Source: at://did:plc:v2j2g5pdghrwazhbw6gvxtdp/app.bsky.feed.post/3llx6hj6ams22
I swear to fucking Lucifur…
2025-04-04 00:38:29.476 / 3llx6hj6ams22
She just realizes this *now.* Just now. And it’s not really talked about or noticed despite a show called Black Mirror. This is a fresh insight that might be really important guys!
So pay attention:
2025-04-04 00:38:29.477 / 3llx6hlgtuk22
People anticipated and discussed this when cell phones became commercially available at the enterprise level, and even more so when it became available to consumers, back in the 80s and 90s. When it finally became viable in my rural county to own a small flip phone cell,
2025-04-04 00:38:29.478 / 3llx6hpgrmk22
it was quite different and unique up be able to be accessed at any time by anyone. People noticed. I definitely noticed that my Mom could call me at any time, and expected me to pick up, and even to call her if I was thinking about doing something I didn’t want to tell her about.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.479 / 3llx6hpgtl222
They talked about it, especially older people there. My father refused to use a cell phone wiring for the town right up until a few years before his retirement. He was already on call *from a machine* for decades before that. It was a miracle I was conceived *in 1983.*
2025-04-04 00:38:29.480 / 3llx6hpgvjk22
What’s really happened is that when Google came out for free, people warned about surveillance capitalism (I was one of them), but hey, it and information “should be free,” was the response.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.481 / 3llx6hpgxi222
When social media “came out” in its current popular form (post-BBSs, forums, hosted journals, etc.) people were skeptical and aghast, joking that only highly self-absorbed people would post updates, photos of themselves (harder to get then), and their every thought in hopes of being famous.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.482 / 3llx6hpgyhc22
And when smartphones came out after tablets, despite their incredible appeal, there were people that voiced concern that whatever negative things happening online already (political division fueled by trollish tribalism combined with narcissistic attitudes) were going to accelerate:
2025-04-04 00:38:29.483 / 3llx6hph2fs22
consumers themselves would start to become the long-arm agents of surveillance capitalism and monetarily incentivized to build imaginary brands and act horribly for views.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.484 / 3llx6hph3f222
Ultimately, they feared, it would be like the “cult” broken up in New York where people were living experimentally in front of TVs and cameras all the time vying for each others’ attention.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.485 / 3llx6hph5dk22
This has all been examined and foretold by those paying attention. It’s not new. It was just ignored until more influential people found it to be compelling marketing for themselves, as always seems to happen.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.486 / 3llx6hph6cs22
The reality is that, in not paying attention and instead falling for the addictive enticements presented by corporations (that was always the plan) or simply convenience, people became so self-absorbed in their social habits that
2025-04-04 00:38:29.487 / 3llx6hphabc22
they’ve forgotten what’s public, what’s private, the microphone isn’t an extension of validation of their existence, and they’re Just. Not. That. Important.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.488 / 3llx6hphbak22
They’ve *forgotten* how this all started, by design, and never noticed they didn’t turn into adults after being targeted by companies as teenagers and earlier for their “influential disposable income” (the most twistedly pedophilic and American thing I can imagine).
2025-04-04 00:38:29.489 / 3llx6hphd7222
I’m glad she’s realized it *now,* but come on people. People used to *listen,* even online, but now these supercomputers in our pockets are simply weapons of abstraction with which our id can bludgeon others to an audience for anathemic profiteers.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.490 / 3llx6hphe6c22
If the camera and instant audience wasn’t there would people do half the things they do now while bemoaning how there’s now a window into their lives and its resultant expectations at all times. You can’t rape the willing!
2025-04-04 00:38:29.491 / 3llx6hphf5k22
Pay attention to me, but not like that, then I don’t *really* want attention and you have a moral duty to ignore me.
This has all been there, since the invention of the telephone. It’s all been laid out. It hasn’t not been noticed, it’s been ignored and most importantly *forgotten.*
2025-04-04 00:38:29.492 / 3llx6hphh4222
It’s in part forgotten or ignored because, in also id like fashion, people can now spout the strangest of bullshit and form close-knit “communities” (fauning parasocial echo chambers) of support and *income* by streaming every party of their lives, or even made up lives.
2025-04-04 00:38:29.493 / 3llx6hphi3c22
It’s a dystopia at this point. But not 1984, or Brave New World. It’s a combination of both as we set our course for Biting The Sun. Machines of loving grace indeed.
If you like this type of thing please support and show appreciation at ko-fi.com/asherwolfstein
2025-04-04 00:38:29.494 / 3llx6hphj2k22
and be sure to keep an eye out for my upcoming weblog where there will be piles of this stuff for free at asherwolfstein.com
2025-04-04 00:38:29.495 / 3llx6hqse5k22
ATProto root record: 3llx6hj6ams22