“It would probably be best for me to just let you all know I’m around and end the video with that. But in the catching up I’ve done, I do want to say something more.
“The people at Altus are right: Communication is humanity’s superpower. And every time we have increased our ability to communicate, society has shifted. In the short term, those shifts are really disruptive, but in the long term they’ve always been good. I am worried that things are moving too fast this time.
“I’m not saying shut it down. I’m just saying, let’s take it a little more slowly. Move fast and break things is great for a business, but not for society. Or the human mind.
“I’ve been really out of it, of course. I slept for almost all of the last six months. So bear with me as I get back up to speed with what’s going on in the world. If there’s anything in particular you want me to know, I’ll be reading the comments. Right now, I’m hiding out in an undisclosed location, which is neat. I’d very much appreciate it if you didn’t come searching for me or bother my family. It’s been a really intense time for all of us.
“I’m feeling strong and safe and very happy to be back and, y’know, alive. I hope you don’t mind if my life now is a little less public, and a lot less controversial. That’s my goal, anyway, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see me on Twitter.
“I know people are going to have lots of questions—I hope I can answer a lot of them in upcoming videos. I’ve set up three links below. First is for press, if you want me to comment on anything or are interested in an interview. Second is for questions … about me, the future, relationship advice, opinions on 1980s romantic comedies, et cetera. The third is a little weird.
“When I decided to make this video, I realized that it was going to be seen by a lot of people. And my friends and I had a little conversation about what a person should say when they have literally everyone’s ear. And I realized, if I have the power to have everyone hear me, that’s too much power. Instead, it would be better to take the chance to listen. So the third link is a survey that I would like everyone to take. It’s really short, just a dozen questions or so. If you’ve got the time, let me know how you’re doing.”
We uploaded that video, but we didn’t make it public. Instead, we emailed it to a bunch of friends and family. So that’s how a number of people I care a lot about found out I wasn’t dead. I was coming back, just not quite yet. We wanted one more night to ourselves.
“Nineteen days,” Maya said.
“Nineteen days,” I replied.
Empty Porches
The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed
Kasey Willis
We have been falling down the hole of isolation for decades. In order to protect ourselves from potential pain, or damage, or just complication, the walls of social isolation have gotten thicker and taller. Sometimes these walls are actually visible, the AirPods in the grocery store, but usually they’re below our notice. The closing churches, the empty porches.
Even as we have had more and better tools for connection, we spend more time alone and we take every tool we can get to distract ourselves from that loneliness. Too often, those tools are chemical, but we all have our addictions that protect us from the empty irritation of loneliness.
The tools of the internet promised to connect us, but they have just been further surrogates for real connection. And now, more terrifying than any tool I have seen, the Altus Space threatens to turn entire demographics into people without any meaningful connection in their lives—individuals without communities.
Suicide, substance abuse, and overdoses are all exceeding any previous US records. As worrying, the number of people who have died inside the Space indicates that there may be something actually damaging or dangerous about using Altus. Whether it is simply how the Space encourages us to disregard the physical and social needs of our bodies or some deeper ill effect, we just don’t know. There is very little data, and Altus has not been forthcoming with their own.
“Altus is perfectly safe when used properly,” Peter Petrawicki tweeted recently. “We have always encouraged users to take regular breaks, and of course it is unhealthy to be in the Altus Space for the majority of your day.”
But there is no software that prevents users from being in the Space for any amount of time, and we’ve all got that friend who we haven’t seen or heard from in the last few weeks, don’t we?
I do not think this is an Altus problem; I think that it is a human problem. We seek the safety of isolation even as it kills us.
MIRANDA
All right, here’s the Miranda Beckwith Guide to Working the Problem.
It doesn’t matter what your problem is, only that you’re sick of it and you’re willing to work.
Step One: Understand Your Problem.
A surprising number of people skip this step, thinking they know what the problem is when actually they don’t. This is something you actually have to think about.
Example: People like me have a habit of saying, “The problem is fossil fuels, we need to stop burning so many fossil fuels!”
But, also, people like me have a habit of being pretty stoked when we get to take a private jet to the Caribbean. More importantly, if we just stopped burning fossil fuels right now, a bunch of people would die of cold or heat or hunger or not being able to get their medicine very, very quickly. The problem of climate change is not simple.
My problem was that I was imprisoned inside my own mind and could not share vital information with the outside world.
Step Two: Understand Your Assets.
This sounds like money, and to some extent it is. But it’s also every piece of equipment you have and everything you know and are good at, and also, critically, everything that other people know and are good at, as long as you can convince those people to help you. My assets were entirely me. I had no outside connection; if I did, my problem would have been solved. So I just had what was in my own head.
Step Three: Understand Your Limitations.
People always skip this one too, but a solution that does not allow for real-world constraints is a bad solution. My limitations were … abundant. But limitations are also sometimes your own interests or values. Sometimes you don’t want to solve a problem in a way you won’t enjoy. Sometimes you know you only have a certain number of dollars or hours to spend and don’t want to spend any more. Limitations are fine, as long as you understand them.
Step Four: Stir.
Put your problem, your assets, and your limitations in your head, and shake them together until something falls out. In my experience, bad problem solving almost always comes from either not understanding one of these three things deeply enough, or just completely ignoring one or two of them.
This handy guide will also help you when no solution is presenting itself: You need to rework the problem with new inputs. You reimagine the problem, search for new assets, or try to adjust your limitations. If it still doesn’t work, do it again. And again. Find someone who can add to your asset mix, narrow the scope of the problem, and if that doesn’t work, eventually you give up.
It’s OK to give up sometimes.
But not this time, because I was on to something, and I didn’t get there by focusing on smaller, more manageable pieces of the problem. I did it by going bigger.