Periodic reiteration of my principled stance and holy war against “deep work” ideology 😇, especially where it gets conflated with long-term patience and more basic capacity to defer gratification.

I blame most of the problems of the world on the deep-work crowd. Few things are more dangerous than someone who self-importantly unplugs from “shallow” things and descends into a deep frog-well of solipsistic self indulgence. Shitposting is sanity. Distractibility is openness. Indiscriminate sociality is empathy. Plugging into seemingly ephemeral noise is adaptability and unstuckness capacity. Seeking lulz is perspective.

Yes, some people who do “deep work” produce great science and art. But many more produce toxic shit. Some people who wear black turtlenecks are Steve Jobs. But more are like Elizabeth Holmes.

And yes, there is obviously a degenerate version of being “shallow” as well. There’s a degenerate version of everything. But current tendency to ignore the degeneracy potential of depth while centering the degeneracy potential of shallowness is a dangerous.