Eugene Linden
home   |   contact info   |   biography   |   publications   |   video   |   radio/tv   |   musings   |   short takes   

Latest Musing

Pet Peeves: Absurd Sci Fi Films Division

            Settle into my seat on a flight from Heathrow to JFK. Scan through movie options. Banshees of Inn...

continue

Books


Fire & Flood
Buy from Amazon


Deep Past
Buy from Amazon

more info

Articles by Category
endangered animals
rapid climate change
global deforestation
fragging

Books
The Ragged Edge of the World



Winds of Change
Buy from Amazon

more info
Afterword to the softbound edition.


The Octopus and the Orangutan
more info


The Future In Plain Sight
more info


The Parrot's Lament
more info


Silent Partners
more info


Affluence and Discontent
more info


The Alms Race
more info


Apes, Men, & Language
more info

In an Interconnected World, Niches Get Big


Wednesday June 23, 2021

There’s an excellent article by David Gardner in the online sports magazine The Ringer about niche sports and how social media allows the best players in tiny niche sports -- disc golf, trick archery, e.g. -- to make a living where these players couldn't possibly make much money through exposure in the mainstream media. This is the benign side of a fundamental feature of the internet: it allows tiny constituencies at the far ends of the normal curve to find each other. 

Because the internet connects billions of people, those tiny niches (in percentage terms) can turn out to be very large numbers of people in the aggregate. Large enough to allow players in obscure sports to get multi-million dollar endorsement contracts; large enough to assemble a gigantic mob to invade the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

There’s the rub. This feature of the internet and social media not only allows niche athletes to make a living, but also enables paranoids and psychopaths to hatch plots and recruit. Where in the old days the dangerously deranged might have a hard time connecting with like-minded sociopaths, now an army of such is just a few clicks away.

Which of these two sides of the coin will have the biggest impact on the future?

 

contact Eugene Linden

Short Take

Summer Evenings in July

 

I go out to my porch, drink in hand, as the gloaming fades. I sit on a very comfortable rocking chair, given -- maybe loaned; it’s unclear -- by a friend.

My cat, Noodles, joins me, settling on the couch facing me. He tends to his grooming, and I wait for the fireflies to appear.

There are less every year and this is disquieting on an otherwise perfect night. I want them to be fruitful and multiply -- if possible by the millions.

That would be a sign that, perhaps, all is well.

It’s warm, and to my west is a wall of green, dominated by a very tall Linden. Hello, fellow Linden!

As the warm air stills around me, emotions rise. I feel – I’m sure the Germans have a long word for it, but I’m too lazy to search on google – I feel…

Something deep and strong; something like love for the world.

It gives me hope for another day.



read more
  designed and maintained by g r a v i t y s w i t c h , i n c .
© Eugene Linden. all rights reserved.