Have you noticed first slowly, then suddenly, certain things just disappeared? Hardback, softcover, large print, vinyl and boombox…just to name a few.
Monuments stay. Libraries and cathedrals stay.
Millionaires used to leave behind endowments for library to spread and strengthen literacy and civic education.
On this note, I call on Tik Tok, Meta and Netflix to start giving back as a form of voluntary reparation for the crime of mass neuro-cide. The same mass they have “hooked” with self-inflicted race-to-the-bottom i.e. globalized content of the least common denominator- to maximize and monetize eyeballs (16 billions viewing trash talks, body parts and cheap comedy).
No? Oh, we’re just tech platforms. It’s up to Congress, section 230 etc… who couldn’t regulate Chinese content (no one reads nowadays, much less Chinese).
Opium and opioid for the mass. It makes for easier control and to manipulate. Lots of data to back up Ad billing claims. It used to be a tossup for marketers in analog broadcast eco system. Next morning Neilsen rating and ranking to find out if the show aired the night before was a hit. Now, the mass begs: “please hit me with your few-seconds-blip”. The subliminal is elusive, so self-evident and expected like toll at the toll booth.
We are willing creatures of conditioned reflex and response. Even response in the absence of stimuli. Brain dead. Neuro-suicide. Water-dripping torture.
With this slow-boil effect, suddenly. “I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary said to me…Let it be”. Tolerate it. Live with it.
Trillionaires today sell dreams on Mars, sacrificing today’s generation for a future nobody can stay around to verify.
Just to make sure you are not a machine. Can you commend so I know those eyeballs are from real – people with emotion and in motion.
We need a new generation, with a new explanation not zombie nation, whose citizens are well-oiled and mechanically sold out (AI is doing the selling, and we the taking).
We need Black Sabbath, not Black Friday. The globalizing of the grotesque. Who cares about learning (actually it is lifelong unlearning since edu-care means to bring out from pulpits what’s hidden inside) when things are readily available, cheaper, faster and better (sewing machine for fraction of yesterday’s cost).
All of a sudden, no longer do we jump, hop or frog-leg as should be. All tranquilized, narcotized and anaesthetized. A hyper-ill online “community”, albeit globalized (currently with little oversight – all distributed, blame or otherwise, leaving responsibility to self-regulated, self-correction in scale).
With minimum requirement for admission, an internet connection, then you’re in. MP3, MP4 etc…with no MP’s to guard the gate (against barbarian). The neuro-dead nexus of inter-subjectivity.
8 billion stories and counting. To get noticed, with the help of AI. It’s the best and worst of times. With hidden punchline and bottom-line: we’re hooked on it as new habits and norms. No twists of plot, no nothing. Certainly not hardback, softcover and vinyl. All 1’s and O’s.
Oh! talks of the town now involve a guy, at his own request, was beheaded while he was jerking off live online to troll. Masturbation and “kill me” for hire merged into one. A story that begins and ends in a close loop. No plot. No moral nor guardrails. Ecstasy and nihilism, violence and victory (of the platform that laughs itself to the bank).
Inadvertently, we are globalizing the ill which used to stay within walls; border walls or firewalls. Improved Gong Show is now re-open for business, wide open and welcoming the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The last seems to get dignified by more Likes (fake news got around the world while real news barely finished tying its shoes).
Back then, around the Great Depression, people were in line for soup and bread, not at Tiffany, nor 84 Charing Cross Road. What was that device called phone? Without the benefit of seeing forward, little did they (1929 generation) know, today’s kids anywhere and everywhere, AI-assisted, could google and no one knows and can control content.
Good luck Tiffany Gore.
Much is given, much demanded. C’mon, Tik Tok, Meta, Netflix and Nvidia. You have reaped the benefits of write-offs. Isn’t it time to give back, just a few books (instead of cooking the book). Or if preferred, an occasional free content that elevates the mass (positive reinforcement). Help the truth and the good to tie their shoes, literacy vs ill, scholarship and mentorship instead of quick Prime “free” shipping (pickaxes, shovels, and sieves in today’s digital Gold Rush).
Millionaires in the past used to donate to library to lift up the mass, the huddle mass. Like vinyl with revenge but not return, certain things slowly then suddenly vanish without a trace. Have you ever wondered why?
Thang Nguyen 555 