Substrate

Twice in my life I’ve had the good fortune of getting exactly what I wanted, only to find that, once I had it, it wasn’t what I wanted at all. ​ Twitter, then, is a shared delusion experienced by many millions of people simultaneously. That shared delusion can be wonderful and powerful, which is why it is so difficult to explain to non-participants, but it certainly comes with tradeoffs as well ​ A physicist making a contribution about physics might find a social justice advocate reviewing the contribution for social justice norms; a social justice advocate carelessly drawing a physics metaphor in a social justice contribution might find a physicist explaining technical inconsistencies in the metaphor that was intended to be casual. All happens in front of an audience, driving behavior that might play out differently in public. Participating in this process can be stimulating, but also frustrating or exhausting - it is difficult to foresee the various intersections of “expertise” to which a given contribution might be subjected.