Hi Sarah--I've been reading your writing for a long time, definitely before there was a substack, and I've always loved it. I work in higher ed, and your thread in this piece about AI and the death of any meaningful information because, well, humans don't want to talk to each other any more, is spot on. My best students are in prison. Why? They have no internet and have to write by hand. Anyway, thank you for your work.
This is amazing in a way that I'm not smart enough to explain. This is the second essay (article?) I've read of yours since landing on substack just after the election. I'm definitely gonna grab your book. Something about your writing is so perfect. I'm sure it hits different people in different ways, but it feels like a Sophia Coppola movie or something nostalgic that makes one happy and sad at the same time. You totally nail the internet of garbage, and printed brochures as the antidote. I love that. Your vacations remind me of growing up in the 80's. I appreciate how you can see good things but keep it honest by acknowledging the awful.
Thank you! This is such a weird article so I'm glad folks like it. It's weird because the actual road trip was weird, but also because life rolls on under a veil of faux-normality that is weirder and scarier than any paranormal phenomena...
What you say about 'life rolling on under a veil of faux-normality' is spot-on imo - I sense it as well and perceive it to be expanding and accelerating. It's causality I see as complex and multi-faceted but technology is a big part of it, and historical events.
What frightens me about it is that I sense a decreasing capacity for empathy and human connection (or does this continue to survive closer to people?).
The truth, or 'reality', on the public stage still matters to those directly affected by events or circumstances of course, but for most of us, at the most, there's faux or confected outrage, social media conflict, and shallow virtual identity formation and allegiances.
The truth barely matters to the general public - and most politicians - imo not just because of lack of trust in the truth, but mainly because hardly anyone really cares anymore. Look at Gaza.
I see the decreased capacity for empathy too, and I think social media makes it much worse, so my consolation is that people are often kinder in person than online. They are incentivized to be cruel. That doesn't excuse the behavior -- or prevent some of it from actually altering who someone is inside, certainly making them more accustomed to cruelty -- but we may be seeing something misleading. On social media, the worst voices rise to the top. I don't know how to incentivize compassion other than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and hope people take it to heart. Folks keep asking what they can do to solve huge catastrophes but "be kind to each other and argue in good faith" goes a long way to reestablish the trust necessary to tackle greater social problems.
good points. luckily, i see a lot of compassion and empathy in the cats and dogs of twitter community. our hearts have been very sad with recent losses of Rex and Kuno on twitter accounts and the outpouring of empathy and compassion brings tears and hope. as Rex (his mom) always posted on the goodnight posts, kindness matters
Been trying to delete this comment. It must have been in the middle of the night when my mind was working overtime. Sorry for the rant. I will keep trying to delete it
Neil, excellent observation. As an entropy fan, even though entropy deals with the physical aspects of science, in a way this "faux-normality" you describe can be attributed to a form of social entropy. As millions of us become detached from reality from our superficial online "connections" and complicated lives, empathy decline is leading to a less organized, less cohesive fabric in the same way entropy works in our closed system of surviving this planet. Our lives that are becoming so complicated, well, it simply means entropy is increasing as well. As entropy is defined: there is no going back to the way things were. So you're not wrong, my friend, we're on the same merry-go-round as you, trying our best to hang on to that outside bar before being tossed off! Take care.
i love this article! finally got to read it. i grew up in AR - knew about devil's den but not the bootleg camp lol i have really felt the impact of info - where to get info, is it reliable, etc. seems worse up to the election and more so now. searches online are ridiculous. have a hard time finding breaking news on washington post (have subscription).too many news articles bury important information well into the article or feels disjointed.
Read all of them. Her 1st, VIEW FROM FLYOVER COUNTRY, a book of essays that you find yourself reading over and over. A good introduction to Sarah and her incredible mind and unique writing ability. No matter what you read you come out wanting more. I don't know about you but I usually can't wait to get to the end of a book. Not so with Sarah. Your life is enriched by her writings.
You say you are not smart enough to explain, and then you go on to beautifully capture Sarah's gift for conveying the state we are in. I'd say you are smart enough.
It's a statement on the world we're living in that I was so moved by this small act of kindness toward a stranger from another stranger. Thank you for saying this - it's a balm in these times.
A lot of place names that contain “devil” were named by tribal people as places of spirit. From the white man's point of view, a tribal person's spirit must be a demon. Hence the name change. But many were considered sacred places.
Thank you for mentioning this. I know this is true regarding Devil’s Lake near Baraboo, WI. It’s usually quite busy with families young and old. One rainy afternoon my wife and I found ourselves to be the only ones kayaking on the entire lake. No one else was around, and we could hear only the rain. It was a totally different experience— emotionally, and yes, spiritually. We’ll never forget it!
Such a nice way for us to start the New Year with a Sarah story and bringing up a Marvin Gaye song 54 years old and relate it to current times. (I was 11 when it came out as a protest song) You also continue to remind us that our true meaning is found in human connection with a clarion call for empathy. Which is why, like you, I will not be siloed in 2025. Thank you again for shining a light and telling the stories of our forgotten, ignored places in America.
You are so good, so transporting as a writer. I think I restacked this three times. I'm in music, and the Marvin Gaye quote alone was spot-on. Thank you
Some of my family members just got back from the St. Louis to Flagstaff route 66 drive. They stopped at the always impressive Alabaster Caverns. But the highlight of their time in Oklahoma was at the Woody Guthrie Museum in Tulsa and the Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City. They brought back a great book on Guthrie, Museum tee shirts, a "Bound for Glory" mug and, most important for me, a little magnetic sign with the words that adorned Woody's guitars: "This machine kills fascists". Is a Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger possible in today's mega-MAGA noise?
After seeing the Dylan movie "A Complete Unknown", I was interested in learning a bit more about Woody Guthrie. Come to find out, he penned some lyrics about "Old Man Trump" lambasting a certain landlord during mid 1950's. Sadly, guitars cannot kill fascism, only people committed to never giving in to these despicable monsters.
A haunting article, no pun intended. In the "search for something real, even when it's not," you're a touchstone.
I'm reeling from the international criminal elite's evil plans--which you thoroughly warned us about--coming sharply into focus and seemingly happening at warp speed. No way to get off this dangerous ride, so I'm just holding on. You help.
You have such an enormous talent for interlacing objective and subjective. I look forward to The Last American Road Trip. and your photos, which always draw me in.
Hi Rebecca! I have you to thank for enlightening me about Sarah’s writing’s. What a gift! I too am bracing for the dark days ahead as I hone my intentions to bring as much compassion, wisdom and love into my daily walk through life. Sarah’s writings are magical in my quest for knowledge AND inspiration. Thank you both! ❤️
Sue, you were always one to bring compassion, wisdom and love to the world. You're being true to yourself, and we need that now more than ever. You're right--Sarah's writings are magical in guiding us!
I have read a lot about the enshitification of the internet courtesy of Cory Doctorow and by you. I started noticing especially in 2024 that Google, bc there are very few other choices and they are worse, would respond with an AI synopsis on a query "there's not much info on this topic BUT...here's info on a topic we decided is similar even if it is TOTALLY unrelated". No longer can you find odd facts or conjectures. No longer can you just get a bunch if things that might actually contain the info you sought. Google has decided AU us the new rules and all you need to know is what thier algorithm chooses to reveal. And what it reveals becomes more like the Oracle at Delphi everyday. Confusing and inscrutable.
I can’t stand it. The change is so dramatic, I’m not sure folks who don’t do research for a living grasp how severe it is. Back in 2017 I was able to write what eventually became HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT — a book that exposes a number of decades-long global crimes — by using resources in the public domain. Now most of the digital-native sources I used are deleted, the publications out of business, the archives paywalled or eliminated, and AI generated horseshit is in its place. It would be impossible for me to write HIDING or THEY KNEW now since library sources also turned digital during this time, and in many cases also ended up destroyed.
I have a theory that details of some high profile conspiracies may soon be verified (for example, who is on the Epstein tapes) but because of the ubiquity of AI, no one will trust that the information presented is real — allowing the conspirators to triumph again.
By eroding the utility of the search engine they have eroded the trust in the results while often just providing garbage results. It seems intentional and as you have pointed out us a way of erasing inconvenient history and facts. All at a time when we need the platform to work as in the past more than ever.
Love the off beat sites you visited. Thanks for sharing your impressions as well. My wife and I used to do a lot of road trips from St. Louis. Tried to stay at the Crescent once but it was too haunted to get past the front desk so we gladly left.
This piece resonates with me. I've been training A.I. (very ambivalently) for a living since July. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, and the implications of it, etc. but nothing coherent enough to write about yet. Maybe someday.
Thanks! AI freaks me out so I'm relieved that a good person like you is handling it instead of a Musk type. As a writer and scholar and lowkey Luddite though, it unnerves me badly.
Thank you for your kind words. If I'm able to pull my thoughts together and write something in the future (near or distant), I'll let you know. I signed an NDA so I can't talk about proprietary stuff or specifics, of course, but I can write in general terms about A.I. and LLMs and sort of my general thoughts, which might be enough to convey why I'm ambivalent, etc.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about the work you're doing. Like Rick and Sarah in this string, I'm frustrated and terrified by the gobbledygook AI produces and how I can't find more nuanced information due to paywalls.
This is the great AI gold rush. Any but general and generic info is considered proprietary. It'd be like asking an old time 49er where he thinks the gold is.
And we have to find things to ease our minds ….the beauty of nature and the warmth of voices and connection without wifi.
What a road trip share….thanks Sarah.
As this ex-NY’er sits over eggs in sunny Sydney, AU, the words you write bring me back to thoughts of the “homeland”.
I always told people I was a New Yawker instead of an American.
Not hiding my red, white and blue but colouring it in a different hue.
Now it doesn’t matter …and the start of this year with terror did not surprise me….somehow I thought this would be our lead in to 20 January and beyond.
Nature calls…nature soothes my soul and shows me what matters.
Although I am scared for my friends and family and most Americans….and whatever vibrates from Moscow to NY to Beijing to Gaza….I feel cocooned down here.
But I know it’s just a shot away…just a shot away.
Until I left NY in 1984…I called it the Centre Of The Universe….i definitely had that wrong…..
Hi Sarah--I've been reading your writing for a long time, definitely before there was a substack, and I've always loved it. I work in higher ed, and your thread in this piece about AI and the death of any meaningful information because, well, humans don't want to talk to each other any more, is spot on. My best students are in prison. Why? They have no internet and have to write by hand. Anyway, thank you for your work.
Thank you! And that's fascinating -- but not surprising -- about your best students.
This is amazing in a way that I'm not smart enough to explain. This is the second essay (article?) I've read of yours since landing on substack just after the election. I'm definitely gonna grab your book. Something about your writing is so perfect. I'm sure it hits different people in different ways, but it feels like a Sophia Coppola movie or something nostalgic that makes one happy and sad at the same time. You totally nail the internet of garbage, and printed brochures as the antidote. I love that. Your vacations remind me of growing up in the 80's. I appreciate how you can see good things but keep it honest by acknowledging the awful.
Thank you! This is such a weird article so I'm glad folks like it. It's weird because the actual road trip was weird, but also because life rolls on under a veil of faux-normality that is weirder and scarier than any paranormal phenomena...
What you say about 'life rolling on under a veil of faux-normality' is spot-on imo - I sense it as well and perceive it to be expanding and accelerating. It's causality I see as complex and multi-faceted but technology is a big part of it, and historical events.
What frightens me about it is that I sense a decreasing capacity for empathy and human connection (or does this continue to survive closer to people?).
The truth, or 'reality', on the public stage still matters to those directly affected by events or circumstances of course, but for most of us, at the most, there's faux or confected outrage, social media conflict, and shallow virtual identity formation and allegiances.
The truth barely matters to the general public - and most politicians - imo not just because of lack of trust in the truth, but mainly because hardly anyone really cares anymore. Look at Gaza.
I hope I'm wrong, because where would this lead?
I see the decreased capacity for empathy too, and I think social media makes it much worse, so my consolation is that people are often kinder in person than online. They are incentivized to be cruel. That doesn't excuse the behavior -- or prevent some of it from actually altering who someone is inside, certainly making them more accustomed to cruelty -- but we may be seeing something misleading. On social media, the worst voices rise to the top. I don't know how to incentivize compassion other than "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and hope people take it to heart. Folks keep asking what they can do to solve huge catastrophes but "be kind to each other and argue in good faith" goes a long way to reestablish the trust necessary to tackle greater social problems.
this is such an important comment/observation, Sarah.... perhaps deserving of a whole article...
Thanks, I may do that!
good points. luckily, i see a lot of compassion and empathy in the cats and dogs of twitter community. our hearts have been very sad with recent losses of Rex and Kuno on twitter accounts and the outpouring of empathy and compassion brings tears and hope. as Rex (his mom) always posted on the goodnight posts, kindness matters
Been trying to delete this comment. It must have been in the middle of the night when my mind was working overtime. Sorry for the rant. I will keep trying to delete it
Neil, excellent observation. As an entropy fan, even though entropy deals with the physical aspects of science, in a way this "faux-normality" you describe can be attributed to a form of social entropy. As millions of us become detached from reality from our superficial online "connections" and complicated lives, empathy decline is leading to a less organized, less cohesive fabric in the same way entropy works in our closed system of surviving this planet. Our lives that are becoming so complicated, well, it simply means entropy is increasing as well. As entropy is defined: there is no going back to the way things were. So you're not wrong, my friend, we're on the same merry-go-round as you, trying our best to hang on to that outside bar before being tossed off! Take care.
Well said, Neil and I hate to tell you that I can feel it, too.
i love this article! finally got to read it. i grew up in AR - knew about devil's den but not the bootleg camp lol i have really felt the impact of info - where to get info, is it reliable, etc. seems worse up to the election and more so now. searches online are ridiculous. have a hard time finding breaking news on washington post (have subscription).too many news articles bury important information well into the article or feels disjointed.
Cancel WaPo and use the money for Substacks!
Read all of them. Her 1st, VIEW FROM FLYOVER COUNTRY, a book of essays that you find yourself reading over and over. A good introduction to Sarah and her incredible mind and unique writing ability. No matter what you read you come out wanting more. I don't know about you but I usually can't wait to get to the end of a book. Not so with Sarah. Your life is enriched by her writings.
Thank you very much!
I just received View From Flyover Country last night and I love it.
Thanks, I'm happy to hear that!
You say you are not smart enough to explain, and then you go on to beautifully capture Sarah's gift for conveying the state we are in. I'd say you are smart enough.
It's a statement on the world we're living in that I was so moved by this small act of kindness toward a stranger from another stranger. Thank you for saying this - it's a balm in these times.
❤️
Haha. Thanks. I’m pretty average, but I can tell when something is special.
❤️
A lot of place names that contain “devil” were named by tribal people as places of spirit. From the white man's point of view, a tribal person's spirit must be a demon. Hence the name change. But many were considered sacred places.
Thank you for mentioning this. I know this is true regarding Devil’s Lake near Baraboo, WI. It’s usually quite busy with families young and old. One rainy afternoon my wife and I found ourselves to be the only ones kayaking on the entire lake. No one else was around, and we could hear only the rain. It was a totally different experience— emotionally, and yes, spiritually. We’ll never forget it!
I love how and where you led us here — a genuine meandering both freeing and terrifying.
Thank you!
Such a nice way for us to start the New Year with a Sarah story and bringing up a Marvin Gaye song 54 years old and relate it to current times. (I was 11 when it came out as a protest song) You also continue to remind us that our true meaning is found in human connection with a clarion call for empathy. Which is why, like you, I will not be siloed in 2025. Thank you again for shining a light and telling the stories of our forgotten, ignored places in America.
Thank you very much, and my best to you!
You are so good, so transporting as a writer. I think I restacked this three times. I'm in music, and the Marvin Gaye quote alone was spot-on. Thank you
Thank you very much!
Some of my family members just got back from the St. Louis to Flagstaff route 66 drive. They stopped at the always impressive Alabaster Caverns. But the highlight of their time in Oklahoma was at the Woody Guthrie Museum in Tulsa and the Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City. They brought back a great book on Guthrie, Museum tee shirts, a "Bound for Glory" mug and, most important for me, a little magnetic sign with the words that adorned Woody's guitars: "This machine kills fascists". Is a Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger possible in today's mega-MAGA noise?
After seeing the Dylan movie "A Complete Unknown", I was interested in learning a bit more about Woody Guthrie. Come to find out, he penned some lyrics about "Old Man Trump" lambasting a certain landlord during mid 1950's. Sadly, guitars cannot kill fascism, only people committed to never giving in to these despicable monsters.
For me, the best political songwriter right now is Jesse Welles: https://www.tiktok.com/@jessewelles/video/7449039358230859051
Roy Zimmerman is also really good: https://www.royzimmerman.com/videos.html
A haunting article, no pun intended. In the "search for something real, even when it's not," you're a touchstone.
I'm reeling from the international criminal elite's evil plans--which you thoroughly warned us about--coming sharply into focus and seemingly happening at warp speed. No way to get off this dangerous ride, so I'm just holding on. You help.
You have such an enormous talent for interlacing objective and subjective. I look forward to The Last American Road Trip. and your photos, which always draw me in.
Thank you! I'm reeling too; this month is stressful -- I was already bracing for inauguration day, but the first 12 hours of 2025 alone were enough.
Ain't it the truth?!
Hi Rebecca! I have you to thank for enlightening me about Sarah’s writing’s. What a gift! I too am bracing for the dark days ahead as I hone my intentions to bring as much compassion, wisdom and love into my daily walk through life. Sarah’s writings are magical in my quest for knowledge AND inspiration. Thank you both! ❤️
Sue, you were always one to bring compassion, wisdom and love to the world. You're being true to yourself, and we need that now more than ever. You're right--Sarah's writings are magical in guiding us!
I have read a lot about the enshitification of the internet courtesy of Cory Doctorow and by you. I started noticing especially in 2024 that Google, bc there are very few other choices and they are worse, would respond with an AI synopsis on a query "there's not much info on this topic BUT...here's info on a topic we decided is similar even if it is TOTALLY unrelated". No longer can you find odd facts or conjectures. No longer can you just get a bunch if things that might actually contain the info you sought. Google has decided AU us the new rules and all you need to know is what thier algorithm chooses to reveal. And what it reveals becomes more like the Oracle at Delphi everyday. Confusing and inscrutable.
I can’t stand it. The change is so dramatic, I’m not sure folks who don’t do research for a living grasp how severe it is. Back in 2017 I was able to write what eventually became HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT — a book that exposes a number of decades-long global crimes — by using resources in the public domain. Now most of the digital-native sources I used are deleted, the publications out of business, the archives paywalled or eliminated, and AI generated horseshit is in its place. It would be impossible for me to write HIDING or THEY KNEW now since library sources also turned digital during this time, and in many cases also ended up destroyed.
I have a theory that details of some high profile conspiracies may soon be verified (for example, who is on the Epstein tapes) but because of the ubiquity of AI, no one will trust that the information presented is real — allowing the conspirators to triumph again.
By eroding the utility of the search engine they have eroded the trust in the results while often just providing garbage results. It seems intentional and as you have pointed out us a way of erasing inconvenient history and facts. All at a time when we need the platform to work as in the past more than ever.
Thanks Sarah this is one of your best ! These are my favorite places and adventures as are you my favorite! Happy New Year !
Thank you!
Love the off beat sites you visited. Thanks for sharing your impressions as well. My wife and I used to do a lot of road trips from St. Louis. Tried to stay at the Crescent once but it was too haunted to get past the front desk so we gladly left.
This piece resonates with me. I've been training A.I. (very ambivalently) for a living since July. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, and the implications of it, etc. but nothing coherent enough to write about yet. Maybe someday.
Thanks! AI freaks me out so I'm relieved that a good person like you is handling it instead of a Musk type. As a writer and scholar and lowkey Luddite though, it unnerves me badly.
Thank you for your kind words. If I'm able to pull my thoughts together and write something in the future (near or distant), I'll let you know. I signed an NDA so I can't talk about proprietary stuff or specifics, of course, but I can write in general terms about A.I. and LLMs and sort of my general thoughts, which might be enough to convey why I'm ambivalent, etc.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about the work you're doing. Like Rick and Sarah in this string, I'm frustrated and terrified by the gobbledygook AI produces and how I can't find more nuanced information due to paywalls.
This is the great AI gold rush. Any but general and generic info is considered proprietary. It'd be like asking an old time 49er where he thinks the gold is.
I, for one, would love some insights from a professional AI trainer. That whole process is opaque to the lay person.
Definitely. If/when I do write something worth publishing online, I'll be putting it on my Substack. There is a lot to say.
And we have to find things to ease our minds ….the beauty of nature and the warmth of voices and connection without wifi.
What a road trip share….thanks Sarah.
As this ex-NY’er sits over eggs in sunny Sydney, AU, the words you write bring me back to thoughts of the “homeland”.
I always told people I was a New Yawker instead of an American.
Not hiding my red, white and blue but colouring it in a different hue.
Now it doesn’t matter …and the start of this year with terror did not surprise me….somehow I thought this would be our lead in to 20 January and beyond.
Nature calls…nature soothes my soul and shows me what matters.
Although I am scared for my friends and family and most Americans….and whatever vibrates from Moscow to NY to Beijing to Gaza….I feel cocooned down here.
But I know it’s just a shot away…just a shot away.
Until I left NY in 1984…I called it the Centre Of The Universe….i definitely had that wrong…..
Peace
This is my little digital paper airplane with “thank you” scrawled on the wings. Appreciate you!
This is hauntingly beautiful!
Thanks!
When Ms Kendzior makes a point, I listen. Here, in the gripping opening, Sarah evokes Stephen King. She is a 21st century Tom Wolfe.
Thank you!