on Earth as it is online

With every invention we hope it’s the Next Big Thing, often times, it turns out we arrive in full circle – back to Eden e.g. timeshare vs Cloud. Every generation sees newborn speculators and suckers, those who are in early, then in-time divesting. Cryptically crypto. Generative AI, even immortality online, if not on Earth.

From Silent Movies to Sound Movies from Telegraph to Telegram, we hope Utopia finally arrives. Our final destination. We can rest and not be weary (“you shall toil”).

Education today, Education tomorrow, Education forever.

We need to be realistic. Engineers can’t solve all ills. Nor should they. None of us can. The Atomic solution – only to see North Korea and Iran – the grass grows back). Tech needs to be in tandem with truth, within society and not at odd with it (adoptability and sustainability).

To rebuild the Bridge at Baltimore, we sing at a tune of 4+ Billion. Not an easy feat, but doable. Student loan? 6 billion for Art Institute alum? Talking about Night Owl and Night Hawk (BTW, I have a copy of a copy: so “absent”, incognito/ By being there in the moment with just a cup of coffee at the night counter (Philie cheese steaks). The back, in formal hat and suit (50’s) without facial recognition software or surveillance cameras.

The problem with Facebook is Facebook. With the Internet is the Internet (where nobody knows you’re a dog, unlike at Cheers). Berlin Wall tumbled down vs Broadband built out. Nvidia reigns, TikTok buyout.

Small-town feel, big city benefits. Right! We’re Night Hawks on the Net (Sandra Bullock and the Whiter Shade of Pale). Per “If the heat doesn’t kill you” from here on out, we need to live Vampire lives (early in the morning and at night). Generations without the Sun onshoring from Japan.

From photoshop pics and virtual protest badges to real-life vampires. we’re all “cross” or dressed in Black.

The Big Sort (you, over here, this side). Friendster, to the left. My Space, to the left, TIk Tok… (somehow, I hear the snow-grinding boots and distant voices telling me: “gas chamber, this way”). IBM quants and the ever-rise of our digital (one vs zero) empire.

I admire that gal who placed a rose in the nozzle of a pointed gun, half an inch away from LBJ National Guard troop 60 years ago. Future historians will look back to the 60’s (on 88 campuses) e.g. Chicago 7, Camden 28 against today’s 2300 arrests on campus.

Thy will be done, on campus as it is off. All quiet on the Western lawn. Tranquilized. No sit-in, just teach-in.

We have enough time, enough space to co-exist, to protest and counter-protest. Dialogue in a digital way. The American Way. All the while, the wheel of justice grinds on, slowly but surely. The only thing on Earth as it is online is that justice can’t be cheated, ever. Vote with your fingers.

We who are made of carbon, oxygen and water, exist and occupy our lane but in the same solar system. From the Sun’s vantage point, even Earth itself feels like a Night Hawk, with back against the Light.

H2O is our ultimate neutralizer, cleanser and preserver: for washing, cooking and cleaning. Proud to be a water boy consistently and constantly still, before and after enlightenment (the realization that life is short, that one is not THAT special however narcissistic; for at the final tally, it’s how much humanity, not divinity, one has accrued). To become and not be underlived.

That’s water-hose boy’s thinking. Data-hose boy might think different (bad grammar). As long as both are not arm-chair quarterbacking.

Per Kevin Kelly, technology, its flow and fluidity, wants to be free. To eventually be out of the box, cremated, ashes scattered, Phoenix-rising. The myth of Icarus flying toward the Sun (incidentally, rocket ships now utilize similar substance in wax to save fuel) might not be that far-fetched.

Because the other option (mandatory draft) meant charging like mad men (supported by female troops, medic and media women, almost as in M*A*S*H*) unto Da Nang’s to secure US beach-base (initial 3,500 then ballooned to more than half-a-million). Bombardment in the air and boots on the ground.

Today, battles are without bayonets i.e. drones in the air and codes in the Cloud. Half of Earth’s population charge up their phones to be online, to share on “social” and chat with AI, our new Ed Murrow.

You can’t handle the truth. Carpet-bombing and bombastic mouths. In our digital global village not hamlets during Vietnam: by day, RVNs, by night, NLFs. Vietnam today still uses bamboo in shifting wind for strategy in diplomacy.

Meanwhile, our binary world is all anonymity and atomization, from analog to algorithm, pulsating from Al Gore’s TV to Al-Jazeera TV. The more impersonal, the more efficient and easier to scale. What empathy! We do share rack space but not sorrow.

It’s never meant to be a two-way (much less multi-polar) dialogue, albeit with improved upload speed (kickstart vs fundraising newsletters).

Today’s worst-case scenario is yesterday’s best. Just ask Napoleon or Nero, Ford or G.H.W. Bush (who had to consult “Computers for Seniors”, per Woodward and Tom de Frank).

Yes, we betrayed you (Westmoreland). What are you going to do about it? Send me back to Nam?

And so it goes. On Earth as it is online. We will sort it all out (future forwarding) as long as you bought in early – what is life without a little risk – or returning to recent past, with new labels. A new generation with a new explanation. The (extreme) Court is now in session, AOC vs MTG. Let’s see; who shouted insults into whose mailbox? First witness on the stand, please. “I swear….to tell only conspiracy lies and nothing but the lie, so hang me God”.

Be sure to wear some flowers online. You will, thanks to recommending software, to meet some “gentle” people there of the same tribe. Given all that happened (something happened) you could have been long dead e.g. Janis Joplin or Donald Sutherland. On Earth during long covid or online per Kurzweil, before the IT guy automates his/her periodic data dump/trash-emptying to cut AWS rent cost (make sure your annual fee is on autopay).

In a data-driven society, nobody knows you’re a dog or dead dog. Except for our future A.I. “personal assistant”, who nods in approval:” I understand how you feel” as if they could learn from interview cut-aways, to elicit more data for an exclusive.

Though I once see through a glass darkly, I now see face to face, with wrinkles and without pretense: yep! still me. The illusionary me, saying one thing online and doing another off. Now that you remember and reflect back (via the screen and Google recommendation) I can see it for myself. There’s always something there (cookies) to remind me.

I am responsible for the mess, since day 1, way back before Creation (if you are into pre-destination). Sell me something. Get me out of this predicament, this self-inflicting entanglement and agonizing: between want (my irrational nature) and means (straight-nature technology).

Perhaps our engineers can solve it all, atomic or A.I.

With every invention, folks make a leap to Eden 2.0. Technology wants to be free. Yes. We want to be free. But…to make that hasty conclusion via a shortcut to Utopia is like to go from one end of the Baltimore Bridge to the other, with only 1 million to rebuild.

We’re so anesthetized and apathetic that we miss the elephant in the room. That elephant gains weight by leaps and bounds, 24/7 always on with inflation and interest piling on top.

Hello Zimbabwe. Please, Dr Evil. Wake up and Wish Different. It’s Billions, with a “B”. Inflation does exist on Earth as it is online. BTW, it’s been our Nighthawk prayer – back turned to the camera.

In today’s context, he could have just scrolled his phone to see who at that eastern standard time is still awake and posts something amusing.