Love this. If you start a virtual fight club, sign me up. The only point here I'd pick a friendly fight with is about the Unknowns. Seems like there are plenty enough Unknowns to keep me confused and full of wonder, and plenty of bottomless un-grid-like networks of wormholes to explore.
It’s a huge stretch to say that not using maps is the cause of zoomers not knowing how to use computers. It’d be one thing to say it’s correlated, but it was described as causative.
I have been fascinated for a long time about the effect on the world of no longer having any unknown frontiers. Throughout human history, there was always somewhere for the nonconformist, the rule breaker, the eccentric to go if they couldn’t fit in at home. The entirety of the US is really the result of relentless frontier-seeking. Now our rule breakers and nonconformists have to explore cyberspace or become scientists to study the ocean or space-- and not all of them are suited to science. It seems to me there’s a fundamental set of human traits related to exploration and rejection of the status quo, which now have little or no outlet. I can see a lot of potential problems resulting from that--
Something else I've thought of: has anyone else noticed just how many service providers now ask us to provide feedback to evaluate the quality of their service? From the USPS to the AAA driver who just installed my new battery, everyone sends out emails or texts asking us to evaluate them. More and more data. Even my GI's office just started doing this! Data from feedback certainly can help, but I just can't help but feeling that we're all becoming more and more like automatons and less like people.
Love this. If you start a virtual fight club, sign me up. The only point here I'd pick a friendly fight with is about the Unknowns. Seems like there are plenty enough Unknowns to keep me confused and full of wonder, and plenty of bottomless un-grid-like networks of wormholes to explore.
Looking forward to part 2!
It’s a huge stretch to say that not using maps is the cause of zoomers not knowing how to use computers. It’d be one thing to say it’s correlated, but it was described as causative.
I have been fascinated for a long time about the effect on the world of no longer having any unknown frontiers. Throughout human history, there was always somewhere for the nonconformist, the rule breaker, the eccentric to go if they couldn’t fit in at home. The entirety of the US is really the result of relentless frontier-seeking. Now our rule breakers and nonconformists have to explore cyberspace or become scientists to study the ocean or space-- and not all of them are suited to science. It seems to me there’s a fundamental set of human traits related to exploration and rejection of the status quo, which now have little or no outlet. I can see a lot of potential problems resulting from that--
Another random thought: this essay makes me think of the poem "Dolor" by Theodore Roethke:
"I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces."
Something else I've thought of: has anyone else noticed just how many service providers now ask us to provide feedback to evaluate the quality of their service? From the USPS to the AAA driver who just installed my new battery, everyone sends out emails or texts asking us to evaluate them. More and more data. Even my GI's office just started doing this! Data from feedback certainly can help, but I just can't help but feeling that we're all becoming more and more like automatons and less like people.
Close the window, pin the scarab beetle to a Cartesian grid.