There was a version of the internet that made you smarter.

You’d fall into a Wikipedia rabbit hole at midnight and come out knowing about the Byzantine Empire, the physics of black holes, and how bread fermentation works. You’d read long forum threads where people actually debated ideas. You’d find blogs written by people who cared more about being right than being seen.

That internet is mostly gone.

What replaced it is faster, louder, and dumber. Not because the people got dumber. Because the systems got better at bypassing thought entirely.

Think about how you consume information now versus ten years ago.

You used to search for things. You had a question. You went looking for an answer. The act of searching required you to articulate what you didn’t know. That alone was a form of thinking.

Now information comes to you. Unsolicited. Algorithmic. Infinite. You don’t search. You scroll. And scrolling is passive. Your brain isn’t asking questions. It’s reacting to stimuli.

A search is an act of curiosity. A scroll is an act of consumption. They feel similar. They’re fundamentally different.

The shift from pull to push changed how billions of people interact with information. We went from actively seeking knowledge to passively absorbing content. And the content is selected not for its truth or its depth but for its ability to hold your attention for three more seconds.

There’s more information available right now than at any point in human history. And somehow people are less informed.

Because information isn’t knowledge. Information is noise until it passes through a filter of critical thinking, context, and verification. The internet produces infinite information. It produces almost no filtration.

What gets amplified? Takes. Hot takes. Fast takes. Emotional takes. The opinion economy rewards speed and confidence over accuracy and nuance. A wrong opinion posted in 30 seconds outperforms a careful analysis posted in 30 hours.

So the incentive structure selects for people who are fast and loud. Not people who are right and careful. Over time this shapes what the entire information ecosystem looks like. Shallow content drowns deep content. Not because people prefer it. Because the systems prioritize it.

Now add AI to the equation.

AI can generate plausible sounding content at a speed no human can match. Articles, tweets, summaries, analyses, opinions. Infinite volume. Zero thought behind any of it.

I work with AI every day. I build agents. I use it for research, drafting, brainstorming. It’s an incredible tool when directed by someone who knows what they’re doing.

But undirected AI output is just pattern matching at scale. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t verify. It doesn’t understand context or nuance or consequences. It produces text that looks like thinking without any thinking having occurred.

We’re flooding the internet with synthetic content that mimics understanding. Search results are filling with AI generated articles that rewrite other AI generated articles. Social feeds are filling with AI generated takes that sound authoritative and say nothing.

The volume of content that resembles thought is exploding. The volume of actual thought behind it is flat or declining.

This isn’t just about the content. It’s about what the content did to us.

• Years of algorithmic feeds trained specific behaviors. React fast. Form an opinion immediately. Share before you finish reading. Engage with emotion, not analysis. Take a side within seconds.

• These are the opposite of thinking. Thinking requires patience. It requires sitting with uncertainty. It requires changing your mind when evidence contradicts your position. It requires the uncomfortable admission that you might not know enough to have an opinion yet.

• The internet punishes all of that. Patience gets buried. Uncertainty gets ignored. Changing your mind gets called flip flopping. Admitting ignorance gets you mocked.

• So people stopped doing those things. Not consciously. Gradually. The system shaped the behavior, and the behavior became habit, and the habit became identity.

Now “having an opinion” feels like the same thing as “understanding a topic.” It’s not. It never was. But the feedback loops made it feel that way.

Here’s the flip side.

In a world where everyone is consuming the same feeds, reacting to the same stimuli, and producing the same takes, anyone who actually thinks independently becomes extremely visible.

Not loud. Not provocative for the sake of it. Just genuinely thoughtful. Doing the work of understanding before the work of publishing. Asking questions nobody else is asking because everyone else is too busy reacting.

Original thinking is becoming scarce. Like any scarce resource, its value is going up.

The creators, analysts, and builders who develop real depth in their domains will stand out more in the next five years than at any point in internet history. Because the contrast between depth and noise is widening every day.

AI makes noise cheap. That makes signal expensive.

This isn’t abstract. There are actual practices that help.

1. Read long form content. Not because short form is bad, but because long form forces your brain to sustain attention and build understanding across paragraphs, not just react to headlines.

2. Delay your opinions. When something happens, wait. Let information emerge. Let other people react first. Watch what initial takes get it wrong. Form your view after the dust settles, not during the explosion.

3. Seek out primary sources. When you see a claim, find where it originated. Not the tweet about it. Not the article about the tweet. The actual source. This one habit separates informed people from reactive ones.

4. Sit with discomfort. If something challenges what you believe, don’t dismiss it immediately. That discomfort is what thinking feels like. If your beliefs are never uncomfortable, you’re probably not thinking. You’re just consuming confirmation.

5. Produce more than you consume. Writing forces clarity. Building forces understanding. Creating forces you to organize your thoughts in ways that passive consumption never does. The act of making something is itself a form of thinking.

The tools are the same. Search engines still work. Libraries are still online. Primary sources are still accessible. Long form content still exists.

What changed is us. Our habits. Our patience. Our willingness to do the slow work of understanding before the fast work of reacting.

The internet is a mirror. It reflects whatever we bring to it. Bring curiosity and it rewards you with knowledge. Bring passivity and it rewards you with noise.

The people who win in the next decade won’t be the ones with the most information. They’ll be the ones who can actually think about it.

That’s not a skill you’re born with. It’s a practice you build.

Start building.

There was a version of the internet that made you smarter.

You’d fall into a Wikipedia rabbit hole at midnight and come out knowing about the Byzantine Empire, the physics of black holes, and how bread fermentation works. You’d read long forum threads where people actually debated ideas. You’d find blogs written by people who cared more about being right than being seen.

That internet is mostly gone.

What replaced it is faster, louder, and dumber. Not because the people got dumber. Because the systems got better at bypassing thought entirely.

Think about how you consume information now versus ten years ago.

You used to search for things. You had a question. You went looking for an answer. The act of searching required you to articulate what you didn’t know. That alone was a form of thinking.

Now information comes to you. Unsolicited. Algorithmic. Infinite. You don’t search. You scroll. And scrolling is passive. Your brain isn’t asking questions. It’s reacting to stimuli.

A search is an act of curiosity. A scroll is an act of consumption. They feel similar. They’re fundamentally different.

The shift from pull to push changed how billions of people interact with information. We went from actively seeking knowledge to passively absorbing content. And the content is selected not for its truth or its depth but for its ability to hold your attention for three more seconds.

There’s more information available right now than at any point in human history. And somehow people are less informed.

Because information isn’t knowledge. Information is noise until it passes through a filter of critical thinking, context, and verification. The internet produces infinite information. It produces almost no filtration.

What gets amplified? Takes. Hot takes. Fast takes. Emotional takes. The opinion economy rewards speed and confidence over accuracy and nuance. A wrong opinion posted in 30 seconds outperforms a careful analysis posted in 30 hours.

So the incentive structure selects for people who are fast and loud. Not people who are right and careful. Over time this shapes what the entire information ecosystem looks like. Shallow content drowns deep content. Not because people prefer it. Because the systems prioritize it.

Now add AI to the equation.

AI can generate plausible sounding content at a speed no human can match. Articles, tweets, summaries, analyses, opinions. Infinite volume. Zero thought behind any of it.

I work with AI every day. I build agents. I use it for research, drafting, brainstorming. It’s an incredible tool when directed by someone who knows what they’re doing.

But undirected AI output is just pattern matching at scale. It doesn’t think. It doesn’t verify. It doesn’t understand context or nuance or consequences. It produces text that looks like thinking without any thinking having occurred.

We’re flooding the internet with synthetic content that mimics understanding. Search results are filling with AI generated articles that rewrite other AI generated articles. Social feeds are filling with AI generated takes that sound authoritative and say nothing.

The volume of content that resembles thought is exploding. The volume of actual thought behind it is flat or declining.

This isn’t just about the content. It’s about what the content did to us.

• Years of algorithmic feeds trained specific behaviors. React fast. Form an opinion immediately. Share before you finish reading. Engage with emotion, not analysis. Take a side within seconds.

• These are the opposite of thinking. Thinking requires patience. It requires sitting with uncertainty. It requires changing your mind when evidence contradicts your position. It requires the uncomfortable admission that you might not know enough to have an opinion yet.

• The internet punishes all of that. Patience gets buried. Uncertainty gets ignored. Changing your mind gets called flip flopping. Admitting ignorance gets you mocked.

• So people stopped doing those things. Not consciously. Gradually. The system shaped the behavior, and the behavior became habit, and the habit became identity.

Now “having an opinion” feels like the same thing as “understanding a topic.” It’s not. It never was. But the feedback loops made it feel that way.

Here’s the flip side.

In a world where everyone is consuming the same feeds, reacting to the same stimuli, and producing the same takes, anyone who actually thinks independently becomes extremely visible.

Not loud. Not provocative for the sake of it. Just genuinely thoughtful. Doing the work of understanding before the work of publishing. Asking questions nobody else is asking because everyone else is too busy reacting.

Original thinking is becoming scarce. Like any scarce resource, its value is going up.

The creators, analysts, and builders who develop real depth in their domains will stand out more in the next five years than at any point in internet history. Because the contrast between depth and noise is widening every day.

AI makes noise cheap. That makes signal expensive.

This isn’t abstract. There are actual practices that help.

1. Read long form content. Not because short form is bad, but because long form forces your brain to sustain attention and build understanding across paragraphs, not just react to headlines.

2. Delay your opinions. When something happens, wait. Let information emerge. Let other people react first. Watch what initial takes get it wrong. Form your view after the dust settles, not during the explosion.

3. Seek out primary sources. When you see a claim, find where it originated. Not the tweet about it. Not the article about the tweet. The actual source. This one habit separates informed people from reactive ones.

4. Sit with discomfort. If something challenges what you believe, don’t dismiss it immediately. That discomfort is what thinking feels like. If your beliefs are never uncomfortable, you’re probably not thinking. You’re just consuming confirmation.

5. Produce more than you consume. Writing forces clarity. Building forces understanding. Creating forces you to organize your thoughts in ways that passive consumption never does. The act of making something is itself a form of thinking.

The tools are the same. Search engines still work. Libraries are still online. Primary sources are still accessible. Long form content still exists.

What changed is us. Our habits. Our patience. Our willingness to do the slow work of understanding before the fast work of reacting.

The internet is a mirror. It reflects whatever we bring to it. Bring curiosity and it rewards you with knowledge. Bring passivity and it rewards you with noise.

The people who win in the next decade won’t be the ones with the most information. They’ll be the ones who can actually think about it.

That’s not a skill you’re born with. It’s a practice you build.

Start building.