Ben Casnocha: belief

Transcript context

…Ben, you started reading MR in that era. How did you discover Marginal Revolution? What’s the story there? I can’t remember how I discovered it, but I remember being struck by the incredible curiosity on display in the blog, but also the relentless optimism that infused all of the posts. I think what was striking about that era of the blogosphere was how civil and polite it all was. That’s clearly changed a great deal, and I wonder, when you look back on that era, is there a wistfulness for the tone and the camaraderie of the blogosphere? Now it feels like such a toxic social media ecosystem and so much noisier. You’ve maintained the tone — both of you — over all these years, which I think is really impressive. But is there something about that era that you feel was different in terms of the other blogs you were reading, the commenters, the quality of the comments and so on? When I look back to that era, it seems like a golden age, but I suspect if I had to go back and read everyone’s posts, I’d be pretty bored. That people get more to the point now is a good thing. There is something about Twitter and other social media that encouraged jabs and nastiness, but I actually prefer the world we’re in now. The fact that you have all these repeated interactions — it made people nicer, but repeated interactions are themselves a little problematic. Well, it’s not quite collusive, but maybe it’s better that it’s sharper, even though we remain sunny and optimistic, as always. We get to work with each other. That’s what they don’t have.…

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