"I fear the subtle algorithmic tuning of feeds more than I fear blatant dark ads. It used to be impossible to send customized messages to millions of people instantly. It used to be impossible to test and design multitudes of customized messages, based on detailed observation and feedback from unknowing people who are kept under constant surveillance.
"It might turn out that a certain font around someone's portrait on a certain day makes a small percentage of people trust that person just a little less. Maybe the same font showed up in a popular video about an unpleasant topic that same day. No one will ever know why the font has the effect it does, though. It's all statistical." (p. 78)
From Jaron Lanier's "Ten Arguments for Deleting your Social Media Accounts Right Now"
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
Stars are abscesses upon the skin of our universe.
By invoking a brane metaphor for our universe we can see stars as an abcesses upon that 'skin' or brane. Through it light leaks, which in our universe has the property of energy. But it is a filtered 'bleed through' of a pure idea from another dimension intent upon ordering our universe. In that other dimension all is purely crystalline but its structure is merely a resonance pattern because in this dimension, where idea and substance are coextensive, being and idea are all times and everywhere, always.
The pornographic object
The pornographic object is the pupil.
Recording media turn culture and history into a trash heap. Because it subjects us to peering through a hole in the fence.
Recording media turn culture and history into a trash heap. Because it subjects us to peering through a hole in the fence.
Friday, June 22, 2018
Friday, June 15, 2018
pathological electricity
The source of mental illness is pathological electricity. Metaphors born in geometry such as 'symmetry' and 'balance' populate medical literature. Pathological electricity places emphasis on the role that the stimulus, as it lives on, plays in the set up of a mental pathology. Some forms, patterns, and sequences of neuron-specific activity, within the brain's connectome, form sinister geometries. These give rise to what medical literature calls abnormal behavior.
Saturday, June 9, 2018
women are arsonists
Women are arsonists. They start fires and simply walk away.
But sometimes that fire grows and grows and transforms into something that could consume them. That something is me, watching you, your every move, listening to your steps, peeking into your life every chance I can, watching, waiting, listening, an unceasing fire, unceasing desire.
You. You started this fire. Maybe it was with a look or maybe it was something you said. Did you say 'love?' Why do you use these words so carelessly? I've never known a love such as this. I burn. I desire.
I am this fire you started. I am consumed by this fire. It grows. I'm gone now. The charred remains of what I once was are all that remain, a memory, the trust that you once had, it's gone. You fear me. You should fear fire. It's an awesome and destructive force, but it's something that could be controlled. Instead you lit a match and simply walked away. You played with fire. Now that game is over, yet the fire grows and grows, burning and burning, smoke billows out. You ignore the destruction that you've caused. You pretend that you've done nothing wrong, but if the tables were turned it would be my fault. I'd be held accountable for my actions. Not you, no, you can go hide behind that other guy, the one fire that you let keep you warm at night, while this one burns, unattended.
A million scary stories have been told around fires. Nothing is heard around this one but the crackling of a burning desire that burns and burns seemingly endless. You turn away, in hopes that it will simply go out, forever. Instead, this fire is a monument to all that is desired, and so it burns and burns simply to memorialize a moment, simply a moment, when you decided it would be okay to say those things and to look this way in such a way that sparked these embers into a roaring flame of desire. But you walked away, and when confronted, you fear that fire that burns in me. You hide behind another fire, one that burns differently, controlled, just as you want it. This fire is dangerous, you hide behind a traffic cone tossed into a space, interrupted, you talk about your nipple piercing. You place a million other petty desires between us. The fire burns with hate, spurned desire, jealousy.
A fire burns out when it consumes all of its fuel. This fire will not cease until it burns you.
But sometimes that fire grows and grows and transforms into something that could consume them. That something is me, watching you, your every move, listening to your steps, peeking into your life every chance I can, watching, waiting, listening, an unceasing fire, unceasing desire.
You. You started this fire. Maybe it was with a look or maybe it was something you said. Did you say 'love?' Why do you use these words so carelessly? I've never known a love such as this. I burn. I desire.
I am this fire you started. I am consumed by this fire. It grows. I'm gone now. The charred remains of what I once was are all that remain, a memory, the trust that you once had, it's gone. You fear me. You should fear fire. It's an awesome and destructive force, but it's something that could be controlled. Instead you lit a match and simply walked away. You played with fire. Now that game is over, yet the fire grows and grows, burning and burning, smoke billows out. You ignore the destruction that you've caused. You pretend that you've done nothing wrong, but if the tables were turned it would be my fault. I'd be held accountable for my actions. Not you, no, you can go hide behind that other guy, the one fire that you let keep you warm at night, while this one burns, unattended.
A million scary stories have been told around fires. Nothing is heard around this one but the crackling of a burning desire that burns and burns seemingly endless. You turn away, in hopes that it will simply go out, forever. Instead, this fire is a monument to all that is desired, and so it burns and burns simply to memorialize a moment, simply a moment, when you decided it would be okay to say those things and to look this way in such a way that sparked these embers into a roaring flame of desire. But you walked away, and when confronted, you fear that fire that burns in me. You hide behind another fire, one that burns differently, controlled, just as you want it. This fire is dangerous, you hide behind a traffic cone tossed into a space, interrupted, you talk about your nipple piercing. You place a million other petty desires between us. The fire burns with hate, spurned desire, jealousy.
A fire burns out when it consumes all of its fuel. This fire will not cease until it burns you.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
death by a million data points
Every so often the world conspires against me in subtle and pervasive ways to push me back into the shadows, to remain behind closed doors, to tuck myself under the sheets and sulk, sleep, and perseverate on things unfulfilled.
It's in her gesture, which is only skin deep and ultimately meaningless to her. It's in a door that gets slammed in your face, albeit out of ignorance that you had come up behind the person preceding you. It's in the countless quiet nights you return home, alone, and yet relieved to be so because you're so damn terrified of the possibility you'd have to 'perform' for a stranger you had just met. It's in knowing that you're getting her service face, her vast and growing script for pleasant interaction, which is, again, only skin deep. It's in the numerous mocking repetitions that a friend delivers to you after you've attempted interaction with others. It's in the nagging feeling that you're so damn uncomfortable away from home, so damn uncomfortable in this world, among others, and that you'll remain bottled up, fraught, and frightened until you're back behind your door, in your kennel, slammed shut imprisoned by self-security. It's in the two-day fatigue that sets in after you've spent more than 6 hours in close quarters with a couple of strangers. It's in knowing that she's too young, you're too old, she probably won't remember the little thing she did to raise your suspicion that maybe she's into you, but yeah, once you made her confront that notion she'd back off or worse yet, launch an insulting and defensive gesture at you. It's in that complete and utter indifference she shows you when she arrives late into the evening and you're too destroyed by the drink before you to carry on anything resembling respectable conversation, let alone behavior. It's in knowing that for all that you know you don't know how to speak to others in a way that invites them to respond or even to stick around. It's in all the ways that your body gestures and your para-language, in general, communicate a sense of unease.
It's in that tear in the fitted sheet on your bed that, with anxiety in the middle of the night, you rip open more with a kicking foot, angry at a feeling that invaded your dream shocking you back into the black solitude of night. It's in the sagging chair that has become utterly uncomfortable, leading you to sit in atrophied postures to maintain your seated composure. It's in a bed mattress, too long for wear, with sagging depressions where, once, responsive springs stood. It's in the numerous stained and dusty blinds that you grasp at when you open and close windows to look out onto a dusty and poorly maintained window frame, cracked glass, dead bugs, ripped screen. It's in that growing coffer of unspent money and the fear and complete lack of desire you show in putting it to a future-placed goal: a home of your own, a place inviting both you and others to be inside it. No, instead, you sit in your iron maiden of a thousand small abuses if only because you have no energy, no drive, no desire at all to move or confront the fact that it's all an attitude adjustment and sometimes a small bit of work away from being addressed.
It's in those ravines opening up on your face, the signs of age, those tiny flecks of gray in what remains of your hair, and all that goddamned time, so much time, spent staring at yourself, your walls, walled off, wailing, wondering, pacing, coaching yourself or denigrating it into a puddle of self-loathing, a fetal ball of self-comfort, a million tiny deaths in every breath, you're alone, you've been alone, you cannot envision another world with together in the title. You recall Friday mass at your Catholic grade school, and the words 'TOGETHER' get broken into three words: To Get Her. You repeat this over and over as the mass drags on and you go through the scripted, rituals of group worship, and you count the minutes until it fucking ends--this godless creation that you've become.
Why? Because of all the times, places, and people you'd like to be around the ones you long to be with the most are the ones that generate the most anxiety for you, leaving you essentially walled off from any real attempts at impressing them. You're a million data points from an ever retreating goal: desire's asymptote.
It's in her gesture, which is only skin deep and ultimately meaningless to her. It's in a door that gets slammed in your face, albeit out of ignorance that you had come up behind the person preceding you. It's in the countless quiet nights you return home, alone, and yet relieved to be so because you're so damn terrified of the possibility you'd have to 'perform' for a stranger you had just met. It's in knowing that you're getting her service face, her vast and growing script for pleasant interaction, which is, again, only skin deep. It's in the numerous mocking repetitions that a friend delivers to you after you've attempted interaction with others. It's in the nagging feeling that you're so damn uncomfortable away from home, so damn uncomfortable in this world, among others, and that you'll remain bottled up, fraught, and frightened until you're back behind your door, in your kennel, slammed shut imprisoned by self-security. It's in the two-day fatigue that sets in after you've spent more than 6 hours in close quarters with a couple of strangers. It's in knowing that she's too young, you're too old, she probably won't remember the little thing she did to raise your suspicion that maybe she's into you, but yeah, once you made her confront that notion she'd back off or worse yet, launch an insulting and defensive gesture at you. It's in that complete and utter indifference she shows you when she arrives late into the evening and you're too destroyed by the drink before you to carry on anything resembling respectable conversation, let alone behavior. It's in knowing that for all that you know you don't know how to speak to others in a way that invites them to respond or even to stick around. It's in all the ways that your body gestures and your para-language, in general, communicate a sense of unease.
It's in that tear in the fitted sheet on your bed that, with anxiety in the middle of the night, you rip open more with a kicking foot, angry at a feeling that invaded your dream shocking you back into the black solitude of night. It's in the sagging chair that has become utterly uncomfortable, leading you to sit in atrophied postures to maintain your seated composure. It's in a bed mattress, too long for wear, with sagging depressions where, once, responsive springs stood. It's in the numerous stained and dusty blinds that you grasp at when you open and close windows to look out onto a dusty and poorly maintained window frame, cracked glass, dead bugs, ripped screen. It's in that growing coffer of unspent money and the fear and complete lack of desire you show in putting it to a future-placed goal: a home of your own, a place inviting both you and others to be inside it. No, instead, you sit in your iron maiden of a thousand small abuses if only because you have no energy, no drive, no desire at all to move or confront the fact that it's all an attitude adjustment and sometimes a small bit of work away from being addressed.
It's in those ravines opening up on your face, the signs of age, those tiny flecks of gray in what remains of your hair, and all that goddamned time, so much time, spent staring at yourself, your walls, walled off, wailing, wondering, pacing, coaching yourself or denigrating it into a puddle of self-loathing, a fetal ball of self-comfort, a million tiny deaths in every breath, you're alone, you've been alone, you cannot envision another world with together in the title. You recall Friday mass at your Catholic grade school, and the words 'TOGETHER' get broken into three words: To Get Her. You repeat this over and over as the mass drags on and you go through the scripted, rituals of group worship, and you count the minutes until it fucking ends--this godless creation that you've become.
Why? Because of all the times, places, and people you'd like to be around the ones you long to be with the most are the ones that generate the most anxiety for you, leaving you essentially walled off from any real attempts at impressing them. You're a million data points from an ever retreating goal: desire's asymptote.
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