So beautifully written...And, pointing out with such accuracy the many ways in which we are cooperating with the regime building...As an old person (67 and feeling like 87 some days) I remember well the days of friction and frequently grieve their loss...Thank you for all you are doing on behalf of all life on this precious and suffering planet...
Ah, your essays are passionate resistance poetry. Yes, the joy of friction of relationships, all of them. Here's to the gentle, gentle friction of sunlight on our eyes in the morning.
Great piece. As we are shoved down this "frictionless" hole, heat is building up, both on the planet and in the state of our mental health. At some point, the friction we are internalizing will explode. Unfortunately, this pent-up energy is likely to be divided, confused, too late, and ineffectual.
This insightful essay implicitly, and in some ways explicitly, demonstrates the deep societal misapprehension of the essence of technology as a method of humans 'working in the world.'
The greater the technical distance of the tool from the "head and hand" of the user, the more alienating and violent it becomes. Drone operators, "pilots," in a trailer in Nevada directing drones over Afghan villages suffered PTSD.
The greater the abstraction of a technology from the person, the more friction it creates in the world. I have long experienced a conflict between my pleasure in doing woodworking between hand tools and electrically driven machines. The machines clearly make the work more efficient, but they distance the worker from the work. That is okay to some extent, but taken to far it becomes an alienating force. Alienation is the opposite of community, compassion, and self respect.
Artificial Intelligence offers the maximum 'de-materialization" of intellectual life and artistic expression. That is why I and others are inserting an "AI Disclaimer" in writing a book. Someone recently suggested that an assertion, similar to a copyright, that no large language or similar system is permitted to use the content of the piece for providing text to teach language to an AI system.
We humans are now called upon by the very trajectory of technology as a tool of societal hierarchy to "get real" about human life in the Earth System, and what constitutes human value in how we work in the world.
Beautifully written. I don't know why but this piece brought out this memory from school, where this embryology professor used to say, "Sex is 100% friction."
"such technology was in fact 1000 workers in India watching shoppers and manually notating purchases. Amazon pushed back saying these workers only worked to verify the AI system." 📢👏🏻
The good news is this friction-full society is unsustainable, the more tech that is applied to us, the more energy it requires, the less energy the matrix will have left over for other stuff, like ECG machines, or cashpoints, or airport Instrument Landing Systems, or whatever. And as EROEI is now down to 6:1, ie we are using 16% of our energy to extract further energy, soon it'll be too expensive for governments to do things like fix potholes, repair worn out bridges & railways, build new tanks, etc, etc.
The simplest expedient is to simply not join in - I don't do direct debits, don't use social media, don't have internet at home (just using local library's for free), even Dyson just blew up & will replace with a broom, and am currently too poor to do online shopping. Oh, and throw away the TV, I class it as the 2nd worse weapon ever produced, 2nd only to nuclear weapons - because of it's power to shape the Overton Window, to adjust culture and promote consumerism.
Not having any electronic social inputs at home (no internet, no TV, no radio, no smart phone) is quite liberating, and has an immense psychological effect, as at first your brain fights it, seeking the fix, bit like a drug addiction. Takes a few weeks to get over it, but I do highly recommend it. Everything you don't buy over the internet, every tweet/FB post you don't do, is a micro-win for the environment.
All these 'degrowing' options will be forced on us all at some point anyway as Gaia reduces the population to sustainable carrying capacity, combined with warming by 2*C by 2026 and economic collapse - those that voluntarily decomplexify their lives now will have more chance of acceptance rather than outrage when collapse really kicks in.
This article and the article referenced by the in-story link to the Meta-Zuckerberg collaboration with the zionist "pre-crime" , genocide-affiliated, AI obscenity Lavender makes an extremely potent one-two punch; an impact that I have only experienced very few times in my 3/4 of a century lifespan. You do fabulous work. This demand much more exposure. Also nice to have confirmation about your stance regarding the zionist atrocity that is currently lawlessly occupying Palestine.
right, beautifully written! ❤️ too much friction can make a call to the Universe for technologies to smoothen things out some bits, but yeah, we need to have a good balance of frictions 🙏
Had signed up for this for the climate related content which has been quite interesting. If you are moving into comments on use of violence and tech in the political landscape it would be beholding on you to address this on both sides of the Isreal/Hamas conflict or maybe profile the Russias use of it in the Ukraine
Climate/genocide/war are all interconnected, particularly as Israel is engaging in ecocide as well. Military operations also are using major emissions. I don't see why the author would have to do more into depth about the origins of this genocide, as the facts are all clear and published really anywhere verifiable you can look. The author is simply using an obvious, current example of how AI worsens violence massively and allows the perpetrators to further dehumanize their "targets." It has been absolutely devastating to see what "tech" has done to an entire population - going past what even the humans in control would do.
Excellent stuff. You might like my piece about acquiring an anti-Moloch mindset. Moloch describes any game with incentives ensure that everyone loses out. Much like growth economics. https://medium.com/@barbarawilliams1/an-anti-moloch-mindset-ab8610f50131
So beautifully written...And, pointing out with such accuracy the many ways in which we are cooperating with the regime building...As an old person (67 and feeling like 87 some days) I remember well the days of friction and frequently grieve their loss...Thank you for all you are doing on behalf of all life on this precious and suffering planet...
Ah, your essays are passionate resistance poetry. Yes, the joy of friction of relationships, all of them. Here's to the gentle, gentle friction of sunlight on our eyes in the morning.
Great piece. As we are shoved down this "frictionless" hole, heat is building up, both on the planet and in the state of our mental health. At some point, the friction we are internalizing will explode. Unfortunately, this pent-up energy is likely to be divided, confused, too late, and ineffectual.
This insightful essay implicitly, and in some ways explicitly, demonstrates the deep societal misapprehension of the essence of technology as a method of humans 'working in the world.'
The greater the technical distance of the tool from the "head and hand" of the user, the more alienating and violent it becomes. Drone operators, "pilots," in a trailer in Nevada directing drones over Afghan villages suffered PTSD.
The greater the abstraction of a technology from the person, the more friction it creates in the world. I have long experienced a conflict between my pleasure in doing woodworking between hand tools and electrically driven machines. The machines clearly make the work more efficient, but they distance the worker from the work. That is okay to some extent, but taken to far it becomes an alienating force. Alienation is the opposite of community, compassion, and self respect.
Artificial Intelligence offers the maximum 'de-materialization" of intellectual life and artistic expression. That is why I and others are inserting an "AI Disclaimer" in writing a book. Someone recently suggested that an assertion, similar to a copyright, that no large language or similar system is permitted to use the content of the piece for providing text to teach language to an AI system.
We humans are now called upon by the very trajectory of technology as a tool of societal hierarchy to "get real" about human life in the Earth System, and what constitutes human value in how we work in the world.
Thanks for the clarity. Along those lines: "Stare Into the Light My Pretties:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBxr3qNFCFo
Beautifully written. I don't know why but this piece brought out this memory from school, where this embryology professor used to say, "Sex is 100% friction."
"such technology was in fact 1000 workers in India watching shoppers and manually notating purchases. Amazon pushed back saying these workers only worked to verify the AI system." 📢👏🏻
The good news is this friction-full society is unsustainable, the more tech that is applied to us, the more energy it requires, the less energy the matrix will have left over for other stuff, like ECG machines, or cashpoints, or airport Instrument Landing Systems, or whatever. And as EROEI is now down to 6:1, ie we are using 16% of our energy to extract further energy, soon it'll be too expensive for governments to do things like fix potholes, repair worn out bridges & railways, build new tanks, etc, etc.
The simplest expedient is to simply not join in - I don't do direct debits, don't use social media, don't have internet at home (just using local library's for free), even Dyson just blew up & will replace with a broom, and am currently too poor to do online shopping. Oh, and throw away the TV, I class it as the 2nd worse weapon ever produced, 2nd only to nuclear weapons - because of it's power to shape the Overton Window, to adjust culture and promote consumerism.
Not having any electronic social inputs at home (no internet, no TV, no radio, no smart phone) is quite liberating, and has an immense psychological effect, as at first your brain fights it, seeking the fix, bit like a drug addiction. Takes a few weeks to get over it, but I do highly recommend it. Everything you don't buy over the internet, every tweet/FB post you don't do, is a micro-win for the environment.
All these 'degrowing' options will be forced on us all at some point anyway as Gaia reduces the population to sustainable carrying capacity, combined with warming by 2*C by 2026 and economic collapse - those that voluntarily decomplexify their lives now will have more chance of acceptance rather than outrage when collapse really kicks in.
This article and the article referenced by the in-story link to the Meta-Zuckerberg collaboration with the zionist "pre-crime" , genocide-affiliated, AI obscenity Lavender makes an extremely potent one-two punch; an impact that I have only experienced very few times in my 3/4 of a century lifespan. You do fabulous work. This demand much more exposure. Also nice to have confirmation about your stance regarding the zionist atrocity that is currently lawlessly occupying Palestine.
right, beautifully written! ❤️ too much friction can make a call to the Universe for technologies to smoothen things out some bits, but yeah, we need to have a good balance of frictions 🙏
Had signed up for this for the climate related content which has been quite interesting. If you are moving into comments on use of violence and tech in the political landscape it would be beholding on you to address this on both sides of the Isreal/Hamas conflict or maybe profile the Russias use of it in the Ukraine
Hi Martin, here you go: Not Ukraine, Russia or Hamas have access to the tech that Israel has been using on the Palestinians.
Thanks.
And we have paid for that tech imbalance since 1948.
Climate/genocide/war are all interconnected, particularly as Israel is engaging in ecocide as well. Military operations also are using major emissions. I don't see why the author would have to do more into depth about the origins of this genocide, as the facts are all clear and published really anywhere verifiable you can look. The author is simply using an obvious, current example of how AI worsens violence massively and allows the perpetrators to further dehumanize their "targets." It has been absolutely devastating to see what "tech" has done to an entire population - going past what even the humans in control would do.