I’m Exhausted. You’re Demoralized. We Weren’t Built for a World Like This.

“We definitely weren’t designed to cope with all this — our bodies, our nervous systems, our brains. Among all the other dangers these developments represent, they’re simply wearing us out. A lot of us would like politicians to offer, alongside their promises of affordability, even a glimpse of serenity.

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In past periods of pervasive crisis, Americans at least had some institutions on which to lean. We’ve traditionally thought of the president as a kind of national father figure. It helped a Depression-haunted nation when Franklin D. Roosevelt told us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself (and then backed it up with wave after wave of programs designed to make it so).

President Trump’s main response to our A.I. fear is to rename it “superintelligence,” while the country’s chief health authority, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has decided it’s time to go to work on “chemtrails” from airplanes. The tech chieftains wring their hands a bit about the trouble they’ve caused (remember, their creations have broken into companies and government agencies) and then get back to making their fortunes. Very few people feel like placing their trust in these powerful figures, young Americans most of all: Recent polling shows that roughly seven in 10 people ages 18 to 34 distrust Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and the other would-be wizards leading the big A.I. companies.

A not irrational response to all this would be to try to ignore it. Lots of people are doing so. Yet this kind of avoidance will just get us in deeper trouble by ceding control to those who profit from it, so I hope we won’t choose quietism or escape.”

Beauty over efficiency - Kuska Atelier

“There are things more important to offer the world than relentless scale and output. This is an example of a business that has chosen a new currency and that currency is Beauty.”

Hell yeah. Need more of this.

I think I hate the internet

So this essay really hits home for me.

I think I hate the internet

“The internet was about connection, but the way I see it, it’s become a great way for bad actors to defraud vulnerable people. For racists to find other racists and amplify their unsavoury views. For paedophiles for groom children with anonymity. For governments to manipulate with ease. For companies to advertise with incredibly accurate and exploitative advertising campaigns. The list just goes on and on.

I work in IT, so I feel kind of stuck in this industry and I increasingly feel a revulsion for everything it stands for. I struggle to see the value in the internet and in IT in general. Social networks have become an evil for global societies and I think the negative impacts have far outweighed any positives.

What is the internet now to me? In many ways it’s something that I have to tolerate to do many things that functioned fine before. I have to use an app to pay for parking. I need to create an online account to pay for a family swim at the local leisure centre. I have to submit an online form to book a slot at the local recycling centre. I need an app to check my bank and credit card balances. And to allow this experience to be bearable I have to service and finance a £600 phone, pay a monthly contract and subscription to Apple, I then have to install an adblocker because otherwise sites are just unusable. I have to navigate endless authentication prompts and MFA codes, and generate unique passwords for everything and store them in a password manager. I have to charge a phone daily and apply a screen protector and a case to ensure this delicate glass and metal object doesn’t smash to pieces and remove my access to my own digital life I’m forced to maintain. And this phone itself needs maintenance and demands my attention all the fucking time; I have to turn off notifications, and ensure the apps are up to date, and make sure the iOS version is updated too, and I need to opt out of marketing emails, and ensure I don’t click on a phishing email, and I need to keep my spam filter in check, and run a VPN to maintain a basic level of privacy, and on and on and on…

It’s exhausting, and I’m just gobsmacked that within living memory none of this really existed. I’m a 90s child and I vividly remember being out of the house on days out without a smartphone or even a feature phone. How insane does this feel now? Can you imagine leaving the house without a phone? But I have this yearning for a simpler time and I guess this is what happens as you get older. Maybe it’s all rose tinted glasses I’m wearing but I just look at the internet and every day I think “I fucking hate you. I actually hate everything you’ve done to me and everyone else”.

The internet has stolen innocence, wonder and serendipity out of society.”

'They Think US Belongs To Those With Right Accent': NYC Mayor Mamdani America 250 Address

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Get to know your Portland Peoples. James Beard Documentary.

“Today’s American food movement can be traced back to one man: cookbook author, journalist, television celebrity and teacher James Beard.”

Also, born in Portland, Oregon!

Cory Doctorow on Enshitification, The AI Bubble, Reverse Centaurs, and The Post-American Internet

The interviewer is downright useless here, but Mr. Doctorow seems to be able to keep him on track pretty well. Lots of good insights into our current shitty tech climate.

How do we navigate our derangement of scale?

“The confusion may come from what the writer Timothy Clark calls “derangements of scale.” Our experiences as modern global humans, Clark writes, are like being “lost in a small town” and then handed a map of the entire earth for locating yourself and finding your way. In the Anthropocene, he writes, “we have a map, [and] its scale includes the whole earth, but when it comes to relating the threat to daily questions of politics, ethics, or specific interpretations of history, culture, literature, etc., the map is often almost mockingly useless.” Our scales are too imbalanced; we are unable to think the unthinkable. It goes without saying that it can be paralyzing, demoralizing, to be an individual acting as part of the collective, globe-sized world.” - by B. R. Cohen

We are living in a time of polycrisis. If you feel trapped – you’re not alone

“We are living in a time of polycrisis. If you feel trapped – you’re not alone

I hadn’t fully grasped how the idea of a better future sustained me – now I, like many others, find it difficult to be productive.

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“What feels very different in the present moment,” Hershfield said, “is that it feels like it’s coming from multiple fronts. It’s everything from political uncertainty in the US and elsewhere, health insecurity from the very fresh memory of a global pandemic, job insecurity from AI, geopolitical insecurity, to environmental insecurity.”

All these crises are happening contemporaneously, and because they interact with each other, their effects pile up. Social scientists refer to these stacked crises as a polycrisis. During a polycrisis, radical uncertainty becomes rife.

The lack of predictability creates more doubt about the future, which blocks our ability to imagine ourselves in it.” - by Theresa MacPhail

Astoria Sunset in 4K 60p — OPB’s Slow TV

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Sign in Annie Andrews Launch Video: "Unafraid"

Nicely done.

How to forage for food on the Oregon coast

Mussels right on the beach? Yes please! First link has the OPB video. Can’t find a way to embed it into the blog.

“The Pacific Northwest has one of the most abundant tidal ecosystems in the world. The ocean conditions are cold, murky and nutrient-dense, conditions that provide fuel for life on shore.

Alanna Kieffer studied marine biology and eventually left a career in marine research to start her own business – Shifting Tides – where she teaches people how to forage for food in the coastal ecosystem. “

Reviving a Modular Cargo Bike Design from the 1930s

Whoa, this is a pretty cool concept for a cargo bike. I wonder how this would work on our narrow streets? Would cars just get pissed at you for taking up a lane?

“French mobility company Cyclauto has gone through the history books to revive an alternate design from the 1930s.”

“This design, originally by French industrialist Auguste Reymond, places the rider directly above the front wheel. They pedal this wheel directly; there's no chain, reducing maintenance needs. A three-speed gearbox in the hub makes starting easier.”

RTO is bullshit, here's a real life case study from Zillow

RTO is Bullshit. We all know. AI is Bullshit. We all know it. Come on people. Anyways, some interesting data points from Zillow.

“The company has drastically cut costs by shedding offices. Zillow’s total leasing costs reached $54 million in 2022 and dropped to $34 million last year. The company’s total revenue for 2024 was $2.2 billion.

Zillow’s financial results from last year suggest the workforce has been productive while logging in from home. The company reported Tuesday that it beat Wall Street expectations for the last three months of 2024 with a quarterly revenue of $554 million

Zillow shifted to allowing people to work fully remote during the pandemic. It’s been a recruiting and retention tool for Zillow as they “now see four times the number of job applicants for every job we have versus what we did before the pandemic,” Wacksman said.”

Extinction Burst Explains MAGA Voters’ Racist Anger

“This fantastic two-minute video, from a guy named Rich, neatly explains why the anger and frustration of Trump’s supporters has been growing over time — why the pushback on things like diversity, equity, inclusion, trans rights, and LGBTQ+ issues seems to be increasing and the hate grows more overt. It has to do with an idea called an extinction burst.”

VIA- The always on it Kottke

What was old is new again....

How to survive being online.

The only way to defeat a narcissistic sociopath is to starve them. Protect yourself from their bullshit, of course, but move away from it. Let them have their stage, but refuse to be their audience.

This isn’t easy. It’s especially difficult because capitalism is an attention economy. The New York Times and The Washington Post love a narcissistic sociopath because they generate clicks and clicks sell ads. Social media loves a narcissistic sociopath for the same reason, but it’s even worse. On social media, we’re the ones carrying their water. Trump says something that he knows will get him attention (i.e. renaming the Gulf of Mexico) and not only does it fire up hundreds of media outlets, who now divert attention to this idiocy, but it also fires up tons of people like me and you, who end up reposting his garbage.

You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism

If there’s one thing I’d hoped people had learned going into the next four years of Donald Trump as president, it’s that spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.

It isn’t quite as simple as “touch grass,” but it also sort of is.

Trusted information networks have existed since long before the internet and mass media. These networks are in every town and city, and at their core are real relationships between neighbors—not their online, parasocial simulacra. 

You can d­iscourse and quote-dunk and fact-check until you’re blue in the face, but at a certain point, you have to stop and decide what truth you believe in. The internet has conditioned us to constantly seek new information, as if becoming a sponge of bad news will eventually yield the final piece of a puzzle. But there is also such a thing as having enough information. As the internet continues to enshittify, maybe what we really need is to start trusting each other and our own collective sense of what is true and good.

We don’t need any more irony-poisoned hot takes or cathartic, irreverent snark. We need to collectively decide what kind of world we actually do want, and what we’re willing to do to achieve it.

Lessons on Creativity with Rick Rubin

His book is actually pretty good as an audio book as well.

tumblr wisdoms

Just some rando screen grabs from tumblr that are pretty spot on I thought I post.

When a Giftee Throws Away Your Homemade Gift

Wow, did not think this would get this heavy. Interesting emotional little journey here. Gets into the attachment us creators have to our creations and the vulnerability there in.

U.S. Calls for Breakup of Ticketmaster Owner

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! They have gotten away with too much crap for too long. Bring em down.

“In the lawsuit, which is joined by 29 states and the District of Columbia, the government accuses Live Nation of dominating the industry by locking venues into exclusive ticketing contracts, pressuring artists to use its services and threatening its rivals with financial retribution.

Those tactics, the government argues, have resulted in higher ticket prices for consumers and have stifled innovation and competition throughout the industry.

“It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said in a statement announcing the suit, which is being filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.”