(Image: Auguste Rodin’s “Thinker” — Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Death of Depth!

Sridhar Ramakrishnan

--

Sapere Aude — ‘dare to think’ (for yourself) exhorted Kant. He said people did not do this because:

It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if only I can pay — others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.

If the defining image of Kant’s exhortation is Rodin’s Thinker, what is our defining image today? I’d say it is the diametrically opposite: “Don’t Think. Just Like/Follow.”

Instead of thinking for oneself, “liking” something on social media relieves the person of understanding (or, even just reading) the original post. Instead, a “like” can be conferred casually — with no cost. Indeed, likes have often become a currency unto themselves used often to barter reputation — “I will like stuff you post, if you do the same for me.” Reading now is less a matter of learning, but more a matter of social reputation building!

Here’s an interesting example: Microsoft experimented with a 4-day work week in Japan. This got written about in Business Insider with the title “Microsoft experimented with a 4-day workweek, and productivity jumped by 40%” which then got picked up and reflected through social media and other prominent blogs. On LinkedIn, for example, numerous people shared the Business Insider review. This, in turn, caused people to like/comment on the shared LinkedIn post which, if you think about it, is really a comment/like on a comment of a review of an original article — which is really three steps removed from the original source of truth (shown below):

Now, reading through the comments on one of these shares on LinkedIn, it becomes evident that most of the commenters have read neither the Business Insider review nor, of course, the original Microsoft article. A particular example of this was a “comment” that said:

--

--

Sridhar Ramakrishnan

I like to think deeply about business, entrepreneurship, success and failure. I am the Founder/CEO of Arnexa (arnexa.com)