3.20.26 - i like to think i know better
i feel i have given off too much of an air of narcissism, with my "long convoluted sentence structure" and "strange choice of adjectives". so, if possible, id like to make a course correction, despite knowing that most everybody has no interest what i have to say.
maybe this was a bad idea.
3.18.26 - on wasting time
it's a problem i think that most everybody, except those with a near-perfect will, face. and of course, modern technology has played a role in it, but i believe this occured even back in the days of blood-letting and exorcisms.
wasting time is an affiliction of the soul, a problem faced solely by beings capable of recognizing the importance of time. stars and plants cannot "waste time", and neither can the spend it, buy it, or utilize any of our money-based metaphors for it. likewise, i would argue a single-celled amoeba cannot "waste time": its actions are determined solely by its genetic signals, and thus, it has no conception of "seizing the day". it just does, and whether it does it efficiently or not is irrelevant in its eyes (of course, it can make the difference between life and death, but the cell is not aware of this fact.)
only the more intelligent organisms, capable of remembering their past actions clearly and learning from them, are capable of "wasting time". humans are not alone in this. birds can waste time, as can primates and dolphins and octopi. their cognitive abilties are (i assume) high enough that they are capable of seeing their own faults and recognizing the passage of time. humans are unique, however, in that our interconnected social networks and population of 8.2 billion and counting depends on us being productive and working together. and procrastination (wasting time) is very obviously the antithesis of what society calls for us.
i have described the act of wasting time as an affliction, something to be avoided, but is that true? after all, to quote the Vi Hart video i have cited previously, "efficiency is a tenet of capitalism, not a moral good". does it really matter if we don't waste time, that are actions are done as quickly as possible (spared no expense)? as long as it is done, what difference does it make in the end?
unless we solve the problem of death, time will always matter. we do not live forever, and if we wish to accomplish as much as we want in the little time that we have, it must be done efficiently. we must not "waste time". this is not to say that tasks should not be completed without quality assurance, or that we should complete as many actions as we can blindly and without thought. but we should try, as much as we can, to use our time to the fullest, for one day, it will run out.
that might be an obvious conclusion, but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth saying.
3.15.26 - a short rant about the internet, society, and the commodification of attention
i've thought about doing this for a while but it's only now that i think im finally using this website for something worthwhile.
it's become quite apparant to me, as i grow older, the effects of the internet, social media, and tech companies that i have been so deeply intertwined with since i was a 2nd grader checking out the extremely basic and outdated html guide in my elementary school library. and i admit that i have only been able to see this clearly through the influence of people who have created "content" for the internet and the denizens of it: namely musicians and comedians Will Wood and Bo Burnham, and today, Vi Hart's most recent video. their creations, that went viral through the almighty algorithms which are rapidly approaching the state of "new government" (despite only being machines optimized for maximal engagement) have ironically lead to the development of my sincere distaste, bordering on hatred, for these "platforms".
but it's not the technology: there is great value in the internet itself, in allowing people to connect with anything and anyone, and learn anything. but it was obvious from the very start that, if not managed properly, if corporations were allowed to dominate and take the place of the human voice it was designed to amplify, then things would go horribly wrong.
seems no one was paying attention.
yet i find it extremely difficult to distance myself from the technology, because it is specifically and intently manufactured to be as addictive as possible by utilizing real peoples' thoughts and emotions and creativity to hijack your dopamine receptors and increase time spent on their apps. it's not helped by the fact that, as a nearly gen alpha child, i was practically raised by the technology, as were all of my peers.
and i know that most of my peers don't recognize the effects of this tech on them, don't see the atomization of society it has created, don't see that culture has been torn apart and taped incoherently back together and then smashed into pieces. they don't see, or perhaps don't care, that attention has become a commodity, that thoughts can now be quantified and feelings sold on a market.
they don't see the legacy of the human race, the empires that have risen and fallen, the lives loved and lives lost, every conscious and unconscious thought and action of every human being, that has led us to here, where the massive tech corporations can levarage AI to control what we think we know. they don't see the billions of dollars of donations made by Google and others, going to our politicians who were born in the 1940s and have no understanding of the great con at play.
if all of my generation knew, and all of my generation cared, then we, as the future of the human race, could do something, could fix the dark path of the corporatocracy we are headed down. but that's not what's happening.
i don't know how to fix this. hell, i don't even know if it's possible to fix this. but i know that i'm not alone, that there is a group of my peers, no matter how small, that see what is happening, and agree with me.
my only hope is to find those people before it is too late.