My thoughts on modern society.

I do think that the modern internet was a mistake. Perhaps we peaked with email. The internet was supposed to be a tool, something that we used to share information, and communicate with each other (not necessarily instantly). Yet it has transformed under capitalism into an addictive machine that ruins all of our lives. We have no privacy, and we have no individuality. Everyone is part of just one big monoculture, as all we do is consume. Gone are the days where everyone had hobbies and engaged in them with people that they knew in real life. The internet made us boring. We might be seemingly divided on the internet, between "left" and "right", but we have all become the same, consuming content and creating similar content, an endless cycle. We are consumers who watch others live their fake lives that only exist on the internet. I believe that the only way to regain autonomy of the mind is to take a step back from this culture of consuming, and deliberately focus on oneself. Perhaps reading books, or engaging in a long-neglected hobby. Consumption of media is necessary to be informed on current events, but not in the formats that we all use. I am a fan of RSS feeds and I believe they solve some of the algorithmic issues, but they still don't confront the underlying problem. Our brains desire novel content, a feed, something to continue consuming.

I believe that media consumption must become more deliberate for us to cope with modern society. Instead of hoping for new feed items in an RSS reader, or scrolling through the Hacker News feed, we must choose to seek out specific content. Visit a news site for news. Search up specific topics that you want to learn about. Are you really bettering yourself if you constantly consume "educational" articles? Sure, you might absorb some new information, but we are rewiring our brains to crave new content all the time. Why not take it slower, and read a book from beginning to end? Or read full scientific articles, instead of just skimming abstracts? Or upon seeing an interesting concept in a blog, instead of moving onto the next thing having only surface-level understanding of the concept, why not instead gain a deeper understanding in deliberate study?

I believe that the information firehose that the internet has become is too much for our brains, and we need to just slow down in order to survive. I understand that the majority of people who happen to stumble across this are the techy people who's lives revolve around computers, and they can't just leave computers behind. People experience FOMO when not engaged in the latest social media, not being instantly reachable by text. But is it worth it? The world that we have forsaken in exchange for this capitalistic nightmare still exists, on a smaller scale than it once was. Instead of the internet being a niche thing, the real world has become more niche. It is impossibly difficult to find people who don't care for social media and instant communication and being wired into the internet. But I think that these people, these people who exist in the real world, are the most interesting people out there. They don't have the internet and its subtle pressures to conform in their lives. They construct opinions from the people that they meet in the real world, the books they read, the hobbies that they participate in, the real lives that they live.

So I really wish that I could write a blog, but that violates the goals I aim to accomplish. I want to spread my beliefs far and wide; I want everyone to understand the way I do, but in doing so, I would become ensnared in the machine that I loathe so much. I don't want to engage in conversation on the internet with people, hoping to persuade them, or recieving comments about what they think of my work. If someone out there really does agree with me, I hope we never speak. I hope you go out into the real world and talk to real people and pursue tangible relationships and activities that make you feel alive. So consider this a one-post blog. This is my message to the masses, and I hope you think I'm not crazy.

This rant was paritally influenced by Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, and the people who I see sucked into their phones at every waking moment.

Please don't consider this as me telling you what to do. It's more of a journal entry, as I reflect on a solution to this internet-centric world.