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Modern individualism parades in public, curated and fed back by algorithms.
We display uniqueness only to be reactively shaped by others’ gaze. The more we insist on being ourselves, the more we become projections of community feedback loops.
Identity becomes a mirror hall where "self" is a communal echo, not an inner origin. Real individuality resists broadcast and feedback, making it inimitable.
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Correspondence implies a logical or expected relationship or connection between events: what you see on a map is there in reality.
Coincidence suggests a random and unexplained meeting of events with no apparent cause and effect, yet they feel related: as you speak of someone, they enter, or what you discussed last night shows up on your social media feed.
Our minds attribute pattern recognition to coincidence, mapping it as correspondence, giving rise to superstition and conspiracy.
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As media and outlets multiply, there is a natural competition for attention—more bids for eyes on more content in more formats.
Art, beauty, or insight will not win, but rather the more addictive traits, such as sugar, fat, sex, death, and revenge will.
This is human (biological) nature. Bids for betterment are culturally instilled, and socially (propagandistically?) corrupted. As society devolves towards animalistic urges media frames as “living my best life” there is no applause or policing of delayed gratification… unless you surround yourself with an perversely twisted group: those who enjoy the torment of betterment and control their attention.
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At one point the news was a sober lens from which we saw insanity in the outside world.
Today the news produces itself, commenting on “minor nothings” with outrage while “major somethings” go unreported.
The news does not report on crazy; they are crazy. For any reasonable person, this makes the news un-newsworthy.
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When presented with the “sinking of the titanic” or the “reign of the pharaohs” in a museum, you encounter protected, curated historical artifacts and detailed, digitized storyline renderings.
When you encounter alien museums, they appear cobbled together by an amateur, often using a Xerox machine and hot glue. The budget craft leans into kitsch, undermining credibility.
Would enhancing the display to align with high-budget blockbusters create easier acceptance through a mainstream aesthetic?
Or is homemade production the key to alien culture’s resilience? By eschewing the mainstream, it opens itself to outsiders, using its cheapness as camouflage to maintain a joking persistence over short-lived seriousness.
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Directors, like Christopher Nolan, use the master manipulator as the protagonist. This "hero" sells illusions within illusions for their own ends, be they benign or catastrophic.
Blockbuster directors not only reflect society but shape it. They function as "cultural engineers" equivalent to industrial engineers building highways or spreading electricity.
The heavy work undertaken is to sell the vision of values (propaganda) that supposes a deeper reality than the shallow, vapid, consumerism we encounter daily.
Anyone who can provide depth, even if illusory, offers vitality to an otherwise flattened reality: sans-God we still crave a deeper order, even if it is conspiracy-laden, tech-fueled nonsense.
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As you strike out for the far shore, partner by your side, rowing through the waves you will encounter difficulty.
When your partner jumps out, taking their oar with them because they are tired of the journey, you can keep rowing, but it will just spin you around in a lopsided parody of progress.
At this point, you need to consider: do you go on alone (becoming your own partner), wait for your partner to rejoin you (conserve your energy), or jump in the water and swim around (say fuck it.)
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If you are reporting on the party, then you are not really part of the party.
You are just an amateur journalist with a smartphone.
source: Douglas Rushkoff from The Knowledge Project
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Before the theory of evolution, everything must have been created whole. Now we believe it gradually changes and tests itself out over time.
Now we have memetic evolution: the spread and growth of ideas, testing themselves for supreme virulence and spread. Humans seem to be not only the creators, but the hosts and carriers for ideas.
There will be a next step.
