Temu sells 100 million items. On the first page, I see $9 false teeth, $23 real cashmere, a $21 lawnmower, and a $3 underwire bra.

But no one opens Temu looking for teeth or cashmere or a lawnmower or a bra. Temu's purpose is to satiate an impulse. The app opens to a literal prize wheel. Blur your ontological eyes and there's not 100 million products, there's just one: cheap junk that feels good to buy.

Twitter is also full of cheap junk that feels good to buy. Take the age-old discourse:

User 1: "SF is better than NY".

User 2: "NY is better than SF."

These statements appear to be different, opposite even. But they are the same in all ways that matter. They match intent: generate likes and views. They provide equally null value. Their authors are corporeally different (boy, girl, AI) but have been trained either socially or by RLHF to combine x words for y effect.

The algorithm knows these statements are the same, that's why it shows you both. One arrow only needs one target.

Most insidious is that, unlike Temu, Twitter slowly turns you same too. You adopt the same beliefs, the same mindshare, the same cares and worse, the same apathy towards what doesn't make the feed.

I read every tweet in the same voice: my own. I don't think it's mine any more.