I saw a post on a forum these past few days that mentioned: “If you can’t afford a Mac and can’t go to America, and won’t be able to afford a Mac or go to America in the future either, you can only rely on online information to build your understanding. You’ll likely choose information you like to construct your worldview. If your information sources are wrong, the more you think, the more wrong you become.”

Some people agreed below, but more were being sarcastic.

After seeing this statement, I understood what the poster was trying to say, but their expression wasn’t very good. Let me expand on this - consider it a topic essay.

In the internet age, everyone seems accustomed to picking up their phones whenever they have nothing to do, scrolling through this and that. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated recommendation algorithms, every app has its own “matrix” for you - your “user profile.” Anyone who has studied linear algebra should know that every matrix has its own characteristic matrix - yes, this is the core of recommendation algorithms.

So these “matrices” are like digital cages that trap you while keeping you unaware. Back to the original topic - what the poster meant was: many people mindlessly criticize Mac or Windows, but those people haven’t even bought one to experience it themselves. They get their “thinking” through information cocoons, see a comment that aligns with their thoughts, feel satisfied and swipe away, while ignoring other comments that disagree with them.

Now the internet is full of people promoting “running away” (emigrating), but when I talk to people who have actually lived in America in real life, I find that America isn’t that great, and China isn’t that bad. Recently, when our company had transfer opportunities to other countries, many people became reluctant because they had to start considering factors like overseas salaries, taxes, housing prices, convenience, differences between having and not having status, how long it takes to get status, etc. After considering all this, they felt that staying in China might be better. But among those who promote “running away,” how many would actually open Zillow to check housing prices in San Francisco or Vancouver?

Another example: when I was at Tencent, performance was rated on five levels. On Maimai or internal company forums, everyone thought four or five stars were good, most got three stars, and two stars meant you should quit. But when I talked to my team leader before leaving, I learned that when directors evaluate performance, they often give hardworking young people who work overtime four or five stars with average year-end bonuses, while giving their real trusted subordinates three stars with generous year-end bonuses. The reason is that young people like superficial things, while veterans prefer substance. Only these veteran subordinates can stabilize the director’s position. Giving overtime workers four or five stars makes everyone more competitive. Of course, the premise is that these people are also capable. However, no one usually tells you these facts. More often, people around you who also got three stars will hypocritically join you in complaining about unfairness and criticizing those who got four stars, but they’ll never tell you their actual year-end bonus numbers.

These two examples are somewhat anecdotal, but they at least illustrate one point: trying to find useful information online is like panning for gold in sand. If you’re lucky, you’ll find some; if not, you’ll waste a lot of time. If you even try to reason with others, it will only make this digital cage trap you tighter and tighter.

ChatGPT has been very popular recently, and everyone thinks it’s “revolutionary.” But in my humble opinion, it’s just a chatbot, albeit one with stronger abilities to collect and summarize information and broader applicable scenarios. Most importantly, it cannot think independently. I’m rather pessimistic and believe this bottleneck cannot be broken through in the foreseeable future. Yoshua Bengio might pass away with regrets.

So, we humans still possess the privilege of thinking. Put down your phone, read books by ancient sages, and then sleep peacefully.