Seth's Blog : Thin friction and thicker walls

Thin friction and thicker walls

Civilized culture is based on a thin sort of friction. You don’t yell at the library, act boorish at a restaurant or hassle a minor celebrity at the supermarket. It’s just not done.

The result of these human layers and inferences are cues and norms that add up to a connected, generative society.

Add selfish hustle, AI agents and cheap bots, and the thin friction is insufficient. They can multiply exponentially, care little about being shunned and have no interest in their reputation.

Fake sincerity is now cheap. Interchangeable identities subvert a generations-long tradition of owning your words and your actions.

You’ll miss the thin friction when it’s gone, replaced by taller, thicker walls. You might already be noticing it.

Interactivity and permeability to those we don’t know well were largely overlooked foundations in the creation of learning, science and culture. We figured out a scalable approach to “knock knock, who’s there” but now it’s going away.

You won’t be able to knock unless you’re invited first. Of course, the invitation will probably be filtered out.