Stop to think ...
... before you forget to start again.
Something is happening to humanity. Something slow, insidious, pernicious … something self-inflicted … and something from which we may never recover.
Have you noticed?
In the early 20th Century, the great philosopher, Winnie the Pooh, asked:
Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
It’s a poignant question with a remarkable depth … and like a lost bear, it’s a thought that’s followed me around for most of my adult life.
What happens when society forgets to think for itself?
The suicide of Socrates…
In 399 BC, another of the greats, Socrates, was tried and convicted for his critical thinking. The septuagenarian philosopher was found guilty, buy 501 of his peers, of questioning the Athenian gods and corrupting the youth.
Declining the opportunity of escape, Socrates accepted death by suicide and ingested the poison hemlock to end his life … and yet, in many ways, he inspired a new era of critical thinking which empowered the modern world which we now inhabit.
Over the intervening millennia we have tried — often succeeded — to disentangle the dogma of state religion, we have enshrined the freedom of speech (and freedom of 🍑 peach)…
… and ushered in an era of critical thinking that has lead to an explosion of culture, the emergence of empirical science, a deep understanding of the universe and our place in it … and even, recently, a period of relative peace, prosperity and liberty for a decent chunk (though by no means all) of humanity.
While Socrates was killed for thinking outside the box, I think we can all agree that in the last 100 years at least, we’ve all been pretty free to think what we like and even do and say what we like, within reason.
The war on critical thinking…
But nothing lasts forever.
Western society has lurched, in the first quarter of this century, from an enlightened, liberal democracy … towards dogmatic, protectionist and increasingly feudal authoritarianism.
But this piece isn’t about what’s happening in the US right now … the suppression of dissent, the corruption of the constitution or the antagonism of civil war…
… this piece is about how we’ve got here … and for that you need to look at the media and the way we consume information.
It used to be that a few newspapers, even a few TV stations, had access to the levers of power … and intermittent access to their audience.
On a daily basis, our news would be disseminated. We would be given time to think critically about what we’d heard and read. We would discuss it with those around us - most likely people with similar perspectives - and the world would move relatively slowly most of the time.
Today, we are subjected to a 24h 6h livestream news cycle… it’s piped into every interaction we have with the devices to which we are glued: TV, radio, podcasts, social media, email … wherever we look, something has happened.
I often write about the impact of the livestream news cycle on mental health (in fact, I’m building a healthier option) but there’s actually something more intentionally pernicious than the psychological detriment of perma-fear that the economics of news causes…
… it’s called “flooding-the-zone”: Steve Bannon’s infamous philosophy designed to confuse the news media.
Coupled with the always-on firehose of news that our devices promote, “flooding-the-zone” collapses our capacity to think critically about anything — to dissect, discuss, interrogate, question, consider and understand.
We cannot think critically if we cannot stop to think.
That’s why Pooh Bear stops: to think.
People who don't think probably don't have brains; rather, they have grey fluff that's blown into their heads by mistake. – Eeyore
The artificial thought…
But what happens to our brains when we stop thinking critically? … we forget to start again. That’s what happens.
Back in 2023 I wrote a piece about the dangers of one particular subset of technology that I saw as a risk: predictive or assistive AI.
I cited two studies in that piece related to the homogenisation of language in people who use predictive-text keyboards … and the damage to spatial memory caused by the use of GPS tools like Google Maps.
What I predicted then … though I perhaps didn’t understand the scale of it … was the explosion in the use of GenAI … and our lazy acceptance that it should start doing all of our thinking for us.
Creativity, in all it’s forms, requires time.
Time to ruminate, time to discuss, time to forget and time to think. Yes, of course, if we’ve achieved mastery in a skill - whether that’s live-drawing or hitting a print deadline, then we can sometimes be creative on the fly… but again, that comes from putting the time in … the 10,000 hours … to achieve mastery in the first place. There are no shortcuts.
In my industry, the same is just as true. As a software engineer, I know that fixing a bug sometimes requires stepping back from the machine and going outside to think … or forget. Sometimes the solution comes to me in the car … sometimes I talk it through with a colleague. Ideas often come from collaboration, from articulating, from dreaming... Solutions often amalgamate things that might seem irrelevant in isolation but dovetail perfectly when you fit them together.
Using AI to write your code, write your essay, think up your slides, plan your meeting, take your notes …
… it might seem convenient in the moment … but I promise you - just like you lose your spacial memory every time you drive along the blue line … you lose your ability to debug every time you let AI fix your code, you forget how to think every time you let it do your thinking for you.
GenAI is designed to please. It’s squeezed to provide an answer. It would rather hallucinate a proof than tell you you’re wrong. It will not be critical of you, even when it should be …
… so if you let it do your critical thinking … not only will your thinking not be critical … but you will lose your ability to understand that it’s not.
The coming storm…
So where does this leave us?
It’s not good news, sorry. Nearly 2,500 years ago, the forced suicide of Socrates may have unlocked the defining era of humanity … but eventually, we found Pandora’s last box — the capacity to build a machine that surpasses supplants our ability to think.
Meanwhile those who stand behind Trump and JD Vance — and behind so many European right-wing pretenders — have been very clear about their intention to “flood the zone” and disrupt societies ability to think critically about their actions.
They’ve also been very clear about their intentions.
This is Peter Thiel (Musk’s BFF, Vance’s patron, investor to Meta, Palantir & Clearview) speaking in 2022.
We could never win an election on getting certain things because we were in such a small minority, but maybe you could unilateral change the world without having to constantly convince people and beg people and plead with people who are never going to agree with you through technological means, and this is where I think technology is this incredible alternative to politics.
Meanwhile, in our millions, we are turning to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to do our work, to take our notes, write our essays and think our thoughts.
We live in a world submerged by media designed to erode our ability to think critically though pace, anxiety and chaos …
… and rather than face the challenge head on … we’re all becoming addicted to tools that actively prune our ability to protect ourselves against the flood.
If you value yourself … for heaven’s sake slow down your consumption of media and stop relying on someone something else to do your thinking for you.
As I said back in 2023:
For every few seconds you save doing a task … a few pathways you took time to develop get washed away. Eventually there will be nothing of you left.
Slow down. Do more things yourself. Think whole thoughts. Be you and only you.
And don’t step away from this article in despair … that’s not the point.
Step away from it with a renewed vigour … a new faith in your own ability to do your own things, a renewed agency to think your own thoughts.
As Pooh says:
You’re braver than you believe,
… stronger than you seem
… and smarter than you think.