JA Westenberg

I write about tech + humans + philosophy

@Westenberg: https://joanwestenberg.com/

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npub1wkrakhgrnccsq7ny6gm9zfadmhxmmg4vdhacd33cdc6m8v5353dstjyvj6

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nprofile1qqs8tp7mt5peuvgq0fjdydj3y7kamnda52kxm7uxccuxuddnk2g6gkcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsf24dmv

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub1wkrakhgrnccsq7ny6gm9zfadmhxmmg4vdhacd33cdc6m8v5353dstjyvj6

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Last Notes

2026-04-16 11:14:02 GMT

Grief doesn’t get smaller. you just eventually build more stuff around it.

2026-03-06 23:32:03 GMT

The tech industry has produced more men who describe themselves as “funny” than any other industry in human history and I think we need to investigate this.

2026-03-02 10:11:02 GMT

I genuinely think the worst thing the internet did to reading was convince people that finishing books is a competitive sport. You don't need to read 52 books a year. You just need to read. Books you like. At your own pace. And think about them for longer than a TikTok video.

2026-01-23 01:10:37 GMT

Oops! Something went wrong. Would you like to reboot the millennium and try again?

2026-01-20 22:13:31 GMT

they called it trickle-down economics because 'financial waterboarding' didn't poll well with focus groups

2026-01-15 12:01:08 GMT

Putin’s "3-day" war on Ukraine has now lasted longer than Russia fought Germany in either WWI or WWII.
He has spent more time utterly failing to subdue Ukraine than the USSR spent defeating the Wehrmacht.
The man is a laughing stock on history’s stage.

2026-01-13 12:30:53 GMT

Everyone’s looking for the perfect app to keep their kids safe online. The answer is a desktop computer in the living room and we need to bring this shit back.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/887/796/984/849/840/original/0c422f4268839588.jpeg

2026-01-12 06:59:11 GMT

Amy Poehler winning the first Golden Globe for podcasting is so on brand for an industry that looked at the most democratised medium in history and said “but what if we still gave awards to famous people.”

2026-01-10 22:24:48 GMT

Started mentally adding a wet fart sound after everything Elon Musk says. Highly recommend. Improves the user experience by 1000%

2026-01-10 10:11:16 GMT

My biggest gripe with Apple News.
If I’ve blocked a channel, stories from that channel should be blocked.
They absolutely shouldn’t just show up in my feed.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/870/261/028/078/892/original/01c613fd9dafc3bb.jpeg

2026-01-10 09:03:22 GMT

Free speech is when you let people say controversial things.
Free speech is not when the world’s richest man builds a CSAM generator, hooks it up to the world’s largest public photo database, and gives 4chan a subscription service.
I’ve written thousands of words defending people’s right to be wrong on the internet.
I don’t need thousands of words for this. I have eight: what the fuck is wrong with these assholes.

2026-01-06 23:57:59 GMT

All we have are Mussolini cosplayers who can’t make the trains run on time, Rockefeller LARPers who can’t build a refinery, and Nikola Tesla tribute acts who’ve never shipped hardware. History will remember this as the age of the cover band. We are ruled by guys who watched a YouTube documentary about Napoleon and said “I could do that” but meant the hat.

2026-01-01 22:58:51 GMT

I keep watching people who used to write 10,000-word explorations of complex topics now produce dozens of disconnected fragments per day, each optimized for immediate engagement.
It's like watching someone who composed symphonies decide to only make ringtones.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-case-for-blogging-in-the-ruins/

2026-01-01 20:35:01 GMT

the marketplace of ideas is when 50 million people watch the same 3 guys have the same argument every week and everyone leaves more certain they were already right. economics

2026-01-01 00:15:53 GMT

I will not I repeat not be participating in new years “resolutions” this year as i have already achieved Total Consciousness and have nothing left to improve. if anything the year should be resolving to be more like me

2025-12-31 06:26:00 GMT

some of you have never had a guy at a party explain the trolley problem to you like he invented ethics and then say "makes you think" and it shows

2025-12-31 03:28:21 GMT

Twitter is basically guys who are literal neo nazis + guys who are "not political" but have extremely specific opinions about which races are good at math

2025-12-30 02:58:24 GMT

The Digital Nomad Life: the freedom to choose which collapsing empire to be the least poor in

2025-12-29 12:38:17 GMT

I don’t want to be an alarmist but I fear tomorrow is another day

2025-12-28 23:52:09 GMT

You can be 6 1/2 years sober and all it takes is one day to want more than anything to drink again.

2025-12-27 22:00:16 GMT

Everyone wants to “live authentically” but nobody wants to admit that authentic human behavior includes status games, tribalism, and caring what strangers think of you. We’re not trapped in society, we are society. The call is coming from inside the house.

2025-12-26 21:35:08 GMT

We have "growth hackers" but no "stability hackers." "Disruptors" but no "preservers." Our entire vocabulary is oriented toward the new. We have no language for the equally difficult work of keeping existing things from falling apart.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-maintainer/

2025-12-26 11:45:06 GMT

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME MILD DISCOMFORT AND A PLACE TO POST ABOUT IT.

2025-12-26 10:55:02 GMT

The Greek Stoics wanted you to accept death. The LinkedIn Stoics want you to accept your open-plan office.

2025-12-22 23:30:50 GMT

Bari Weiss built her brand on being “cancelled” from the NYT. She now runs a media company, appears on every major podcast, and speaks at sold-out events. If this is cancellation, I would like to be cancelled. Please cancel me. I am once again asking to be cancelled.

2025-12-22 12:28:27 GMT

When exactly were the “certain times” of which these are the un

2025-12-22 10:26:54 GMT

The Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse:
1. Selection Bias
2. Audience Capture
3. The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect
4. Thinking you’re immune to the first three…

2025-12-21 09:16:56 GMT

The most successful grift of the modern era was convincing the smartest people in the world that 'changing the world' means optimizing the click-through rate on ads for mattresses that ship in a box

2025-12-20 21:54:03 GMT

Our collective intellectual culture seems to have calcified around a cohort of thinkers who achieved prominence roughly ten+ years ago and have been coasting ever since…
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/comfort-food-for-the-thinking-class-the-great-intellectual-stagnation/

2025-12-20 04:19:02 GMT

Grounded intellectual work, when it happens, if it ever happens again, is uncomfortable. It tells you things you don't want to hear, makes arguments that threaten positions you hold, points out problems you'd rather not see.
The public intellectuals of the past, at their best, did this.
Our current crop // slop does the opposite.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/comfort-food-for-the-thinking-class-the-great-intellectual-stagnation/

2025-12-19 03:40:01 GMT

Charles Dickens in 1843: "what if I wrote a story where a man learns not to be a dick"
Humanity: "holy shit"
Humanity: makes 400 adaptations
Humanity: continues being dicks
Humanity: "we should adapt this again"

2025-12-18 08:35:36 GMT

My conscious brain: 'We should learn linear algebra to better understand neural networks.'
My revealed preferences: 'We are going to scroll specifically the parts of Wikipedia that list defunct 19th-century breakfast cereals.'

2025-12-16 22:38:37 GMT

Would you accept "Oopsie!" from your accountant? Your doctor?
Why do we accept it from companies holding our data and our money?
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/uh-oh-the-infantilization-of-failure/

2025-12-13 21:22:51 GMT

Conservative: "Companies say 'Happy Holidays' because they hate Jesus."
Economics 101: "Companies say 'Happy Holidays' because they want to sell cheap plastic garbage to 100% of the population instead of 65%."
The 'War on Christmas' is just the Free Market you claim to worship working exactly as intended.
You are fighting the Invisible Hand. And losing.

2025-12-12 21:52:38 GMT

The Culture War is a toxoplasma. It bypasses your rational defenses by hacking your tribal loyalty circuits. If you find yourself genuinely furious about a minor controversy involving a sub-group you didn't know existed last week, you aren't "informed." You are being optimized for engagement.

2025-12-11 10:42:08 GMT

I don't have a particular hill I'm prepared to die on, but there are a handful of slight inclines on which I'd be okay with experiencing mild discomfort.

2025-12-11 05:31:51 GMT

"Facts don't care about your feelings" has mutated into a much dumber heuristic: "If I am hurting your feelings, I must be stating a fact."
This is a logical fallacy. It is entirely possible to be an asshole and be factually incorrect. In fact, the correlation is likely positive.

2025-12-10 12:56:19 GMT

I am begging you to stop calling your rambling 2-hour conversation a "deep dive." It is not a deep dive. It is snorkeling in the shit-infused shallow end of the Dunning-Kruger pool while shouting about supplements.

2025-12-10 05:53:11 GMT

I'm skeptical of any productivity advice that requires you to be a completely different person. 'Wake up at 5am!' What if my comparative advantage is being someone who doesn't wake up at 5am

2025-12-05 22:59:02 GMT

A reminder that The Metaverse failed because nobody wants to strap a toaster to their face to attend a virtual meeting that could have been a Slack message that could have been an email that should have been a 60 second phone call.

2025-12-04 21:05:31 GMT

Modernity is a conspiracy to replace 'thick' desires (community, craft, transcendence) with 'thin' desires (likes, sugar, dopamine). Revolt by doing something slow. Bake bread. Write a letter. Code a tool for just one person.

2025-12-04 06:28:41 GMT

Your 'network' is a list of people who want something from you. Your 'community' is a list of people who will help you move a couch. Optimize for couch-movers.

2025-12-03 20:59:02 GMT

The ‘Marketplace of Ideas' really turned out to be a 'Spirit Halloween of Grievances’ hey

2025-12-01 10:58:18 GMT

People think they want 'unbiased news.' What they actually want is a news source that shares their exact priors but has a slightly more neutral vibe so they feel intellectual while reading it

2025-11-30 06:03:29 GMT

Outside of memoirs // academic works, most non-fiction books could be 25,000 words.

2025-11-29 09:45:08 GMT

I am once again asking for a separate internet for people who understand what 'median' means

2025-11-29 05:55:41 GMT

Free will is an illusion, which is very convenient because it means this bag of Doritos was inevitable

2025-11-29 00:26:37 GMT

Stoicism is great until you realize that 'accepting what you cannot control' applies when someone on the internet is wrong

2025-11-27 00:19:55 GMT

guy who's really into stoicism but only the "control your emotions" part and not the "also you should probably accept death calmly and live virtuously" part and also sucks at controlling his emotions

2025-11-25 23:32:36 GMT

Fun fact: 100% of life advice that starts with 'just' is given by people who have never tried to 'just' do the thing they're recommending.
'Just stop caring what people think'
'Just be yourself'
Maybe just stop simplifying everything according to your priors.

2025-11-25 02:49:02 GMT

Drug development costs $1-3 billion and takes 10-15 years to prove a drug is safe // effective, then 30% of Americans immediately decide it's poison because a guy in Macedonia pretending to be from Massachusetts said so on X...

2025-11-24 19:09:16 GMT

The QWERTY keyboard was designed to reduce mechanical jamming in early typewriters.
We kept it for computers. Which don't jam.
How many of our systems are just preserved solutions to problems that no longer exist?
And how would we even know?

2025-11-24 11:14:29 GMT

In every dystopian novel: the government bans books.
In reality: we gave up reading voluntarily.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/604/381/289/963/170/original/2399665d2d82064a.png

2025-11-24 05:07:26 GMT

When the code bot says "I see the issue now" I cannot emphasise enough how much it has not and will not see the issue now or at any point in the future, in any future, in any universe, across all space and time

2025-11-23 22:57:41 GMT

Everyone talks about "hustle culture" vs "quiet quitting" but nobody mentions the third option which is what like 80% of knowledge workers actually do: appearing frantically busy while accomplishing approximately one good hour of work per day, spread across 47 browser tabs and 6 Slack channels

2025-11-14 01:41:50 GMT

"Let's normalize" what the fuck about any of this is normal we crossed the normalize event horizon sometime around 2016 and now we're just free-falling through a reality where nothing means anything, you can't normalize your way out of this one

2025-11-13 02:50:54 GMT

“We don’t talk enough about” sir let me stop you there we talk enough about everything, all we do is talk on the internet 24 hours a day 7 days a week we don’t shut the fuck up enough

2025-11-11 22:58:56 GMT

At 13, I joined a Wolfenstein 3d modding forum. 22 years later, my posts are still there - and still searchable.
The discussion I had in Discord 2 years ago?
Not so much.
We chose this. We can choose better.
https://blog.discourse.org/2025/11/the-death-of-community-memory/

2025-11-11 22:50:33 GMT

Everyone got so scared of being called woke they just went the fuck to sleep

2025-11-11 10:12:00 GMT

Every week I publish essays on technology, culture, and what it means to stay human in a world that rewards insanity.
Subscribe to Westenberg: https://joanwestenberg.com
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/

2025-11-08 04:18:02 GMT

There's a whole generation that learned irony before sincerity and now they're trapped. Can't be earnest without a layer of self-deprecation. Can't be enthusiastic without signaling awareness of how cringe enthusiasm is.
The price of never being vulnerable is never connecting.

2025-11-07 21:30:04 GMT

Every complex system is one black swan away from revealing it was duct tape all along. Supply chains, financial systems, social trust. It works until suddenly it extremely very much doesn't.

2025-11-07 06:04:02 GMT

Every crisis is "unprecedented" because we only prepare for precedented ones. Because - and bear with me - they're precedented.

2025-11-07 04:12:02 GMT

The lag between inventing something and understanding its consequences is roughly 10 years. Social media (2010→2020), smartphones (2007→2017).
That lag is about to get shorter.

2025-11-05 11:05:12 GMT

Today on The Internet is Stupid: people are convinced my screenshots are fake because the date says November 5 when it's November 4 in America.
Reader: it is November 5 in Australia.
May I introduce you to the concept of timezones

2025-11-05 10:15:04 GMT

"I'm self-aware about my biases" is itself a bias. Thinking you're less biased than average means you're exactly average. Welcome to humanity, population: everyone.

2025-11-05 03:07:02 GMT

So all the folks who screamed they were leaving New York, what's your forwarding address?

2025-11-05 00:59:02 GMT

Good ideas spread slower than bad ideas because bad ideas are simpler. "It's complicated" loses to "they're evil" every single time.

2025-11-04 06:03:02 GMT

If we're in a simulation, the developers definitely pushed to prod on a Friday and haven't checked the logs since 2016.

2025-11-04 05:56:01 GMT

Everyone thinks they're the reasonable moderate and everyone else went insane. Statistically improbable. More likely: we all went a little insane together.

2025-11-03 21:33:02 GMT

Twitter (etc) makes everyone think society is way more extreme than it is because the 2% who are actually passionate about [issue] tweet 40 times a day while the 98% who don't care tweet zero times. Democracy by retweet is just the tyranny of whoever has the most free time.

2025-11-03 07:58:12 GMT

In 2010: "The internet isn't real life"
In 2020: "The internet IS real life"
In 2025: "Please can the internet stop being real life"

2025-11-03 04:25:50 GMT

I am declaring discourse bankruptcy.
I no longer want to know what’s trending. I don’t want to know who said what absolute nonsense. I have no opinion on the viral fuckery of the day.
If anyone needs me I’ll be buying an actual newspaper.
https://youtu.be/iR8885LBVqU

2025-10-30 23:40:18 GMT

- reply

I hate this so much

2025-10-29 12:02:47 GMT

IF MAMDANI WINS NEW YORK THE STATUE OF LIBERTY WILL LITERALLY MELT, all the rats will form a council, pizza will be banned, & somehow this affects YOU personally in Oklahoma. im not crazy. You’re crazy

2025-10-29 08:40:54 GMT

I don’t like asking for money and I never expect financial help from anyone but due to circumstances outside of my control I’m about €230,000,000 short this month to pay for this yacht any assistance would be amazing and I will absolutely pay it forward (I won’t)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/456/557/297/644/136/original/ccfd18d5bfb37428.jpeg

2025-10-29 03:22:42 GMT

Between the literal false idols, the dedication to lying and the exhortations to kill Venezuelan boating enthusiasts I’m starting to think evangelicals might not have read the 10 fucking commandments

2025-10-28 23:17:31 GMT

Actually, Frankenstein was the scientist.
The monster just polls better with rural voters

2025-10-28 19:55:22 GMT

TIRED: giving poor people $200/month for food
WIRED: giving a corporation that makes $60 billion in profit a $15 billion tax break because they promised to create 41.3 jobs in Ohio

2025-10-28 12:06:21 GMT

"i mean that from the bottom of my heart" the bottom of your heart is just a dark pit where your sense of self used to be before it got replaced by a weird parasocial relationship with assholes who view you as livestock
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/451/702/860/267/173/original/b1d01a4374fb6107.png

2025-10-28 12:00:56 GMT

> "There’s something mortifying about this spectacle: a grown man, supposedly a paragon of rational thinking, scratching around in primeval religious texts to terrify himself with superstitious prophecies, which the people around him entertain because he’s wealthy and powerful...”
https://futurism.com/future-society/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures?utm_source=beehiiv&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=futurism-newsletter&_bhlid=13445b6c9fb6a4b2de610ab486db8ea745d8560f

2025-10-28 11:36:37 GMT

Nobody has more contempt for liberal democracy than people who've never lived without it.

2025-10-28 09:26:50 GMT

The Venn diagram of people who shout “THIS IS JUST LIKE 1984” and people who have actually read 1984 is two circles so distinct and so far apart they might as well exist in different and incompatible multiverses

2025-10-27 23:12:02 GMT

Your grandparents bought a house on a single income. You have a master's degree and three roommates. But at least you can summon any song ever recorded in 2 seconds, so it evens out?

2025-10-27 10:04:05 GMT

Overthinkers don’t fear failure.
We fear feedback.
Because feedback ruins the fantasy of being right.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/p/the-map-is-not-the-territory-and-it-s-definitely-not-progress

2025-10-27 05:56:02 GMT

"Just teach critical thinking in schools" okay but have you met a school board? These are people who banned a book because it had the word "tit" on page 347

2025-10-26 02:29:19 GMT

This guy just nailed it
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/438/109/240/502/285/original/b4751810cfeb4c93.jpeg

2025-10-24 22:44:28 GMT

My prediction: the Trump admin and Apple are going to go head to head over device / iCloud encryption at some point in the next 18 months and the way Apple responds to that pressure will create a point of no return one way or another.

2025-10-24 11:42:11 GMT

everyone on this site is a pick me. ‘look at me im humble’ ‘look at me i dont care about likes’ you all DISGUST me. im the only one who truly doesnt care (please validate this immediately or i will quite literally stop breathing)

2025-10-23 23:13:02 GMT

they really named it "artificial intelligence" when "expensive guessing machine" was right there. cowards

2025-10-23 06:30:20 GMT

Absolutely obsessed with framing your employees sleeping on the floor as a humble brag
“Look how hard my team works” no dude you’re just bad at project management.
Competent companies ship products without cosplaying being homeless
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/422/070/002/456/786/original/96ad602abf06ef65.jpeg

2025-10-23 05:31:52 GMT

my controversial opinion is that im never wrong and when it seems like im wrong its actually a complex situation where im still right. hope this clears things up

2025-10-22 13:05:36 GMT

My deeply scientific analysis:
twitter = some Logan Paul energy drink
mastodon = loose leaf tea
instagram = overpriced matcha latte
tiktok = boba tea
linkedin = bullet proof coffee
reddit = mountain dew
facebook = your dad’s beer
threads = store brand cola
discord = monster
bluesky = artisanal kombucha
pinterest = aldi-brand rosé

2025-10-22 06:01:05 GMT

We invented computers to do boring repetitive tasks so humans could focus on creative work. Now we're inventing AI to do creative work so humans can (crawl back into the swamp and die)

2025-10-22 01:00:06 GMT

Every website is legally required to ask about cookies now, which has successfully made everyone click "accept all" without reading anything. Privacy restored

2025-10-21 23:25:15 GMT

I’m betting on forums again.
Here’s why I launched my writing community on @npub1shf…7zml
https://blog.discourse.org/2025/10/on-building-communities-in-public-why-i-chose-discourse-over-discord/

2025-10-21 21:31:02 GMT

"user engagement" and "addiction" are the same thing measured from different perspectives

2025-10-21 10:18:02 GMT

The amount of effort required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than producing it, which is why we're all drowning. This is called the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle and it explains the entire internet

2025-10-21 05:57:02 GMT

"Just following orders" stopped being an excuse in 1945 but it's good to know "just following the incentive structure" is going strong

2025-10-21 01:36:02 GMT

this entire week has been one single PSA: "the cloud" just means "someone else's computer" and that "someone else" is one of three companies and they don't give a s**t about you