Friction
Friction is neither good nor bad on its own. It’s a matter of degree.
Friction!
That’s the word. That is the word I wrote 2 essays with a combined 3683 words looking for. Yet I didn't find it then. I found it somewhere else while I was not looking for it. Friction.
Thinking is hard. Verbalising your thoughts is harder. Or perhaps, verbalising one’s thought is what makes thinking hard. This is why, when you meet someone who does a fine job of articulating your thoughts for you indirectly by doing so himself, you approach them with awe and wonder. That is why I bring you Friction by Pavel Brodsky, an essay that explains how things that enable frictionlessness enable enablement; whether enablement for good or bad.
Is Friction good or bad? Pavel says neither. He says, “it’s not a yes-or-no question. Friction is neither good nor bad on its own. It’s a matter of degree.” And that is just how it is.
My takeaway from his lucid article is that seamlessness, contrary to how much we want it, is not always for good. It may sometimes lead to a freefall; although pleasurable as we go on, only to end up with a disaster. I propose that you read the entire essay here.
As a by-product, today's post is dedicated to Pavel for unknowingly bringing some measure of ease and articulation into my Library. You may find his website Island of Signal here.
Incidentally, I wrote two essays at least 6 months before I read Friction. I was all the while trying to explain the importance of friction or the disadvantages of its absence. The first essay was The Philosophy of Addiction. The second was the Multiplication Effect
The Philosophy of Addiction
This essay, or treatise, if you allow it, looks at friction as tradeoffs. For a particular pleasure that you wish to obtain, what cost are you taking up; what price are you paying?
I examine gluttony as an addiction, substance abuse as an addiction, and view sexually explicit material as an addiction. I showed that we all in the original arrangement are supposed to give something effortful for something pleasurable. That effort is necessary to constrain how much pleasure we can have. After all, it is when the craving for such pleasure reaches abnormal levels that we know we have a problem. I wrote that
“addictions are the consequences of attempts to bypass nature’s required cost that one has to pay to enjoy some of the best pleasures of life. To be clear, all addictions have roots in appetites and in the ability of such appetites to elicit pleasure. A person gets addicted to what they have a natural appetite for. And addictions come from seeking pleasures without paying the commensurate price for them. (Note: tradeoffs are costly.)”
We must control our appetites. And nature’s system already has measures to make this happen. What happens then when this tradeoff, this system, or friction is removed and you can have these pleasures limitlessly?
Multiplication Effect
This essay is more streamlined. It focuses on the effect of frictionlessness on a generation that was born into the digital age. The way to frame this problem is simple: what will happen to a generation–sexually–that has unfettered technological access?
A quote:
“While you can move magazines around (if you have just the right bag), such luck does not exist with CDs. You can’t simply move a CD player into a public bathroom stall to do your business. But how about now? Wherever you go with your smartphone and PC, you carry a TV, CD player, and connection to the internet with you. With your smartphone and PC, exposure is unconstrained, has low limitations, and is even imbued with features to help you cloak your activities. (Oh, and you have cute earbuds now that play audio in the best quality) [I just added this]. There is no good sense then in thinking that you can compare the consequences of both means of transmission and distribution, and judge that these are on the same scale.”
This essay essentially rebuts the argument that all psychic effect remains the same even when you remove all constraint and friction. We seem not to be paying attention to how humans fare when things are free and abundant.
I could keep on re-explaining. But I hope to bore you enough for you to just say “dammit, this guy is rambling for too long, let me just read the entire essay.” Do that.
And so you have it for today’s post. If I accomplished anything, I wish that I was able to acquaint you or probably remind you that friction is neither good nor bad; plainly. I also hope that you see what seamlessness can cost individuals as well as cost society. I have no marketing CTA except that friend, be discerning.
This picture depicts that feeling when you read someone who articulates your thoughts better than you could.
Have a splendid week.