What does the current state of technology and humanity mean to you?

Yes, and while we are on topic, you should probably read this and then lock yourself in white room and just sit there, staring at the walls. I've got nothing.

There is an inherent difficulty in working with tech these days. I believe I am pretty well aware of all the downsides, but I'm definitely still at risk to being consumed by tech.

One of the weirdest experiences I have had with tech has been last summer, when I've been biking around for a week. This is the only way I know I can absolutely break with tech, and find some time to reflect upon life. On the way back, before I even got home again, I was confronted with capabilities of tech, and more importantly, the amplification of negativity facilitated by technology. The negative energy this brought felt like the whole week of mental recovery had been undone, and I was on the brink of telling fuck all and extending my trip indefinitely.

The quick pace facilitated by the internet is not sustainable for human beings. Humans are looking for recognition, and can find this to some extent on the internet, but it will never fulfil. The combination of the high paced nature of tech and the search for recognition is something which is an absolute death trap.

I'll just talk about the internet itself and my views on it.

https://blog.samaltman.com/the-merge has good info about this movement that you described btw.

My personal opinion is that humans follow money and there's tons of it to be made online. Not just as a creator but as a regular no name software engineer. Heck, look at us even, we're indie hackers trying to make money online. But I think that the internet is not built to handle the scope of society online right now. Look at us now and how frustrated everyone is not being able to go outside... the internet is clearly not enough to satisfy the human experience. It's total crap compared to the real thing.

So what I think is that the internet is a place that I can see parts of society that was or is. To me it's still just a poor reflection of a very small subset of our world. We only ever pay attention to the top 1% of content creators of the top 1% of content sites. I only ever use the top ~1% of internet services. If you want to see the rest of the world, you can't do it here.

And the process of putting data into the internet is if someone sees something in the real world, it gets put online. Be it video, event, some service that outperforms a physical counterpart. But in order to see what will be, I still have to talk to people, converse with people. I think that trends and patterns in our world start and end with people and communities and that won't ever change.

I also don't think that collectively we are less knowledgeable. I think that the internet showed every person how little they knew about the world and made them want to learn more, which is a valuable trait. Young people are so knowledgeable today, with so many strong opinions. I think that's great. But when we rely on the internet as the source of truth, that's when we get in trouble. Because it's not, the first principles of the internet are rooted in the physical world we live in. And I get frustrated when young people misunderstand that. Maybe that's a similar frustration to how you're feeling?

The collective psyche of human societies is a bit slow. Just like with cars getting seatbelts and cities implementing jaywalking legislation many years after the first accidents happened, there will be social norms, legal boundaries, and moralistic frameworks that deal with information dissemination... over time. We're indeed in turbulent times, and free access to information of questionable validity is harmful to humans who have yet to understand that what was before heavily gatekept by mostly well-meaning authorities (like book publishers and TV stations) is now often leveraged by special interest groups. But people will learn that. Or rather, we will teach our children to understand this. And they will grow up with a better filter than we did, already having a better filter than our parents.

It's a generational effort, and the speed of memetic evolution may be fast, but it's still outpaced by the speed of technological progress.

The oversaturation of creators is a great thing, and it's a horrible thing. The lack of gatekeepers has allowed access to free speech like nothing else before, and it has allowed demagogues and cult leaders to spew their nonsense. Great artists (and entertainers) have emerged, and millions of pointless food photographs are taken and shared every day.

I choose to focus on the empowerment and creation of diamonds in the rough.

This is the greatest moment in time to be a creator, online.

You seem to shit on PewDiePie. He's an entertainer, not an artist. And he's very entertaining, to his audience.

Yes there will never be another Ansel Adams. That's because we already have an Ansel Adams.

What you have now are thousands of photographers creating amazing videos and photos and stories all around the world.

Every country can have their own Ansel Adams and Yosemite. And dozens of them for all types of consumers, viewers, fans.

There's always room at the top.

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