Good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday.

One thing nobody ever tells you about cigarettes is how great they are. Like, I started smoking when I was 14, and smoked cigarettes compulsively until my late 20s. I would smoke 30 or 40 cigarettes a day. I would wake up at 3:00 A.M. and smoke a cigarette just to calm myself down. I loved smoking it gave me a little dopamine boost and a brief high, but what I loved most about smoking is that it was a straightforward solution to a straightforward problem. In a world where all my problems were complicated and none of them could be solved within five minutes, here was a simple problem that could be solved within five minutes, and then, when I quit smoking, I started chewing Nicorette compulsively. I did that for about five years. Eventually, I went to my lovely doctor, a Polish lady in her 60s, and she said, "How much Nicorette are you chewing?" And I said, "About 50-60 pieces a day." And she said, "That's about three packs of cigarettes worth of nicotine every single day." And I said, "Yeah that sounds about right."

God, I love Nicorette. I would be reading or writing or thinking and then a little voice in my head would say, "Hey, maybe have a Nicorette." And I'd be like "Nah, I can't. It's only been 20 minutes since the last one." And then the voice would get louder, and it would say, "Hey, definitely have a Nicorette. Definitely. You gotta. You gotta." And then I would have one, and the voice would go away. I quit chewing Nicorette right around the time I got really really into the internet, about 2005, and now, I'll be reading a book or working or thinking and a little voice in my head will say, "Hey, you should check the internet." And I'll say, "No, I'm reading a book right now." I'll resist that feeling for five seconds or five minutes, and then I'll give into it and oh, the pleasure of giving into a craving, and I'll check Reddit, Tumblr, Bluesky. That's right, I'm still on Tumblr. I'm a proper internet degenerate.

I'll scroll for a while and then I'll go back to my book until a few minutes later when a little voice inside my head says, "Hey buddy, you should check the internet." And I resist and then I give in and it's cigarettes all over again.

Hank, you and I have spent a lot of time over the last 10 years discussing whether the downsides of the social internet are "worth it" given the obvious upsides. I think the downsides are also pretty obvious to those of us who use the internet in high doses. They include: Radical polarization, the hijacking and monetization of our attention, the dehumanization of the other, the denuancification of political discourse, and, of course, misinformation shaping sociopolitical realities. The upsides are also numerous, including that it feels good, at least, in the short run and that it builds community and connection, although, it's almost always community and connection mediated by large corporations seeking to profit off that connection.

One way cigarettes and the internet are the same is that it isn't only heavy users who are harmed, but also the social order at large through secondhand smoke or secondhand internet. I mean, when I was a kid, every indoor space smelled like smoke because every restaurant and bar and any other space was a smoking space. Not to age myself, but I remember people smoking on airplanes and at church. That said, I don't want to push this analogy too far. Cigarettes have directly caused a lot of suffering and death, including the death of two of my grandparents. And the internet isn't merely harmful, of course. For many people, including those who were most isolated by previous social orders, the internet is a godsend. It's a way to build community. I mean, when I was 14 years old and wearing a trench coat every day in Orlando, Florida, I needed the internet. It didn't exist really yet, but I needed it.

The internet gave me my life and my livelihood in wonderful ways. Our little community is building a freaking hospital for God's sakes. That's the opposite of cigarettes. So the metaphor doesn't really hold up because cigarettes have very little societal value whereas the social internet has quite a lot. But the algorithm first monetized attention, corporation-hosted extractive capitalism, except the thing being extracted is consciousness itself. Social internet is, I would argue, not a net positive for humanity, even if it has greatly benefited some of us who use it a lot.

Still, Hank, I can't seem to stop using it. I can choose Nicorette over cigarettes. I can choose the healthier for me options like Instagram and Bluesky over the less healthy for me options like Twitter and TikTok, but I can't stop. I did quit for a couple years, and that was really an interesting time in my life. Very productive in some ways. In other ways, I missed the connection. Also, I missed the high. I missed the jolt, and one thing about me is I will seek out a jolt. Like, I objectively know that I am happier and more productive when I spend time outside in the world, politically and socially active as a person on Earth rather than as, like, an avatar online. And yet, there I am, readin' my book, thinkin' "You should check the internet."

Now some of this is because I want to be active in and committed to Nerdfighteria, but, in truth, that's a relatively small part. Like, I could be a good and productive member of this community without using the many to many spaces like Bluesky and Instagram. I could make videos and read the comments in our relatively pleasant and productive little corner of the internet, and participate in well-moderated spaces and so on, but I choose not to. I use the unhealthy version of the internet, and I use it for hours every week, and I know that it is bad for me and for the social order, and I use it anyway. And I worry that when I don't just ingest that unhealthy internet, but also contribute to it, I'm not just smoking cigarettes. I am cigarettes.

This is the part of the video where I offer up a solution or at least provide some kind of resolution, but I don't have a solution or any kind of resolution. Hank, maybe you will on Friday. I'll see you then.