I want to hear from the sanest person in the room. Like, seriously, who are you, where are you, and isn't it sort of insane of you to keep to yourself, with all this insanity going on?
I'm reminded of a scene from Zoolander (a very silly movie) where the villain is appalled when his peers can’t see the same (idiotic) reality he does. Flabbergasted, he shouts, "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
Take the news. Are they washing hair or reporting on humanity? Journalism is now laundered in a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle. And while no one seems to be buying it, it's still the only thing for sale.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg (The one I think we hit, but I'm not sure, since it was only in the news for a minute before they switched to interviews with drowning people with no mention of how they got there or how to get out (safety isn't sexy and won't sell)).
“We’re here live where people are drowning, and we’re told there are only two choices: Getting back on the sinking boat, while proudly proclaiming that all that extra weight is making it great again, or, staying in the freezing water to scream at those returning to the boat for being, ‘basically Hitler.’”
I'm also perplexed by how unintentionally ironic our "AI Doom Loop" has become. If programmers think machines might be capable of sentience, and that they would achieve this by first memorizing (learning) everything we've posted and continue to post online, then why are these same experts podcasting and blogging about the exact steps robots could and should take to deceive us?
Please keep in mind that I'm not asking for the smartest person in the room. We've heard enough from those dummies! Sure, they developed electricity and antibiotics, but they also created weapons of mass destruction and an addictive social network that, while not “basically Hitler,” is pretty damn evil.
Before I put my rose-colored-glasses back on, has anyone else noticed our bad sci-fi movie checklist?
Clones? Check.
Robotic soldiers? Check.
Billionaires terraforming Mars? Check.
I know, I know. I should “get used to it,” right?
Wrong.
That’s the attitude that enables our problems.
Why can’t we “get used to” cooperation instead of corruption?
There are 7 billion people on Earth. This means 7,000 of us are “one in a million,” and 7 of us are one in a billion—a feat so staggering there isn't even an idiom for it! This is my way of presenting likelihood and possibility to a population that seems to be giving up on and/or running out of hope.
When was the last time you were gobsmacked? Was it when a politician promised change? Or was it when an ad showed how a sizzling, hot slice of pizza would make your depression and anxiety go away?
No. No one is getting gobsmacked by the trash the algorithms and legacy media continue to serve us.
That’s why You Are Here, at a coffee shop, writing another essay. A feat you’ve done for 700+ weeks. However, this time, you see a flock of twenty-something baristas fawning over a co-worker who just came in on her day off. You can't see what they're celebrating, but you’re still gobsmacked by their joy.
They have their whole lives ahead of them. It's written all over their excited, wrinkle-less faces. It turns out hope may not always spring eternal, but youth does, and there's nothing anyone or anything can do about it. Even cloned robot soldiers from Mars can’t stop the confident expectancy of adolescent awe.
Indeed, every corner of humanity was once obsessed with the magical nature of reality, until humanity capitulated to an atheistic urge to try and explain away the mystical nature of chaos and order.
But it can’t, and even if it could, these barista kids don't give a crap about that, or about the news cycle, and they probably don't even wash, rinse, and repeat their weirdly cut and dyed hair.
Life still feels magical to them, because it is magical, and that's a notion we get to feel as long as we don’t trade it for the oft-promised, never realized illusion of safety and security.
I'm still gobsmacked. Are you?
We represent the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild, the Lollipop Guild. And in the name of the Lollipop Guild, we wish to welcome you to MikeyOpp.com
This week on Coffin Talk we interview Jordan Miller about his childhood as a Mormon, and his life after leaving that religion in his twenties, when he became fascinated with metaphysics and philosophy and their relationship to death. He also tells a creepy ghost story! Listen here.
I was gobsmacked by this song 53 years ago, and am still. Written by Leonard Cohen, sung by Buffy Sainte-Marie - God is Alive, Magic is Afoot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-GonR4S1to
gobsmacking good post, my friend.