Why We're Optimizing Away Our Humanity

A LinkedIn post crossed my feed recently that i have been thinking a lot about. The author proudly announced they'd found a solution to one of modern communication's great "problems": rambling voice messages. Their breakthrough was to use AI to distill messy, wandering thoughts into clean, optimized summaries before sharing them with others.

"Don't be 'that guy' who sends friends, employees, or coworkers long audio messages filled with your unstructured thoughts," they warned. "Let AI make sense of your ideas first, then send something actually useful."

i am absolutely that guy. And I'm not sorry about it.

The Ritual of Rambling

My friends and i have developed what might seem like an inefficient communication habit. We send each other voice messages, sometimes 10+ minutes long, filled with our unfiltered thoughts, daily observations, half-formed insights, and the meandering paths our minds take as we work through problems.

These aren't professional communications or urgent updates. They're streams of consciousness, recorded while walking, driving, or lying in bed processing the day. They're rambling in the truest sense of the word.

And they've become some of the most meaningful exchanges i have with others.

What We Lose When We Optimize

The LinkedIn post frames long voice messages as "stealing time" from recipients by forcing them to listen to "unstructured thoughts." But this fundamentally misunderstands what's actually being exchanged in these communications.

When a friend sends me a wandering voice memo about their day, i'm experiencing how their mind moves. i hear their excitement build as they work through an idea. i catch the moment they make a connection mid-sentence. i feel their frustration as they struggle to articulate something complex and their relief when they finally find the right words.

i learn how they think, how they process information, how they arrive at conclusions. i witness their intellectual and emotional journey in real-time. It’s a beautiful thing.

An AI summary might capture their final thoughts but it strips away everything that makes the message uniquely them like the pauses, the tangents, the self-corrections, the moments of discovery. It removes the humanity from human communication.

The Sprint to Optimize Everything

We're living in an era of relentless optimization. We optimize our morning routines, our workflows, our diets, our exercise, our sleep. We measure everything, quantify everything, and constantly seek to make everything more efficient.

This optimization mindset has undeniable benefits in many areas of life but when we apply it indiscriminately to human connection, we risk optimizing away the very qualities that make relationships meaningful.

Communication isn't just about information transfer. If it were, we could replace all conversation with bullet points and executive summaries. But we don't communicate solely to convey data, we communicate to connect, to understand, to be understood, to share our inner worlds with others.

The Journey Matters More Than the Destination

There's profound value in sharing not just what we think but how we think. When someone trusts you with their unfiltered thought process, they're offering you something precious, their offering you access to their authentic mental landscape.

Those rambling voice messages reveal personality, character, and humanity in ways that polished summaries never could. They show us how someone's mind works when they're not performing, not presenting, not optimizing. They offer a window into another person's consciousness.

A Gift, Not a Burden

The LinkedIn author saw rambling voice messages as impositions, time-wasters that should be eliminated through technological intervention. But my friends and i have discovered these messages are gifts.

When someone shares their unstructured thoughts with you, they're saying, "I trust you with my real, unedited self. I want you to experience my thoughts, not just receive my conclusions. I value our connection enough to share the messy, non-linear way my brain actually works."

That's a form of generosity, not selfishness.

What Are We Really Optimizing For?

This brings us to the crucial question, what is the ultimate goal of all this optimization? If we're optimizing communication to save time, what are we doing with that saved time? If we're eliminating inefficiency, what are we making room for?

The assumption seems to be that faster, cleaner, more summarized communication is inherently better. But better for what? For productivity? For processing more information? For getting through our days more quickly?

What if some things are worth slowing down for? What if some inefficiencies are actually features, not bugs? What if the meandering, rambling, unoptimized way we naturally communicate contains irreplaceable value?

Preserving the Human

i'm not arguing against all optimization or suggesting that every communication should be a stream-of-consciousness rambling 10 minute voice memo. There are absolutely times when clarity, brevity, and efficiency are crucial. Professional contexts, urgent situations, and complex coordinations all benefit from structured communication.

But we need to preserve space for the unoptimized too. We need room for rambling, for meandering, for the gloriously inefficient ways humans actually think and connect.

As we try to optimize everything, we risk losing sight of what makes us human. We risk turning all communication into information transfer, all relationships into transactional exchanges, all thoughts into pre-processed summaries.

Some of the most meaningful moments in human connection happen in the spaces between the points, in the pauses and tangents and half-formed thoughts. Those are the moments where we see each other most clearly, where understanding deepens beyond mere information exchange.

The Courage to Ramble

So yes, i'll continue to be "that guy" who sends long, rambling voice messages to friends. I'll continue to share my unfiltered thoughts, my wandering observations, my inefficient mental processes.

Not because i don't respect my friends' time but because i trust them with my humanity. Not because i can't be more concise but because sometimes the ramble is the point. Not because i'm opposed to efficiency but because i'm committed to connection.