algorithmic complacency!

Ever since I posted my last blog post about the need and desire to create a new social network, I've been more conscious of discussing it with people who might be interested. Those conscious discussions seem to provide me with a bit of mental momentum towards my goal (or rather, the direction of my goal - I haven't really thought about it enough to actually define my goal in that regard). Imagine my surprise though, when "the algorithm" popped this video up on my youtube!

As the video wound on (and I dug into my dinner), I realized that I used to resist algorithmic complacency, until at some point, a switch flipped, and I stopped: I stopped reading every tweet, every email, every WhatsApp message. I think that switch flipped when the mental effort of curating every feed of information felt like a battle against that platform's intention to force feed me things of its (as opposed to my) choosing.

The problem I'm trying to solve suddenly both seems a lot clearer and a lot more daunting. It's almost like a junkie trying to get other junkies to collectively quit.

Time to close youtube and immerse myself into something non-algorithmic, for tonight.

social (and not commercial) media

It's been over 10 years in the making, but I have gone from guessing to being absolutely sure that the time has come for a new social media that is truly social and not commercial. It's an idea that's been brewing in my mind for a while. It needs to mimic human relationships: humans only speak one-one or in small groups, and sharing something involves repeating it, typically not verbatim. Human communication is typically verbal, and pictorial sharing is pretty limited.  Our time and social batery is not allocated by "engagement" or other clickbaity metrics, but by the meaning we derive out of the interaction.

It should be easier to create and maintain than the vast behemoths that pretend to be social media these days. I will get around to creating it soon.

parabola

January 12, 9:30pm. I heard a thud. Rushed to find you lying on the floor. The call to 999, 20 minutes of CPR, a shot of adrenaline, a couple of jolts from the AED were all to no avail. 21 days in the ICU, begging you to open your eyes, and when your eyes finally opened, to elicit some sort of acknowledgement, were to no avail.

14 of those 21 days in, the doctor told us, behind closed doors, that the person we knew and dearly loved was no longer there.

Two days later, the doctor told us it would be unethical for them to try to keep you alive. 

We found this hard to accept. How could someone say this? It sounded like reading out a death sentence to the innocent. 

They took off the ventilator. They took off the feeding tube. They took off the intravenous fluid. You are now in your natural state, they said. 

They replaced the array of instruments that beeped every few minutes or seconds with a clock that ticked away silently. 

The clock felt ironic. The clock drove home in no uncertain terms that they were waiting for you to die. We were waiting for you to die because we were told there was nothing left for you.

Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. 

We couldn't accept this any more. Surely you were not meant to die! You were alive with no medicines, no intervention, no ventilator, no food, no water! There had to be some sort of mistake! 

You were moved from the cold dark ICU to a sunny private room. You seemed better. Would they let us take you home? We didn't know if we could even ask the question and if they would find it ridiculous. 

23 days after you entered the hospital, you went home. Not your home on earth though.

"This body, this body holding me

Be my reminder here that I am not alone in

This body, this body holding me

Feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion"