I increasingly observe the word "hot take" being used to describe grounded truth, but how did we get there?
First, the definition:
hot take
nounA piece of writing or speech, especially on the internet, giving someone's personal opinions about a topic, usually strong opinions that have not been carefully thought about and that many people are likely to disagree with
(Cambridge Dictionary)
“Hot take” is just one of the labels we use to quickly assess and make sense of new information.
Why do we label?
Our brains are powerful pattern-matching machines.
When faced with new ideas, people, or environments, our brain quickly tries to pull relevant data to categorize the new information based on past information. It’s an efficiency mechanism where we use the familiar to make sense of the unfamiliar.
The labels we use are just the symptoms of deeper root causes about how we perceive reality:
Information intake: Your information diet shapes your perception. If you only consume 1 primary source of information, your belief and identity are shaped by that 1 source.
Wisdom of the crowd: Effective propaganda targets the majority, and whoever controls the mainstream narrative controls the behavior of the masses (e.g. votes in democracies, manufacturing consensus, or shaping consumer behavior).
Efficiency: It literally consumes energy to think for yourself. Just as in nature you don't see water flowing uphill, we, as part of nature, are efficiency-seeking machines. Delegating thoughts saves energy from one of our most energy-hungry organs.
Personal examples
A couple of days ago I shared the Google Map image where Gaza was flattened. I got a few threatening DMs, one guy even shared a propaganda movie! I'm like "bro! It doesn't matter what you say, collective punishment is wrong, and unless you claim the satellite images are fake, there's literally nothing you can say that makes a wrong right!"
Another example is my last article “Coding is NOT solved” challenging the narrative pushed (and funded) by token sellers. It wasn’t “poorly thought out”. It packed 4 years of experience and weeks of thinking and note-taking. I just saw it was described as “An unapologetic hot take” in a newsletter.
We all live in different information bubbles with bias and distorted realities. These conflicts happen when the bubbles touch each other.
As long as we can handle a respectful debate with people we don’t agree with, we have a chance of getting closer to reality.
Can we understand reality?
We are not evolved to understand the objective reality as is.
We are limited by 5 senses (each with their own activation range), trapped in time, and capped by what fits in our skull.
I’ve made this point with diagrams and data in the open prison theory. TL;DR: although we cannot understand reality at its full range, we can get close to it through debate and collaboration.
Why is it harder to get to reality now?
We are going through tough times as a species:
Engagement bubbles: The algorithms (e.g. those of the social media feeds) actively feed us with information that they deem engaging. This reinforces the beliefs we have, while gradually converging us to segments (which are just an efficiency mechanism to shard the feeds).
Information overload: There is literally more content than we could ever consume. The rise of smartphones and the omnipresence of cheaper, larger, and more vibrant screens built onto every conceivable surface (from a car dashboard to waiting rooms) put many of us in the state of cognitive saturation where we’re operating at our maximum evolutionary limits.
Synthetic content: The rise of AI makes it cheaper than ever to create media (songs, audio, images, video). Although the machines are gaining more processing power one data center at a time, the total available attention budget of humanity isn’t increasing at the same pace. AI made the problem even worse.
Echo chambers: As our brain is under the stress of information intake, our tolerance for conflict is decreasing. A stressed brain becomes picky about what it takes in and actively repels what doesn’t fit the path of least resistance (familiarity).
Loneliness pandemic: We are a social species. We need social interactions as much as we need food. However, we increasingly get our dose of social needs from influencers and creators. We feel connected with a partial image where our imagination fills the rest. We’re more separate than ever.
Self-censorship and dull messages: As a social species, we evolved to need agreeableness and a sense of belonging. This usually manifests itself as self-censorship (one of the worst types of censorship), where we shy away from sharing our ideas in fear of judgement. Or we share a stripped-down version that’s not as impactful in having the hard discussions.
Why does reality matter?
Reality is very powerful because once you understand how things work, you can:
r: make sense of the events happening around you and identify false information.
w: tweak your beliefs and rewrite what was shaped by misinformation.
x: take better decisions grounded in objective facts.
Despite those limits, we can try to get closer to reality because if we don’t, our reality is shaped by those who benefit from it:
r: you are easier to read when your input is controlled. As complex as we want to believe we are, each of us is a system with state, input and output.
w: propaganda can rewrite history, narratives, and even our identity.
x: our actions are shaped by our beliefs and once the former is under control, the latter follows: our purchasing choices, our votes, and our manufactured consent.
How to get closer to reality?
If you want to get a bit closer to reality:
Have a diverse information diet: consume what fights with your perception of reality to expand your view. It's confusing and energy-consuming, but it pays off in making decisions that are better rooted in reality.
Don't be scared of taking a stance against the common narrative. Wisdom of the crowd is a myth when you consider how easy it is to influence the masses with propaganda, malinformation, and misinformation. Actively engage with people who think differently and make up your own mind. Civil discussion is a luxury these days.
Spend the energy to think for yourself. No one wants to be wrong, but take an objective look at where your beliefs come from. If they're not yours, you have work to do. We are all limited by our 5 senses and limited processing power that fits in our skull. We cannot understand reality but we can get closer to it.
Note: crowd wisdom relies on independent data points where as echo chambers and other mechanisms we mentioned, creates dependencies.
Final word
If all of the above sounds too heavy, just do yourself a favor: if you consume 1 primary source of information, don't use ANY. This is truly where 0 > 1 because in the absence of manipulation, you have at least the chance to think independently.
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