Net Positive in the Age of Infinite Slop
Why slowing down, thinking deeply, and keeping your soul in the loop matters more than ever.
Authors note, turns out I actually forgot to post this article, I wrote it last year after a voice note in my car, you get it now as I clean up my substack drafts, deal with it;
I keep coming back to this idea of net positive value.
If I’m going to put something into the world, an article, a video, a post, whatever, it has to actually do something.
I don’t mean “positive value” in some grand humanitarian sense. I mean:
Does this piece of content have a point?
Is there a real need for it?
Can I justify its existence beyond “I was bored and AI was open”?
If the answer is no, then honestly… why am I making it?
We Live in Content Heaven (and Hell)
Right now, we live in this weird hellscape utopia of content creation.
You can make a book in 5 seconds.
You can ship a web app in a weekend with AI doing half the work.
You can generate art, videos, landing pages, newsletters, nonstop.
On one hand, that’s amazing.
We basically live inside a content-generation machine. Anyone can be “creative,” even if they’re not traditionally talented in writing, design, coding, or art. You can use tools to amplify your ideas instead of being limited by your skills. That’s powerful.
But there’s the downside:
When everything is easy to make, we drown in slop.
Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should
This is the core tension for me:
Just because we can generate content with minimal effort
does not mean we should.
If you just throw stuff at the wall:
No thought
No checking
No fact‑checking
No editing
No real intent
…then the output is just noise. It’s not neutral, it’s negative value. It wastes attention, clutters feeds, and makes it harder for genuinely useful or thoughtful work to be found.
That’s where my idea of net positive content comes in.
Two Ways to Use AI: Soulless vs Soulful
I’m not anti‑AI.
I actually think AI is an incredible tool. But, and this is a big but, you still need:
Human intervention
Actual intent
A point of view
Some kind of soul
I feel like we’re currently playing on two very different fields:
Soulless AI content
50 articles pumped out in a day
No real care
No deep thinking
Just optimised for volume, SEO, or clicks
Soulful AI‑assisted content
One article you actually think about
AI helps you write or edit, like an extremely fast copy editor
It’s still your words, your brain, your taste
AI is a tool, not the author
Those are wildly different outcomes.
I’m firmly on the side of the second one.
Use AI like you’d use an editor, a copywriter, or a collaborator, not as a content hose you leave running.
The Case for Slowing Down
My thesis, at this point in time, is pretty simple:
It’s okay to be slow.
Life is allowed to be slower.
Creativity is allowed to be slower.
We don’t need to:
Post every day just because we can
Ship 10 mediocre things instead of one good thing
Treat our output like a content farm
Speed is great when we’re talking about things like medical research, climate solutions, science, the stuff where human lives and planetary futures are at stake. Go full throttle there. Please.
But in creative work?
It’s okay, actually better, to:
Take a step back
Think about what you’re making
Ask whether it adds anything to the world
Edit, refine, delete, restart
Not everything needs to exist just because it was easy to create.
A Simple Filter: Is This Net Positive?
I don’t have a neat framework name for this yet, but the filter in my head looks like:
Does this help someone understand something?
Does it make someone feel seen or less alone?
Does it teach, inspire, amuse, or genuinely help?
Or is it just filling space?
If it’s just filling space, I’d rather not add to the pile.
Because right now, we’ve got:
Content farms
Auto‑generated slop
People shipping just to ship
…and not enough people pausing to ask “Why?”
This Started as a Tired Voice Note
Funny thing: this whole piece started as a half‑coherent, sleep‑deprived voice note where I wasn’t even sure anything would be salvageable.
But that’s kind of the point.
I didn’t just record it, transcribe it, hit “publish,” and call it a day. I sat with it. Shaped it. Used tools to help clarify what I meant. Brought my own brain back into the loop.
That, to me, is what net positive content looks like in practice:
Use the tools
Keep your soul in it
Slow down enough to make something that actually matters
Because in a world where we can make anything in five seconds, the rare and valuable thing won’t be speed.
It’ll be care.