Thinking Ahead

When I taught high school and college, I spent a lot of time empathizing with my students. It’s hard to imagine growing up in today’s world. I wouldn’t want my teenage years all over the internet.

Then again, while I made plenty of sarcastic comments that might have gotten me canceled from time to time, I never took the kinds of risks that change or end lives when they go bad. My hormone-fueled teenage brain was governed by a superpower: I could see the future. 

I understood that sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll were designed to feel good in the moment – but, I asked myself, how would I feel later? How would I reflect on my choices in six months? Six years? As soon as I asked myself those kinds of questions, I felt like a driver gauging whether it was safe to make a left turn in traffic. If I wasn’t sure I could make it, I stayed put – nothing’s worth getting T-boned by a semi. 

We have so little control in life. But we can determine some of the situations in which we place ourselves. I remember exactly when I consciously realized that I could design elements of my future with statistical certainty. In college, my roommate and I were grieving a friend who was killed in a bar parking lot at 1:30 the previous morning. I made the comment, “That will never happen to me.” My roommate said, “How do you know? Some guy could just lose it and shoot you.” I said, “Maybe, but not in the parking lot of a bar at 1:30 in the morning.” He said, “That sounds kind of arrogant. How can you be so sure?” I smiled. “Because I will never be in a bar parking lot at 1:30 in the morning.”

We have more choices than we think. Tomorrow is promised to no one, but tomorrow I’m not going to be on the road with everyone else who’s had a few. If trouble finds me on New Year’s Eve, it’s going to have to come all the way to the living room couch where I’ll be snuggled up with my wife and daughter.

I wish you and yours a safe New Year’s Eve, and a happy, healthy 2025.

Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription. 

Here is a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about.

Over the last couple years I’ve watched a few episodes of The Voice, and I’m grateful for how bad most of the contestants are. I know that probably sounds horrible, but I mean it as a compliment to the singers who truly set bars by which everyone else is measured. For example: Al Green. Not only has Reverend Green made an indelible impression with original songs like “Let’s Stay Together” and “Tired of Being Alone,” among others, but his covers make you realize what it means for an artist to put their stamp on something and make it their own. Check out his take on Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” and R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” (Shakes head, squeezes eyes shut: “Mm, mm, mm.”) Oh and PS: Al Green will be 79 years old in April. Dude.

Some public servants actually serve the public. Former president Jimmy Carter lived his life in service to peace and democracy, and he died on December 29 at the age of 100. During his presidency, Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt. He brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks, and then flew to Cairo and Jerusalem to make sure the agreement held.

Carter did even more after his presidency, when there was no partisan political victory to be won. From Reuters: “Despite his difficulties in office, Carter had few rivals for accomplishments as a former president. He gained global acclaim as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world.”

A couple weeks ago, CBS news program “60 Minutes” ran a segment entitled “Schools face a new threat:  websites that use AI to create realistic, revealing images of classmates.” I think it’s important for journalists to illuminate the darker corners of social media and technology, so that more people can make informed choices that protect themselves and their families. But two things got my attention about this piece: 1) It appealed to the same prurient interests as the websites it rightly criticized; and 2) It ended not as a condemnation of the websites or the young men who used them, but as a propaganda piece supporting the end of United States Code Title 47 Section 230. Anderson Cooper interviewed Yiota Souras, the chief legal officer at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who says that a law will fix the situation and points to the fact that Amy Klobuchar and Ted Cruz have authored a bill to sunset Section 230 at the end of 2025.

This is an important issue. As a parent, educator, and human being, I completely support the idea that we should protect vulnerable people of all ages and walks of life against predatory use of technology.   

My concern is our lack of understanding about technology and the laws that regulate it. If we do away with Section 230, we do away with everyone’s ability to run a website where users can post content. If that seems like an exaggeration, consider how easy it is to sue someone for content now, and how few entities have the resources necessary for fending off legal claims. Ending Section 230 would mean the end of the Internet for everyone who isn’t Big Tech. You can read more about the law from friend-of-OSL Cory Doctorow on the Electronic Frontier Foundation site.

When I taught First Amendment law at UCLA, my students and I explored “narrowly tailored” solutions to speech issues that would limit undesirable actions without curbing speech altogether or having other unintended negative consequences. If you want people to stop nailing messages on trees, you don’t cut down all the trees.

We need more awareness about the ways we communicate on the internet, and how we can use this technology to support everyone’s well-being. We do not need to support laws that are fed to elected officials by lobbyists for Big Tech and make the internet even less accessible to the rest of us.

We are all connected by the internet, like neurons in a giant brain.

– Stephen Hawking

The Internet was designed as a solution to the pragmatic problem of exchanging messages between two endpoints without depending on any particular services in the middle.

– Bob Frankston

Thank you for reading! This publication is a lovingly cultivated, hand-rolled, barrel-aged, ad-free, AI-free, 100% organic, anti-algorithm, zero calorie, high protein, completely reader-supported publication that is not paid to endorse any political party, world religion, sports team, product or service. Please help keep it going by buying my book, hiring me to speak, or becoming a paid subscriber, which will also entitle you to upcoming web events, free consultations, discounted merchandise, and generally being the coolest person your friends know:

Best,

Know someone who is also Curious AF? Please share this edition with them!

David Preston

Educator & Author

​https://davidpreston.net​

Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE

Header image: “A Romance of the Future” via Public Domain Review