I don't think this will be a regularly updated blog. I'm not consistent enough to do that, so no weekly LinkedIn rollouts. But, I'm feeling compelled to write right now, because I'm tired. And it's December.
I'm hoping that makes this reading more accessible.
What does that mean?
Accessibility?
I think it's about not giving much. So the others can grasp what's there.
But why can't I do a lot and also make it accessible?
It won't hold. The point isn't to make me seem a certain way because of how much I write.
I also hate menial practice. If you care about prose and writing style, I get it, but I personally do not.
IMO lots of greak work is not written well. Also, culturally, I'm used to grasping the idea, not the style of how the idea was communicated
Authors write books, they have to, and the writing is to be compliant with the audience ready to consume what the pages give them. Artists are required to make music for listeners compulsively listening and ensure it makes them feel a certain way. Athletes need to play well, with more games being played than ever before. One can blame capitalism, but, really, I blame the human tendency to want and desire. We love to consume. Talk. Like/dislike. Change our personality. I think it wasn't always like this.
If you feel like that is bleak and that your day-to-day is mundane, they'll tell you that the psychological distance you feel (maybe labelled as a certain disorder), will 'pass' or get fixed with something. I think it's a marker of our time. The ever so perfect promise of the future as a (Western) utopia where people live in harmony looms over us in a very realism that is not reflecting that utopia.
The human tendency is leading to gaps between generations - parents who don't understand children - between genders, and other human relationships that are meant to be biological promises in today's age.
So, here is what I will give you today, in writing:
There's a promise of magical realism in the air. I want to call it how I see it.
If we consume, we're in magical realism. Don't see it yet? Be grounded when you answer these: Do you feel like your news is entertaining you? Do you feel like your constant scrolling is rewarding you? Does your food consumption feel like it relieves your stress?
None of those things are meant to do that. That's because human systems are built to protect those that created it. Myths are meant to protect those that created it. The biggest myth, was religion. And, the human tendency to consume led us to rely on these systems.
The Biggest Myth (Now) Is Technology
Occam's razor is to shave off the extra fat. Trim what's not needed.
You'll hear that sage advice everywhere in the Western world: "trim your words when you speak", "remove what is not needed", and such sentiments across industries, schools, and life. It's also big in tech - in how things are built, how we're hired/fired, and the general outlook.
The interesting thing, since the dawn of production/consumption, is that this very advice was never applied to the very top of the chain. We've been designed to look for cuts in everything we do, but never to the systems that demand those cuts.
Don't see it?
Think of your experiences with current AI for a second. You're being sold in exchange for a seemingly nice 'time save'. https://chatgpt.com/ is "accessible" - you can click on it and save time. But, promise of accessibility isn't for you — it's for them. What's "accessible" is not clarity or simplicity; it's the system's ability to consume and adapt to you, not the other way around. To understand this more simple: we are innovating, creating, and fighting over virtual, fake, and human-centric consumeristic problems.
You were already enough before AI came. Do not fall for the dopamine and serotonin it gives you. You feed the system — your thoughts, your data, your patterns
Let's take the level of abstraction down and apply it to something more fundamental:
There's AI voice calls now by companies like Vapi, ElevenLabs.
There's even AI video generation and video game generation.
AI search too!
Before that, it was Google and manual work for search and idea generation
Before that, calls were done by humans and, partially, non AI voices
Before that…
We can keep going. My guess is, at the bottom of it, is the typewriter. Sounds stupid, but that was genuinely the first machinery that made us be more consumerisitc. "The hand is, together with the word, the essential distinction of man…Man does not `have’ hands, but the hand holds the essence of man, because the word as the essential realm of the hand is the ground of the essence of man…The typewriter tears writing from the essential realm of the hand, i.e. the realm of the word. The word itself turns into something “typed” ‘. [Martin Heidegger, Parmenides, trans. André Schuwer and Richard Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), pp. 80, 81.]"
More well-put: Our lives have been given to make solutions to problems that did not exist before we demanded they exist. Ouroboros.
I Think It's Okay To Say More Of 'Screw It'
The point is, I think, more than ever, it's important to figure out what you can do outside of work. Things will be replaced. In ways you will not be able to imagine. Coding is just the biggest use case right now, and AI computers, and arms of investment into powering AI are just the beginning of a information and attention monopoly that we're going to be living in, and probably raving over.
This future is likely obsolete. Will humans be forced into more creative work? Or, is it more optimisitc? Will AI accompany us through our work? Either ways, I think now, more than ever, you need to figure out yourself. I genuinely mean that. For me, it looks like:
- Think more big picture
- You're going to need it when tech develops.
- It's unforgiving, because a lot of people will get left in the past if they don't adapt. Do not be stuck to your current cycle
- Be fine with different views
- Especially to those in different age groups to you
- Digitization has caused more hatred of older/younger
- Learn to be balanced, but know when your values clash and reply
- Have anger, but not irrationally. Treat those moments as unfortunate limitations in others and draw boundaries.
- It's not your job to fix those people, but listen to your observations 100%. This is becoming more and more important in today's age.
Hoping the next one will be less of a think piece. Tech blogs to come soon...