Noise
Everything around us is noise. If you watch the news, or popular late night chat shows, you'll note that the sole aim is to sow seeds of division. You glean nothing of value from these sources, except a sense that the world is fucked, and there is no hope left. It's not just news. It's work, and it's everywhere. Tech companies fuelled by VC funny money chasing stupid targets that no man, woman or beast would miss if they were to lock the doors tomorrow. Massive businesses on whom we all depend making working conditions as miserable as possible so that share holders, who have likely never shopped at or used the entity in question, can add to their already obscene wealth. Stupid jobs that serve no purpose other than to check a box. Inefficient banks. Houses built to a cost. Cars that suck. Airlines that treat you like cattle being herded onto a truck, the slaughter house their final destination. Micro transactions in games. Your favourite celebs lining up to convince you to spend spend spend on gambling apps. Shit phones. Rubbish laptops. GPUs priced at what an entire computer used to cost. Fraud, corruption, lust and greed evident everywhere you look.
Even the relatively simple process of attempting to stay healthy has been corrupted by assholes. In my head, it's simple. 2-3 hours a week in a gym to maintain strength and offset sarcopenia. Cardio, which includes a brisk walk over 20-30 minutes, to round your routine out. Flexibility exercises if you're feeling extra ambitious. Instead? Myriad influencers with competing ideas and a convenient line of supplements for you to buy. More than 30 sets per muscle if you even want to see so much as a millimeter of improvement. Everybody has a different split. A different scientific study conducted over a whole 90 days with 100 or fewer people. Eating exactly the right macros. If you aim to compete, go ahead. If you're a bland, beige normie like me, just simplify stuff and tell me to get at it.
Then there's AI. I love this today like I loved the late-90's/early 2000's Internet. But, that led to the fucking iPhone, Facebook, Instagram, and having to see Zuck's creepy face on my screen whenever Meta screws the pooch. My Insta feed was political satire, cute animals and jokes, but when I flip right, my reels are populated by women wearing nothing, bouncing their tits up and down, asking why someone would scroll past their video. Fuck off. Don't know you. Why film this shit? Starved for attention? Where AI is going to take us remains to be seen, but you can guaran-fucking-tee isn't going to be some utopia.
Do I even need to mention LinkedIn? "I scaled Mount Everest carrying the emaciated corpse of a dyslexic donkey and had a thought...". Get fucked, you wanker. Nobody gives a shit. Scrolling that particular feed makes my brain hurt and my axe hand itch.
I'd seriously disconnect. Insta was easy. Bye bye, vapid slop. But that's kind of it. WhatsApp is how we communicate now. I need my phone because that's where my bank is. It's also how I authenticate with sensitive applications that don't yet support hardware tokens. I need MFA because everything about me can be found online. I need LinkedIn because that's where the recruiters are. If I was smarter, they'd find me. But I'm not. I'm just a miffed middle-aged asshat typing into a text box on yon Internet wondering why everything managed to get fucked beyond recognition so rapidly that the world today and the world pre-2008 feel like they occupied different time continuums.
What the actual fuck are we, the hyper-intelligent primate, doing?