Iliad
“At the extreme, taste is a moat”
As always, thanks for reading.