Is There Something Here to Be Concerned About?

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

i think there's something here to be concerned about. The question is, whatshal we do about that concern? Some of it is superficial, as you point out. Bcause it's gossip about somebody's habits on line. But if we're careful, that's not the way we spend most of our time on social media. There are such extraordinary riches up and down the line of depth versus superficial. And a, it's a glorious time to be alive,. i think oudo moaning and moaning and complaining about how horrible has been its part. You can have an ice cream cone now and then, you don'wt need it all day.

Writer and management consultant Venkatesh Rao talks about Waldenponding with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Rao coined the term Waldenponding to describe various levels of retreating from technology akin to how Thoreau extolled the virtues of retreating from social contact and leading a quieter life at Walden Pond. Rao argues that the value of Waldenponding is overrated and that extreme Waldenponding is even somewhat immoral. Rao sees online intellectual life as a form of supercomputer, an intellectual ecosystem that produces new knowledge and intellectual discourse. He encourages all of us to contribute to that intellectual ecosystem even when it can mean losing credit for some of our ideas and potentially some of our uniqueness.