Big Ricky on Farcaster

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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/thomas

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

Casting is not that different from doing politics. Without an audience, your casts have no reach, in the same way that your political agenda won’t be implemented if you lack an electorate. So, you need followers, or else you might as well be casting to your notes app. In building that followership, you must choose where to place the proverbial cursor between two extremes; you cannot remain undecided. One extreme is high-integrity: cast only about what you truly care for, regardless of how niche and recondite your interests are, however long or short form that may be, and no matter how alienating your vocabulary is to the average reader. The other extreme is *not* low-effort kawaii selfies, edgy memes, or LinkedIn platitudes; if those are truly what motivates you (no judgment here), then you can still be a high-integrity caster. What the other extreme is, simply, being inauthentic in return for an audience, engagement farming, and casting only what you think people want to read. I again pass no moral judgment here — it’s really a personal tradeoff between deontological and utilitarian approaches to using this app. (Side note: The Venn diagram of low-effort and inauthentic content may overlap greatly, but that’s still orthogonal to the concept of integrity.) Politicians are no different — you’ll find a few high-integrity folks (on both ends of the ideological spectrum). They may not get elected; but they are consistent, inspiring, and often widely respected in their own ways. And then you’ll find others who see political expression purely as a mean to an end; the end being to be elected at all cost. And because their electoral discourse is inauthentic, you cannot truly know who they are and what their hidden agenda is until they get to the top, which leads to all sorts of face-eating-leopard, surprised-pikachu regrets, and jadedness toward politics. I don’t even know anymore if this cast is about Farcaster dynamics or politics. I guess it’s both

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Nico pfp

Not sure about the "what people want to read" part. That's a big issue to me. The social systems are flawed as they make us think that kawaii and selfies and what you had for lunch is what people want to read. But it's wrong, it's what people are attracted to. The flies doesn't go straight into the blue light because they want to... We have a moral choice to do. Do we feed the machine or do we try to make each other better. One is easy and machine rewards us for it short term, the other is hard and the reward is long term from people who will really appreciate us for what we bring to them.

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Thomas pfp

@aviationdoctor.eth

I like this framing. It's slightly pater/maternalistic ("we know better than the users what they need"), but it places an ethical burden on the caster to lift users and the level of discourse. Eventually, no one is entitled an audience, but once we have one (no matter how small), we also have a duty of care to that audience. Feeding it more of the dominant mindless content is not doing anybody any service, no matter how much the algo rewards it. This is good food for thought IMHO. I'll need to noodle on that some more

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Nico pfp

I'm sorry if this sounded paternalistic. That wasn't my intention. But assuming that highly viewed content equates to what people truly want is misleading. Social media exploits our brain's dopamine system, the same reward loop involved in substance addiction. Each like or notification gives a fast dopamine hit. Over time, this builds dependency and emotional desensitization. Creating content that fuels this cycle is like cooking meth: it gives people what they crave, and yes, it can make you a lot of money. But is it good for them? For society?

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Big Ricky pfp

lol cooking meth coulda gone for fast food but nope straight to METH

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Nico pfp

Fast food is just slow-acting dope. Same brain circuit, same compulsions—only difference is it kills you over decades instead of months.

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