Any Rigid Idea About Yourself Is a Prison

Episode Transcript
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Mike Rugnetta (00:10):
Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast for and about theInternet. I'm your host, Mike
Rugnetta. This intro was writtenon Tuesday, 04/08/2025 at
09:07AM eastern, and we have alife defining show for you this
week. First, researcher, productconsultant, and contributing
producer, Young Na Park tackles,finally on Neverpost, LinkedIn,

(00:35):
and how it is people constructand advertise themselves on the
business brain site, and whathas been called the last truly
weird social network. Then Ichat with clinical
psychotherapist, social worker,and cohost of Unraveling over at
the Brattleboro Institute, KurtWhite, about how the Internet
helps us become ourselves, andif he, in his professional

(00:59):
estimation, thinks that is agood thing.
And also, the people united willnever be defeated. But first,
let's talk about a few of thethings that have happened since
the last time you heard from us.I have six stories for you this
week. Way back in November, ElonMusk sued Amazon owned streaming

(01:22):
platform Twitch over allegedconspiracy to boycott
advertising on his socialplatform x as part of the Global
Alliance for Responsible Mediaaka Garm, which has since
disbanded because of thelawsuit. DMR news reported that
the lawsuit cites a Garmdocument suggesting Twitch
executives endorsed thecoalition's brand safety

(01:44):
standards, which x claimsunfairly excluded the platform,
end quote.
According to Business Insider,the suit named Mars, CVS Health,
Danish Multinational EnergyConcern, Unilever, and Twitch
amongst others. At the end oflast year, Unilever settled and
on Monday this week, so didTwitch. A motion was filed in

(02:05):
the Northern District Of Texas,ex's preferred venue for
litigation, ordering a stayaction in the suit, citing both
parties entering into amemorandum of understanding.
Pursuant to which they willcontemplate dismissal by January
of next year pendingsatisfaction of certain
conditions. Wonder what thoseconditions could be.
As Meta continues its rollout ofteen accounts in The US, UK,

(02:30):
Australia, and Canada, theyhave, as of this week, added an
additional restriction beyondparentally controlled time
limits and the blurring ofsuspected nudity in private
messages. Minors will now beblocked from streaming live on
Instagram without parentalpermission. The Guardian reports
that the announcement comesquote as The UK implements the
online safety act end quote,which in its own words is aimed

(02:53):
requiring platforms to quoteprevent children from accessing
harmful and age inappropriatecontent and provide parents and
children with clear andaccessible ways to report
problems online when they doarise, end quote. Critics of the
bill say among other things thatit requires or allows platforms
to scan private messages toensure compliance, a massive

(03:15):
privacy concern given it impliesthe defeat of end to end
encryption in personalcommunications. A similar
concern is popping up around theUS senate's take it down act,
which aims to reduce theprevalence of non consensual
intimate imagery, most notablypornographic deepfakes.
Critics of the bill say its nonspecific provisions could lead

(03:37):
to undue burden and abuse.Platforms must review material
within forty eight hours andthere are no penalties for false
claims. No process is outlinedfor appeals and it is not
entirely clear what counts asnon consensual intimate imagery
leading to questions on whethersay the president may use the
law to remove constitutionallyprotected free speech critical

(03:58):
of him. Trump has said he would.I'm gonna use that bill for
myself too, if you don't mind,the Washington Post reports
Trump saying, because nobodygets treated online worse than I
do, end quote.

(04:24):
Posts. Move markets. Amidstglobal turmoil around The US
Admin's trade policy, a postreading, Hassett colon, Trump is
considering a ninety day pausein tariffs for all countries
except China, made tankingmarkets reverse course on Monday
for a few minutes. The problem,it was unsourced and as of later
that afternoon debunked by theWhite House itself calling it

(04:47):
quote fake news. Don't believeeverything you read on the
internet, I guess.
Minnesota state democrats haveproposed a law taxing social
media platforms for collectingdata on users. Under the bill,
the Minnesota reformer reports,if a social media company has
fewer than 100,000 monthlyconsumers from Minnesota, it

(05:07):
wouldn't be taxed. If the socialmedia company has between
500,001 Minnesota consumers, thetax per month would be $40,000
plus 25¢ times the number ofconsumers over 500,000, end
quote. This echoes a similar lawthat has been passed around the
New York State Senate forseveral years now and recently

(05:27):
reintroduced in January oftwenty twenty five. Oregon,
Washington, West Virginia, andothers have also put forth
similar legislation.
And finally, Microsoft hascanceled construction or leases
of data centers around theworld. Pivot to AI has compiled
a list including plans halted inThe US, Europe, Indonesia, The

(05:49):
UK, and Australia. Much of thisprocessing power was set to be
put towards the development ofAI technology about which the
company has been increasinglycautious. Perhaps surprising
given their $13,000,000investment in OpenAI and their
ownership of 49% of its equity.In show news this week, we got

(06:11):
nominated for a Webby.
Woah. If you're not familiar,they're sort of like the Emmys
of the Internet, maybe the MTVVMAs. Either way, our x o x o
live episode was nominated forbest live podcast recording,
which I mean, not to toot my ownhorn, but it was a good show. We
need you, please, to go vote forus. Please.

(06:34):
I'm gonna say it one more time.Please. We're gonna put a link
in the show notes. Just go giveit a click. You sign in.
It's fast. I promise. Just youcan search for never post. It's
probably the easiest way to getto us. Click on our show art to
give us a vote.
It would mean the world to us.Also contributing producer Tory
Dominguez Peek's episode aboutAI powered recreations of
deceased loved ones, which wecalled to BRB or not to BRB, was

(06:59):
an honoree as a finalist in thecategory for best individual
episode of a podcast. Just likeof all of them out there last
year, which is amazing, and Ithink extremely well deserved.
Tory's workon that episode was amazing. There's no voting needed for that one, once you

(07:19):
are an honoree, you are just anhonoree. But extremely exciting
nonetheless, congrats to Toriwho's working on some new
segments for us right now. Sohopefully, you're gonna get to
hear more of her work very soon.Okay. That is the show news I
have for you this week.
Go vote for us for a Webby rightnow, and then listen to the rest
of this episode. Next, YungnaPark on self narratizing on

(07:41):
LinkedIn, then me and Kurt onthe internet making you who you
are question mark. But first, inour interstitials this week,
field recordings from the handsoff demonstration on April 5 in
Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Youngna Park (09:43):
As a technology consultant, I spend a fair
amount of time on LinkedIn,either looking to connect with
people, trying to generate work,or responding to messages from
other people. I use it mostly toresearch potential clients,
individuals, companies, and alsouse it to do a fair amount of
sleuthing. Who knows who? Do Iknow anyone who has worked with

(10:03):
someone? Who is this person whowants to meet for a coffee?
What is this company my friendmentioned, and are they making
something I should know about?I've been on LinkedIn as long as
I can remember. It feels like animportant part of appearing
professional, especially becauseI work in the tech industry. But
recently, I started to noticethat of all the places I spend
time on Internet, the place thatincreasingly leaves me feeling

(10:25):
the absolute worst is LinkedIn.And when I say worst, I mean
envy, jealousy, despair,annoyance.
I wanted to know why LinkedInwas making me feel this way. Is
it the collective desperation ofpeople searching for employment?
Is it the blatant celebration ofcapitalism in a country with so
little social infrastructure? Isit watching people completely

(10:47):
renaritivize their lives inservice of some middle manager
job using language full ofplatitudes? I

Melanie Ehrenkranz (10:55):
feel like what you described is sometimes
how people talk about, like,Instagram. You log on and it's
like FOMO. You see all thesepeople, like, living their best
lives and you, depending onwhere you're at, might feel
jealousy.

This is Melanie Ehrencrantz, a technology
reporter and creator of LaidOff, a substack and Discord
community for people who've beenaffected by layoffs.

The way you talk about LinkedIn, it feels
like it aligns with, like, thislike, how our self worth is also
really tied up in work and,like, productivity and, you
know, having something to showfor it in, like, tangible terms.
And I'm curious if you feel likeyour self worth and your job are
tied up, and LinkedIn is maybe,like, a toxic place to hang out

(11:37):
if that's the case.

Sara M. Watson (11:38):
I generally feel like I have completely
disconnected my self worth frommy work for the better after
many, many years of beingextremely tied up in my
identity. But when I go onthere, I think I see a lot of
people trying to perform atbeing very enthusiastic about

(12:00):
work or looking for work ordoing work that does not read as
necessarily very genuine. And Ithink I just really feel for
that effort that it requires todo that when it's unclear that
they'll get any reward from it.

That reality is that in 2025, work is more
precarious than ever. There areunprecedented numbers of
layoffs. The economy is tanking,and there's wide scale anxiety
and anticipation about AI. Andstill, LinkedIn is the largest
professional social networkingsite on the planet. As of
January, in The US alone, thereare a 70,000,000 employed

(12:42):
people, but an estimated250,000,000 LinkedIn users.
That's 80,000,000 more usersthan employed people. But I
believe LinkedIn is alsoshifting as a product in ways
that amplify how precarious ourwork lives feel by evolving the
platform to make us more andmore reliant on it. The
combination of the shape of theproduct, its focus on work, and

(13:03):
the way we use it has created aperfect storm. To unpack what
LinkedIn is at this moment, Italked to Sarah Watson, a
technology analyst andresearcher. When did she think
that the way that people post onLinkedIn started to shift, and
how has the shape of the productchanged as we know it?

I can think of a couple key moments, x and
Twitter being one of them as wekind of collectively decided to
abandon and leave. Mhmm. And Ithink that started to change how
much people were posting onLinkedIn because that it was the
default Mhmm. When you all of asudden kind of lost another

(13:47):
audience that you might havebeen cultivating over an
extended period of time. So Ithink that kind of shifted
pushing to share shorter bitsthat feel like tweets.
Right? But I also think over thepast couple of years, there's
been a real shift in theengagement metrics, and

(14:08):
therefore behaviors around howto game the LinkedIn system. And
also as more people haveawareness of the role of
algorithms in populating ourfeeds, in working through
engagement. And so, those jumpout to me as a couple key
moments.

What do you think LinkedIn is really pushing you
to try to do? Like, what is themedium of LinkedIn?

Yeah. The shower thought I had before we jumped
on this call was LinkedIn is theultimate platform of capitalism.
I think Twitter, Instagram,those have kind of more cultural
aspirations at least. Like,what's the zeitgeist? What's the
aesthetic?
What's the micro trend niche,that's surfacing on those

(14:54):
platforms? And I think aboutthose more as as culture.
Obviously, there is culturecoming out of the way that
people use LinkedIn, but I thinkit's the most pure form of a
platform that is a vehicle forcapitalism.

And if it is a vehicle for capitalism, maybe
people don't know to what degreethey're actually opting in to
participating in that. In mymind, it creates different types
of users, which, like on anotherplatform, might be consistent
with types like a momfluencer, achronic selfie poster, someone
who never posts but replies toeveryone else. I feel like

(15:32):
LinkedIn has its own set oftypes with their own language of
self awareness and selfpromotion. I was curious if
Sarah were to identify these, ifher categories would overlap
with mine.

The top ones that come out for me is like the
influencer, thought leader asone, the like ultimate networker
amplifier,
which
I think is actually a veryimportant role socially. Like,
there are people who repost alot, and I see that as like a
service role that they'replaying within their networks as

(16:04):
amplifier, as supporter. And Ithink those those folks are
actually really important.There's the self promoter, the
humble bragger, the extendedmetaphor that's like super
cringe is a certain type ofposter.

Give me like an example of that one.

Yeah. So this is well, I so I pulled the polar is
another one. Mhmm. I pulled myLinkedIn folks in anticipation
of this conversation and onlygot one reply because it wasn't
apparently engaging enough of apost. But I did get one good
answer which was I was sentencedto five years of hard time in a

(16:42):
Russian gulag where I was forcedto do manual labor 23 a day.
Here's what it taught me aboutproduct management. That is the,
like, extended metaphor cringepost.

There's, like, find and follow your passion
people.

Like Oh, yes.

Who got their job, and now they're, like, telling
you how the thing to do is tofollow your passion.

Yeah. The the advice givers. Yes. For sure.
And that that feels in alignmentwith the thought leader, but I
think there are two separateit's it's like the life coach
version and then there's the,like, hot take counter argument
perspective person.

LinkedIn user, Srikanth Kumba, comments.

LinkedIn (17:22):
I can suggest an equation that has the potential
to impact the future. E equals mc squared plus a I. This
equation combines Einstein'sfamous equation e equals m c
squared, which relates energy eto mass m and the speed of light
c with the addition of a I,artificial intelligence.

When you think about the typologies that you've
come up with and those largelyoverlap with the ones that I
thought of, then how do youthink that interacts with, like,
what LinkedIn is actually tryingto get you to do?

Their business model is getting you on their
engagement ads, but it's alsopremium. And for all the folks
who are using it actually aspart of their jobs, recruiters,
marketers, all range of peoplewho are, like, there to actually
do business.

I mean, this might be a conspiracy, but, like, I
wonder if they actually want youto find a job on LinkedIn
sometimes because when I thinkabout it from, like, what
behavior do you wanna optimize?You wanna optimize interaction.
You want people to subscribe topremium, which is a real premium
price tag. But the more theyhelp job seekers actually find

(18:38):
jobs, those people don't needpremium as much because they
don't need the full suite offunctionality or tools that
might be offered to someone thatis like that.

Mhmm.
I mean, I think they've gottahave a model of, you know, there
is the person like you, thearchetype of or the user type
who is going in and out whenthey're job searching and
they're gonna pay for it whenthey need it. And Mhmm. But, you
know, you're gonna be hoppingbetween jobs. They know you're
not a recurring revenue in theway that a recruiter would be.
Mhmm.

(19:10):
But, you know, I thinkultimately, because there it is
such a complex ecosystem now,there are many different use
cases. And so to lump it alltogether is is is kind of hard.

Yeah. When I see some of the posts of the
typologies that we were talkingabout, sometimes my question is,
like, who is this for?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I'm a little bit like like,
there's a type of post that Idon't think we've talked about,
which is, like, when someoneannounces that they have a new
role. Yeah. They seem to listout, like, I'm so excited to,
like, launch brand campaigns andgrowth hack my way with this new
company. And I'm like, I'm notsure who you're talking to or if
this is, like, what you've beentaught that you need to say,

(19:55):
like, not directly taught, but

Yeah. Gleaned. Well, I also, out of sheer
curiosity, asked Claude to nottypologize posters, but types of
posts. So Claude would wouldcall this the corporate
cheerleader. If use of praise ofemployer, team, or product, The
purpose is to signal loyalty andteam spirit.

(20:19):
Here's an example. Blown away bywhat our incredible team
accomplished this quarter. Soproud to work at my company that
truly values innovation. Yes.And I think that one is
specifically for, like, who'sgonna engage with that?
It's all of your coworkers.Right? Right. And all your new
coworkers if you're announcing anew job.

As you can hear, Sarah used Claude to do this
type of LinkedIn categorizationand largely came up with a very
similar set of the ones I'd hadin my head. What about the
language people are using onLinkedIn made it prime fodder
for categorization? And whatdoes that say about how people
talk and use LinkedIn? Is itbecause the way we talk about
work is so predictable? We'veadopted rote ways of describing

(21:03):
our relationship to our jobs,which makes a large language
model the perfect tool forsumming up our behavior.

There's something about the, like,
regurgitation that feels socompelling about asking LLMs to
categorize LinkedIn posts.Because I said, categorize the
many types of LinkedIn posts asarchetypes, including comments,
use of emoji, extendedmetaphors, anything that people
typically write on LinkedIn. Howwould you analyze the language

(21:29):
of LinkedIn? And they said, thehumble brag, the personal
triumph, the corporatecheerleader, the thought leader,
the life coach, the pseudovulnerable. I love that one.
The poll starter, the networker,the one upper, the link dropper,
and the emoji reactor.

I had a typology called, like, the reply guy

Yeah.

Who's, like, congratulating everyone on any
new launch or job.

Yep.

Yeah. I feel like Claude did a good job.

I Yeah. But it's also like, it does a good job
because LinkedIn content isregurgitatable. Yes. It it's
slop.

LinkedIn (22:12):
LinkedIn user Kathleen Booth comments. Can we please
stop shaming people for using AIto write LinkedIn posts? Yes.
This post was written by AI, butit's still 100% me.

This got me to wondering if there's a more
genuine way to communicate onLinkedIn and which types of
posts do come across as morereal. It feels like there's got
to be a better way to talk aboutwork or interact in a way that
feels a little more human anddoesn't just feel like hanging
out with Claude.

I so I I have a lot of thoughts about that. And
I I think this moment inparticular okay. So I'm having
multiple threads. One is aboutsolidarity in this moment and
LinkedIn having the potential asa solidarity platform, which
feels crazy to say. But also, Ithink whether it's federal

(23:06):
layoffs, tech layoffs, there's alot of disruption.
And you can tell the differencewith those posts. Right? Like,
they feel more genuine than justa like, sorry for everyone
affected by this. They sounddifferent. I think there is like
a potential right now as we aregetting into AI generated crap

(23:30):
that it is actually more salientwhen you can feel somebody's
sentiment in a post.

I think that solidarity is an important idea
and something we'd all benefitfrom right now. It really feels
urgent for a particular subset,which is people who've been laid
off. At a time when attitudesabout work are routinely
described in headlines as bleak,how does this group find support
and solidarity here? And how dopeople talk about being laid off
in a way that toes the linebetween professional, personal,

(24:02):
and not too desperate. I spoketo Melanie about this.
Like, if you were to describewhat a layoff post looks like on
LinkedIn, like, what to you is alayoff post?

Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot
because layoff posts havedefinitely evolved to be almost
more about, like, the entirejourney. I see a lot of, like,
day a hundred of unemployment,you know, applied to this many
jobs, have had this manyinterviews. So I'm seeing more
people, like, chronicle from,like, day zero to wherever they

(24:38):
are at this point in theirjourney because people are
looking for jobs for a reallylong time. So Who do you think
that that chronicling is for?
Yeah. I mean, like,psychologically, I think sharing
is almost this, like, act ofdefiance against shame. You
know? You're saying, like, I'mnot ashamed of this experience.

(25:00):
This is just what's happening tome, and I think it's, like, a
moment of solidarity.
But I also think it's I hateusing the word desperation, but
it's even in the Discord, thelaid off Discord, it's, like, a
word used a lot of people areyou know, have been out of work
for so long, and they're doingall the things that you're told
to do to get a job and aren'tmoving the needle at all. So

(25:20):
it's like this way that they cankind of take control of their
own narrative and put themselvesout there through a channel they
control when all of the otherchannels seem to be giving them
nothing. So I think it's also away to just be heard and
recognize that they're doingtheir best. And, like, if anyone
can help, great. And if at most,they can just, like, acknowledge

(25:41):
their experience, I think thathelps.

I'm not asking for a magic bullet on how you how
you guide people to find a job,but I am curious if you have any
particular takeaways in termsof, like, how you might talk
about your layoff publicly afterthe fact.

Yeah. I talk a lot about, like, rejecting
toxic positivity when it comesto how you talk to people who've
been laid off. And I think Ithink it can also apply to what
you're posting. I don't thinkyou have to be like, everything
happens for a reason. I'm gonnabe okay.
Like, you don't have to, like,put a face up unless, of course,

(26:28):
that's how you feel. Like, youshould be authentic. That being
said, I think really focusingon, like, building and
nourishing a community of peoplethat feel aligned or tangential
to the work that you wanna do isreally important. So, you know,
showing off the work that you'redoing while you're laid off. You
know, it could be a personalproject.

(26:50):
It could be I had someonerecently who did an unpaid edit
test and didn't get the job, andhe was like, can I share this?
We're like, I'm proud of thiswork. Can I share it on LinkedIn
as, like, something that I didthat I'm proud of? Reaction. And
I think thinking outside of thebox in that sense of like, you
are still accomplishing.
Even like share your experienceand and connect with people. So

(27:11):
even if you're just connectingwith like one person a week who
can mentor you or give youadvice or is just like in a
community that you're interestedin. One other thing I would
recommend is like, look forpeople you're connected to that
are connected to someone atcompanies you like and ask them
to make an introduction for you.I think being really

(27:32):
comfortable, even if it's, like,faking the confidence of asking
for help, there's no shame inasking for help. So if someone
you know knows someone else,like, I would just ask them to
make an intro.
Mhmm. Mhmm.

What do you think is the biggest contributor to
false hope on LinkedIn?

I think seeing all of these jobs that it
says, like, you match nine outof 10 of the qualifications.
It'll say, like, you know,you're a top contender for this.
You're super qualified for this.For the easy apply, it'll be
like someone viewed your resumeor, like, if you I will say,
like, a recruiter viewed yourprofile. So there's all these,

(28:13):
like, little, almost, like,gamified moments that kind of,
like, maybe the second you startto feel a little hopeless, it's
like, well, this could be theone, but it never it never is.

Full of false hope on this platform, I started to
wonder what a better alternativeto LinkedIn would look like. Is
there one out there? I askedboth Melanie and Sarah, but
neither could come up with aclear alternative. And to be
honest, neither could I. Istarted this journey wanting to
know exactly how we got here andremain unconvinced that this is

(28:49):
the best version of professionalnetworking technology can
create.
My takeaway at the end of it allis whether you've been laid off
or hiring or just trying to be aperson with a career is to try
to remain as human as possible.This might be how you post, how
you reach out to people, or bysaying something in your own
words, even if it takes a bitmore work. Although the product

(29:15):
has shifted and the world hasshifted, we don't need to treat
each other in only the way thatthey've designed. Thank you to
Melanie and Sarah for taking thetime to speak with me. And I'm
really curious, what do youthink could be a better
alternative to LinkedIn?
Let us know. You can find allthe ways to contact us in the

(29:35):
show notes.

You are about to hear a conversation between me
and Kurt White. And I wanna justsay, upfront here, who Kurt is
and why we wanted to chat withhim. We all know him because
he's the cohost of a show calledUnraveling. It's a podcast that
looks at the world through thelens of mental health. It's
published by the BrattleboroRetreat, which is a nonprofit

(32:38):
psychiatric hospital in Vermont.
And Hans and Jason, who you knowfrom Neverpost, also work on
unraveling. But besides being coworkers essentially, we're all
just huge Kurt fans, honestly.He's a clinical psychotherapist.
He's a group psychotherapist, asocial worker, a teacher, but
he's also just a very smart,very thoughtful, kind guy who is

(33:03):
very reasonable, which is youknow, think a rare quality. So
we wanted to talk to him aboutsomething that's kind of been a
theme throughout so manysegments that we've done on
Neverpost, which is how it isthat the internet can help you
become who you are.
And you know, as apsychotherapist, I think he's

(33:25):
got the right set of skills tohelp us figure this out. There's
so much fret and worry andanxiety over the deleterious
effects, let's say, ofalgorithms and certain types of
content and certain types ofcontent for certain age groups
and encountering certainconcepts and ideas both
generally and at differentpoints in your life. There's so

(33:47):
much conversation about theencountering and the misuse of
concepts related to therapy andmental health. And so just
taking all of this together asone big really messy
conversation and we wanted toknow from Kurt, how are these
things impacting us? Are they?
People seem worried. Should theybe worried? How can the internet

(34:12):
really shape who we are? So,Kurt. I'm curious if you are

(34:34):
familiar with this thing thatpeople say online.
It's usually a comment thatpeople leave under a video, and
it says, I built this algorithmbrick by brick, or I placed this
brick myself, or things alongthose lines.

Kurt White (34:48):
No. I don't know about that. What what does that
mean?

Do you wanna take a guess as to what it might
mean?

Kurt White (34:53):
I I I have heard that people have a certain pride
sometimes in the idea that thealgorithm really gets them, you
know, that they that they'recareful about the things that
they like or even linger on, Ithink. Right? So that they're
only getting that sort ofspecial unique content to them.
Is that is that what that wouldmean?

You absolutely nailed it. Yeah. It's it's a way
of describing the work that youput in to training the algorithm
on social media, right, usuallyTikTok or Instagram, to show you
really specific things. So II've been thinking about this a
lot, this like brick by brickidea. Alongside I think another

(35:30):
much larger and more abstractidea, which is that like in the
process of being online, a lotof us like figure out like who
we are.
Or we figure out like who wecould be, like what the options
are. And the comparison that Imake to myself a lot when I'm
thinking about this is now iskind of like what the mall was

(35:53):
when I was a kid. Just like aplace that you can go, and you
can see lots of different peopleall at once, and you can kinda
get a sense of what your optionsare. What you might imagine
yourself as at some point. Mhmm.
And I think maybe there's thisthing that's happening,
especially in the algorithmicinternet, where people are going

(36:16):
to the internet to make someversions of themselves, building
this thing brick by brick whilewe also in a sense are built
brick by brick by it. So it'sthis strange like funny
recursive loop like making afeed that influences our sense
of self, which is then reflectedin the feed, which then
influences our sense of self,which then is reflected in the

(36:38):
feed. We ascribe a lot of agencyto this technology, and we say
it knows, and it puts youplaces, and it has figured
something out. And it's justdoing complicated math. And
every once in a while, it's, youknow, it's not imagining a
version of me.
It's it's running an algorithmthat will sort of never never be
able to know or understand.

Kurt White (36:58):
And the only thing it's really, the sort of way
it's evaluating how it works isprobably very simple, actually.
Just are you do you stay doingit? How much do you do it? Yeah.
And so it isn't necessarily evenoptimized.
I mean, not only is there nomind there, but, right, it's not
even necessarily optimized togive us the thing that we'd like
the most. It's just optimized togive us the thing that we don't

(37:20):
stop doing. People oftenconflate pleasure and and sort
of reward, and, actually,they're, like, related things
neuro neurobiologically, butthey're not exactly the same.

Right? Wait. Can you say more about that just as
it relates to, like, the feed?

Kurt White (37:35):
Yeah. Sure. I mean, you know, a lot I mean, a lot of
this stuff I I studied andworked with folks with substance
use disorders and addictions fora long time. And I really think
an essential way ofunderstanding that is to
understand that there's a set ofbrain circuits that developed
with a common ancestor that isso far back in the evolutionary

(37:56):
tree that we share this set ofcircuits in common with as
distantly related creatures asthings like lizards. Right?
Sure. Like, it's way before themammalian branching and things
like this. And this was a set ofcircuits to sort of get like
like a lizard can't do mealplanning. Right? I mean, it does
very poor at that.
You know? In a five year plan,absolutely nothing. Right? I
mean, really low.

Lizards lizard's not thinking about bacon, a
bunch of chicken breasts for theweek, and

Kurt White (38:20):
then Exactly right.

Yeah. Their credit report.

Kurt White (38:22):
Yeah. But so you have to develop a a system that
has nothing to do with consciousthought that involves getting
them to eat the right nutrientsin the right proportions and
kind of do most everything elsethat it does. It has to reward
the things at a basic biologicallevel. And that works so well,
you know, as an adaptation tothe environment, you know, over

(38:44):
millions and millions of yearsthat, you know, it's still kind
of like the basic system thatmost creatures use today. But
there are hacks to this as it'ssort of really how it is.
It's an unfortunate chemicalaccident that some substances,
sometimes just naturallyoccurring and sometimes if you
refine the heck out of them,they they sort of tell the brain

(39:07):
that the reward part of it issuper important when they take
that in. Right? Cocaine, youknow, like, oh, yeah. It's sort
of like, you might feel good,the pleasure part, it's sort of
a related circle in thedopamine, but then you take in
cocaine, it also your brain saysin a very particular way, I'm
pretty sure this is a thousandtimes more important for me to

(39:28):
do than anything I've ever doneI'm I'm pretty certain I need to
do this again. Right.

I've checked the math. I've looked at the
numbers.

Kurt White (39:36):
I checked the math. That's I've I've had this I've
had this system a long time.Yeah. And I don't know how I
didn't know about this, but I'vegotta reorient what I'm doing. I
kinda don't care about any ofthat other stuff anymore.
And some people more prone tothat than others and social
context, but we could do a wholething about that. But but,
basically, that that set ofcircuits is the right way. But
drugs is not the only way tooverwhelm the circuit, actually.

(39:58):
You can you can do it throughclever manipulations of people
that sort of get your brain toproduce its own chemicals that
that get you into basicallycompulsive compulsive action.
Right?
Gambling is the sort of classicone, of course. Right? But if
you kinda look at what we'vedone with a lot of this kind of
social social media,algorithmically based social

(40:20):
media, it's people who know thisand have consciously tried to
optimize the algorithm to get asmuch of that dopamine to release
to get you sort of compulsivelybehaving in that way, to not put
the thing down or to pick it upagain as soon as it's down. Put
it down. Pick it up.
Put it down. Pick it up. Theydon't care if you like it. Yeah.

(40:42):
They don't care if you like it.
Right? You if you do great.Right? I mean, it's like it's
like, you know, you like cocainethe first time you try it. The
thousandth time you try it,there may not really be much
pleasure in it anymore, but yourbrain still thinks you

need I mean, it's amazing the number of sort of
systems I have in my life toremind myself when I have spent
too much time online that it'slike, you're you could be
hurting yourself right now. Itfeels like maybe you're having a
good time, but like, let'scheck-in with the body and the
brain and see. You know, I talkto myself the way that I talk to
my daughter. Like, how are youfeeling? Or we do should we take

(41:18):
a moment?
It

Kurt White (41:19):
makes effort. I mean, isn't it isn't that wild?
Like, mean, that's one of thehallmarks of recognizing Yeah.
When you're in a compulsiveprocess. Right?
Like, if you say even if you'renot using excessively, like, you
say to yourself, when I go outtonight, I'm only gonna have
three drinks. Right? Now you'reyou're having to put thought
into controlling it. You don'tsay to yourself, I'm gonna wake
up tomorrow. I'm have only twoglasses of orange juice.

(41:43):
You don't have to do it. Right?Orange juice isn't that
rewarding. It's just not. Andso, you know, you just drink the
orange juice you drink.
You don't have to think aboutit. Right? Even the effort to
control that you suggest how outof control we are. Right?

So how does this construction of self or even the
feeling of you are constructingyourself through these actions,
like how does that relate? Arewe I imagine it's probably
different for different people,but is it like we have these
compulsive actions and we wantto justify doing them because
we're just like, like, oh, butthis is who I am. Or are those

(42:18):
feelings just making us feellike this is who I who we are
because in some way they'repositive, and we associate sort
of constructing the self with apositive effect.

Kurt White (42:30):
Well, man, Mike, I didn't know you were gonna get
my dark read on this. I don'tknow if you're gonna like my
answer to this, but I don't Ithe darkest read of this, which
I think is plausible

by the

Kurt White (42:40):
way, is that all of that is a made up after the fact
justification, but on a part ofthe brain that is just simply
doesn't like that it didn't knowwhat it was doing. There's a
part of your brain that wantedwhat it wanted, wanted to pick
up the phone, wanted to not setit down, wanted to do this, and
it did it. And now you sort ofsay to yourself, why did I do
that? And the brain doesn'treally like that. You know, we

(43:03):
sometimes call it confabulation.
The brain doesn't like a bighole in in its set of schemas,
but that sort of compulsive partof the brain can connect
directly to the motor cortex. Itcan get you in motion. It can
get you doing things withoutbeing processed through sort of
higher order cognitivefunctioning. You know? Even
things just as simple as, like,intention and values and things

(43:25):
like that.
And so you say you might say toyourself, I like this because I
think it reflects who I am. Andmaybe that's actually total BS.
Like, it's a lie your brain istelling yourself. That's a
darkest read. K.
But I I I do think there's aslightly less dark way of of
looking at it, which is that theworld can be broad and narrow.

(43:45):
And I think the great joy for mein discovering the Internet in
1991 was this sort of idea thatthe world that I knew in the
suburbs of Metro Detroit was nolonger the limiting factor in
the people I could hang around,the kind of conversations I
should have could have withpeople, the things that I was

(44:05):
interested in, you know, thegames that I I had, this love of
this Japanese game, Go. Yeah.It's actually a Chinese game,
Weiqi. And I found that I couldplay it on servers in the middle
in the middle of the night withpeople from all over the world,
which mostly just crashed atthat time.
But I but it became, like, themost important thing in my life
for a couple of years like that,like, doing that. And there was

(44:26):
a real solace to it, you know,and I and I do think that, like,
if I hadn't had that, you know,if I hadn't been able to find
something, you know, thatcommune that group, that sense
of self, even if it's playfuland exploratory, I probably
would have been more depressedthan I was as a teenager. I
think that's true.

In the middle of all of this, right, you have
access to this information,these communities that really
lets you expand your idea ofwhat's possible both in the
world and for yourself. There'sall different kinds of things
that you can learn aboutyourself, about the world. An
infinite number of ways that youcan go. And I'm curious about

(45:09):
one particular very narrow,though maybe you'll tell me it's
very broad, aspect of that,which is something that I see
increasingly on TikTokespecially. And that is
diagnoses.
Seeing videos on TikTok,commenting in this brick by
brick sort of fashion, somewherebetween I've worked hard to get

(45:33):
this algorithm, but also thealgorithm knows some things
about me that maybe I don't. Andthen at the end of

Kurt White (45:39):
that

is, has the algorithm given me this video
because I have ADHD? Then peoplebeing served videos by
therapists, or psychologists, orwhoever, who aren't diagnosing
people online, but who are, youknow, talking about symptoms,
and then, you know, going to thecomments and being like, well
that seals it. That's gotta beme. And I'm curious about your

(46:04):
perspective about this kind ofthing that like figuring out
this part of yourself using theinternet. Because I imagine, as
I said, it's I imagine it'sextremely complicated.

Kurt White (46:17):
I mean, can I give you a weird answer to it that
backs that backs way up a bit?

Oh my god.

Kurt White (46:22):
Absolutely. One has to see, I think, that the
history of psychiatry and mentalhealth treatment through the
lens of its relationship, itscomplicated ambivalent
relationship with science andmedicine, and with the
constructs of science andmedicine as increasingly the

(46:45):
unquestioned sources of truthand reality for us. Right?
Freud, for example, was reallykind of more of a humanist. You
know, he was actually excludedfrom studying neurology because
of antisemitism, and so had tosort of invent psychoanalysis as
a way of as a way ofunderstanding what people are.

(47:07):
In the ways that his approachwas scientific in a sense and in
other ways not so. But he usedthese sort of beautiful terms
like soul, you know, psyche. Imean, they just would have
conjured that. They use psyche,you know, meaning soul, you
know, And having thoseassociations more to sort of
classical literature andexperiences than this. The id is

(47:28):
just the it, the I, and thebeyond the I.
Right? I mean, this is poetry ina way, isn't it? And that kind
of played in Europe. But he saidwhen we translate this into
English, you've got to thinkabout the Americans. And the
Americans are not gonna buythis.
They're not gonna take thatseriously. And so I want you to
use the Latin words for thesethings because that's what they

(47:49):
use in science. They use theLatin words. And they'll they'll
buy that, you know. So we haveego and id and superego.
Right? And the rest. And so sortof ideas that were sort of
fundamental to the way thatmental health treatment
developed in America and thepsychoanalytic version of that
in particular had to do withthis sort of wishing to be more
a part of the structure ofknowledge power dynamics that

(48:12):
come from medicine and science.Medicine, however, never really
wanted psychiatry, you know, andso I think there's been this
struggle to be taken seriouslyas a profession and the sort of
wish to have diagnoses. And bythe way, we have, like, almost
no lab tests for.
Right? It's diagnosis bychecklist, basically. You know?
It's symptoms, and it's aserious business. I'm not trying

(48:34):
to poo poo it, but it'sdifferent than I think the way
you often get diagnosed with alot of things in medicine.
The rest of medicine, I guess,should say. And so finally,
maybe it gets to a point wherepeople are are sort of saying,
oh, okay. It's a medical thing.It's like that. I can take it
seriously.
I can have a medicine. I canhave a diagnosis. And then

(48:55):
almost right at that moment, oncomes the Internet, you know,
like a like a damn freighttrain, you know, and it's like,
ah, here we are. Here's the wedon't need to decide. We could
just have a YouTube video aboutit.
You know? And I maybe it's theinternal chaos agent in me where
I'm like, bring it on. That'sgreat. You know? You figure you
out, man.

(49:15):
You know? That's okay. Thesecategories, what whatever. You
know? I I really don't feel likeas a representative of the field
that I personally don't reallywanna to feel gatekeepy about
it, you know.
Which isn't to say I don'tbelieve in the construct
validity of diagnoses. I doactually. But I don't really
believe that that science andmedicine and psychiatry or

(49:39):
anyone else gets tofundamentally decide how you
divide those things up, how youdivide those categories up. And
what I see in the Internet, evenin this sort of weird versions
of it that come out, is thisbeautiful interstitial
intermediary play space versionof things where people can toss

(50:00):
around different ideas of theself, and they can be true for a
minute and not true for not evena minute, ten seconds. It could
be true for ten seconds, andthen you're on to Scottish kids
swearing.

You I mean, you almost like took the next
question I had out of my mouth,which is like, do you worry
about people over committing tothings that they this is very
loaded, think they've learnedabout themselves online? It
sounds like the answer to thatis no.

Kurt White (50:24):
I don't really worry too much about it. Yeah. I mean,
probably like if you were tostudy this, you'd find the most
common thing is that people kindof toss it around in their mind
for a while and think about it,and maybe it gives them a
different sense of their self.Maybe they talk to a couple of
people about it, but they're notgonna go schedule an appointment
and and get a prescription forsomething or go see therapist.

(50:46):
There but probably far morepeople don't do that than do
that.
But the experience of it mightreally mean something to that
group too. Right? It may havedone something meaningful to
them in opening up the sort ofwindow of possibilities of the
self just a little bit for themin a way that, like, I don't I
don't think we can we could bein danger of underestimating the

(51:06):
impact of that sometimes. And ifand if some people do, they go,
you know, like, jeez. Like,sometimes it's not subtle.
You know what I mean? It's sortof like, yeah. I don't know.
Like, I'm I'm seeing people heretalking about I discovered that
this is why I have no friends,and this is why I've never
turned a paper in on time ever.And I'm not and I gotten fired

(51:26):
from three jobs because of this,and I'm late constantly.
And I'm in trouble for that. Andthese are real areas of
suffering. And you go like, ohmy god. I thought I was just a
screw up. You know?
And they see that. They said,no. I I went and I saw someone,
and I I have this trouble now.And I now but I'm getting help
for it, and I'm liked anymore.Look.
I'm in a relationship. I have ajob. It's better for me. And if

(51:46):
that person calls the phone andpicks up someone and says, I
don't know. Do I know.
Like, great. Great. Great. Youknow? And if you don't have it,
what's the harm?
Really, what's the harm? They'rejust labels. We shouldn't be so
precious about it.

It's just a it's a perspective about this kind of
thing that you just never everhear online. And it's, I will
say, extremely refreshing tohear a professional say, so
what?

Kurt White (52:16):
So what? And I don't you know, I'd refer to this
idea, like, if you really wannatalk about self, you know, and
self, how that develops. Like,you know, I've used this word
play a couple of times, notaccidentally exactly. Because I
think it you could sayfundamentally that the self
develops through playrelationships

k.

Kurt White (52:36):
In in a developmental way. Right? Of
sort of, like, you come out ofthe womb in a symbiotic way.
You're not really exactly aperson, but you develop being a
person. You know, you're aperson in the sort of usual
legal sense of things.
I'm not gonna say that. But,like, you know, you don't really
have an identity yet. And youdevelop that in relationship to
others and in relationship tothe parts of you that are only

(52:59):
for you. And you do that bytrying it on, moving in and out
of letting things be true andnot true at the same time.
That's what play is really.
Right? It's you could have it'strue and it's not true. And you
do that over time, and then thatgets and and then that's the
sort of, we think, the sort ofpsychological basis for
development of creativity,actually. That this kind of play

(53:20):
structure never goes away. Wejust learn to do more with it,
and we learn more aboutourselves in doing that, which
is more of a process than aresult.
Right? The self the self asdevelopment rather than the self
as a sort of an entity that way.

I built it. I built the self, and now

Kurt White (53:37):
it's built. That's right. And that's the part
that's wrong about that. It'sit's not built. It's that you
built a prison for yourself.
Any rigid idea about yourself isa prison. Any rigid idea. Right?
We always if we don't haveplayfulness about things, then
then we're going to startsuffering eventually, maybe not
immediately. And there might besome times where we really need

(53:58):
to have that rigidity.
It's a protective function. Butif we can't get it back, then
they were in real trouble. And Ithink, like, the Internet can,
like, it can be like a seed ofthat. It can sort of so, like,
uh-uh. I'm not alone.
Uh-uh. Here's an idea. Uh-uh.But you need the relational part
of it to metabolize it.

Yeah. Kurt, that's so good. It's making me a
little emotional.

Kurt White (54:20):
Yeah. I'm glad. I see it in your eyes.

I think the thing that's really beautiful about
that is that there's ahopefulness to it that
especially in this moment, likeright now, you know, this week
on the internet is very absent.And it feels agentive in a way
that I think a lot of peopledon't at the moment. People feel

(54:45):
really controlled. People feelreally hemmed in, and people are
really trying to like search forhow it is to be themselves. Some
people feeling I think likedoing that is dangerous.
And so knowing that there's thislike way to think about this
which is just like, look out foryou and just pay attention is I

(55:06):
think really empowering.

Kurt White (55:08):
Well, I think even the dark moments in in life are
things that we can bring somesome of that quality of openness
to if we find the right way todo it, I think, with some
people, with some community, Ithink you might find even that

(55:30):
sometimes even things likedespair, you can have a little
bit of playfulness that createsa room around despair, where all
of a sudden possibility opens upagain where there was none for a
minute. And I think that's thetask of being human, quite
frankly.

Even online.

Kurt White (55:52):
Especially online. Why not? Not? Bring it on, man.
You know, bring it on.
The online is just bad in theway that we're bad. And it's
good in the ways that we'regood. And if can find ways to
use it to open us up, then let'srejoice in that. Let's rejoice
in that. If it's bad, then let'sjust work together to to put it

(56:16):
down when we need to.
That's that's important too.

Kurt, thank you so much for joining us. I really
appreciate you taking some timeto chat with me about these
huge, complicated, extremelyimportant subjects. Thank you.

Kurt White (56:37):
It has been a pleasure.

Where can people find you and your work online?

Kurt White (56:42):
Oh, well, we're at the Brattleboro retreat where we
have a we have another podcast,Unraveling. If you're listening
to this on the Never Post feed,check it out. We have some
really interesting stuff goingon, and, you can find me
primarily on LinkedIn as sort ofthe only only place I keep a
real presence, on on thesocials.

Legit. LinkedIn, real hot right now.

Kurt White (57:02):
Oh, yeah. Oh, well.

Thanks again so much to Kurt for talking to us.
We talked for nearly an hour. Itwas a really great conversation.
If you want to hear more of it,you can hear a longer cut over
on Kurt's podcast that he doeswith journalist Mary Wilson,
Unraveling. They have publishedour full conversation on their
feed.
While you're there, please checkout all of their other excellent
episodes. There is one about howAI is starting to be and can be

(57:44):
used in therapy. And it turnsout, you know, it turns out it's
more than just chat bots givingyou advice. There's a lot to
consider there, very carefully,which they're very good at
doing. So thanks to Kurt.
Please go listen to Unraveling.That is the show we have for you

(01:00:13):
this week. We're gonna be backhere in the main feed on
Wednesday, April 23. Give usmoney. The show is very hard to
make.
And if you've listened to thisfar, I mean, you're in the
outro, you must enjoy it. Youmust be having a good time, or
you are currently racing towardsyour speaker on the other side
of the house because you don'twanna hear me do this part. H t
t p s if you're nasty colonforward slash forward slash

(01:00:35):
never poe. S t. $4 a month.
So much easier that wait. Wait.Wait. Wait. Just wait.
Don't put stop. Don't press stopyet. So much easier than most
things really. Okay. You canstop.
Unless you'd want to hear thepoem. Come on. The poem's next.
Never post producers are AudreyEvans, Georgia Hampton, and the
mysterious doctor first namelast name. Our senior producer

(01:00:55):
is Hans Buto.
Our executive producer is JasonOberholzer. The show's host,
that's me, is Mike Grignetta.Your business in this world,
your nakedness and terror, yoursanctity remains the crucial

(01:01:19):
battle. Dearly beyond, we arescattered here today amongst
commodities. This town isn't bigenough for trust.
Excerpt of The Concept of Dreadby Pam Ream. Never Post is a

(01:01:39):
production of Charts andLeisure. It is distributed by
Radiotopia.

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