📑 Ark Head

Bookmarked Ark Head by Venkatesh RaoVenkatesh Rao (ribbonfarm.com)

One mental model for this condition is what I call ark head, as in Noah’s Ark. We’ve given up on the prospect of actually solving or managing most of the snowballing global problems and crises we’re hurtling towards. Or even meaningfully comprehending the gestalt. We’ve accepted that some large fraction of those problems will go unsolved and unmanaged, and result in a drastic but unevenly distributed reduction in quality of life for most of humanity over the next few decades. We’ve concluded that the rational response is to restrict our concerns to a small subset of local reality–an ark–and compete for a shrinking set of resources with others doing the same. We’re content to find and inhabit just one zone of positivity, large enough for ourselves and some friends. We cross our fingers and hope our little ark is outside the fallout radius of the next unmanaged crisis, whether it is a nuclear attack, aliens landing, a big hurricane, or (here in California), a big wildfire or earthquake.

In order to survived the battered psyche, Venkatesh Rao explains that way have resorted to the ‘ark head’ mental model. This involves giving up on solving the world’s ills and simply hiding in our ark.

Ark-head is an interesting collective diagnosis. It’s not depression, anxiety PTSD, or collective brain fog, though all those currently common comorbidities tighten the grip of ark-head on the psyche. It’s an unconsciously adopted survivalist mindset that draws boundaries around itself as tightly as necessary to maintain the ability to function. It’s a pragmatic abandonment of universalist conceits to save your sanity.

He suggests that it is very much the mental model for the Dark Ages. The way out is through telling stories beyond the ark.

It was interesting reading this alongside Ed Yong’s discussion of the ongoing pandemic:

The U.S. will continue to struggle against infectious diseases in part because some of its most deeply held values are antithetical to the task of besting a virus. Since its founding, the country has prized a strain of rugged individualism that prioritizes individual freedom and valorizes self-reliance. According to this ethos, people are responsible for their own well-being, physical and moral strength are equated, social vulnerability results from personal weakness rather than policy failure, and handouts or advice from the government are unwelcome. Such ideals are disastrous when handling a pandemic

One response on “📑 Ark Head”

  1. Another month and another change to the team at work. Why is it that everyone seems to have had such amazing lives? The new manager at work ran a 10 hour charity music conference in his spare time. I am often happy if I have done the washing and got food on the table, I clearly need to work harder on my pitch.
    On the family front, we went on our first holiday post-COVID to country Victoria. It was interesting returning to various places with children. I think it is fair to say wine tasting and children do not always match.
    Personally, I finally got around to loading Linux on my old Macbook Pro and Chromebook. Other than the ability to run music applications, I am pretty happy and not missing a think. I continued my dive back into books listening to Thomas More’s Utopia, Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. I also nostalgically binged The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. (Was this really made for children?) In regards to music, Montaigne’s Making It has been on repeat.
    Here then are some of the other dots that have had me thinking:
    Education
    The Tricky Ethics of Being a Teacher on TikTok
    Amelia Tate considers the place of TikTok in the classroom. She discusses the trend of content created about and even with students.
    The Enduring Allure of Choose Your Own Adventure Books
    Leslie Jamison dives back into the world of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series.
    Unbeaching the whale – The education revolution failed — and so did its way of thinking
    Dean Ashenden reflects on the failure of Gonski and the education revolution.
    Timetable Absurdity
    Cameron Paterson discusses the way in which schools are still held hostage by the timetable.
    I want, I wish, I hope, I dream
    David Truss shares an activity where he creates a portrait wall with a want, a wish, a hope or a dream underneath it.
    Technology
    After Self-Hosting My Email for Twenty-Three Years, I have Thrown In the Towel. The Oligopoloy has Won.
    Carlos Fenollosa reflects on the demise of self-hosted email. One of the main reasons he argues for the failure is the crude blacklisting of large swaths of email, rather than a penalty process.
    We Spoke With the Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business
    Niek Hilkmann and Thomas Walskaar interview Tom Persky about the dying art of maintaining floppy disks.
    Interoperable Facebook
    Cory Doctorow unpacks how an interoperable Facebook might work.
    Tech Fear-Mongering Isn’t New—But It’s Time to Break the Cycle
    Jason Feifer provides insight into Amy Orben’s four-step Sisyphean cycle of technology panics.
    We need to deal with data privacy in our classrooms
    Bonnie Stewart reflects upon the online learning with the return to the classroom in a post-COVID world.
    AI’s dark arts come into their own
    Alex Hern discusses the dark-side to the magic of artificial intelligence.
    General
    Electric Bike, Stupid Love of My Life
    Craig Mod shares his passion for electric bikes.
    After Queen Elizabeth II’s death, Indigenous Australia can’t be expected to shut up. Our sorry business is without end
    With the passing of Queen Elizabeth, Stan Grant considers legacy of colonisation for indigenous people around the world.
    Music on the brain: Listening can influence our brain’s activity
    Abdullah Iqbal unpacks some of the research into the benefits of music on the brain.
    Ark Head
    In order to survived the battered psyche, Venkatesh Rao explains that way have resorted to the ‘ark head’ mental model. This involves giving up on solving the world’s ills and simply hiding in our ark.
    The credibility of science is damaged when universities brag about themselves
    Adrian Lenardic and Johnny Seales argue that the rewarding of attention economy has corrupted scientific research.
    Florence Nightingale Was Born 197 Years Ago, and Her Infographics Were Better Than Most of the Internet’s
    Celebrating the birth of , Cara Giaimo discusses Florence Nightingale’s impact in regards to the spread of ideas, not just as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’.
    Read Write Respond #080
    So that was September for me, how about you? As always, hope you are safe and well.
    Image by Bryan Mathers

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