The internet is not a trendy cafe and you are not the Grand Barista.
Technology is a cumulative collaborative process. Ideas form all round the world, needs arise, and information converges – pens are made with ball points! And internets!
So at the end of this millenia long cycle whose product is it? Sundar’s, Dorsey’s? Is it a product at all?
A very early morning vlog about the limits of capitalism and the creeping effect that the dark side of profit motive has on science and the humanities.
Support the Journal
Make a donation via PayPal to help zazz things up.
As with most things the dictionary definition is not what comes to mind. Rather it is associations. When we think of people being vulgar we imagine swearing, or sexy talk, or sacrilege.
Yet, when I look around. When I look around to see everybody and their grandmother dressing like they just raided the GAP then got their hair styled by a Bauhaus band; I feel that it’s something deeper.
Well, you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. Short men, tall women, folks with big ol kazoo noses, and the Irish, these people get a pass. That is until adults unironically dress like a 90’s latchkey kid who stole his father’s whiskey. It’s even worse when they do it ironically.
Yes, when I look around and see this I begin to think that the problem is far deeper than the words and giggles that make WASPS and Yentas join hands in one great verklempt kvetch of a kaffeklatsch about the youth.
They will of course always miss the point. Yes, they’ll meander round the target. The destruction of the nuclear family, the lack of Jesus, Torah, or Allah, EDUCATION, gay frogs, etc. These are all certainly valid indicators and contributors but I think the problem is even deeper than the dictionary or vernacular expectation.
To be vulgar is to lack fine feelings.
Ah! I can already hear the vast Mongol hordes of eLibertarians, muttering darkly about feels and reals, as they sharpen their double-edged snark swords to teach me a thing or two about fortitude. Growing up in the burbs reading Ayn Rand is the epitome of boot strapped, barrel chested, Marlboro manhood I’d better tread carefully. Lest I be called a snowflake.
A Real Man working a Real Job
To be honest I am a snowflake. Or rather quite a lot of snowflakes. I am in fact an avalanche of acerbic, unabashedly elitist, classically authenticated disdain.
It’s the bloody boomers you see! And the millennials, and Gen X, THEY DID IT! Well, no that’s not it at all Doctor YouTubus Polemicus.
No, the problem lies in the fact that one can’t sit down to a listen to a bit of Bach without feeling pretentious. Where’s my Rush mixtape god damn it…I need to feel Earthy…no wait that’s classic rock….fuck ahh ok…thank god it’s Limp Bizkit…now I am one with the Volk.
I am honestly very eclectic in my own manners and styles. I do not begrudge appearance itself. If you want to be a corporate lumberjack, who plays ukulele, while day trading be my guest. But for Christs sake follow the patron saints of Yup and ‘Let it Be.’
The problem is enforcement. Don’t believe me? If you are male and over the age of 21 and dare. Dare! To put on some slacks and a button up for no other purpose than to go to a stroll or some casual (church included) function…well by god won’t you be the wanky oddball?
Put on a tie and by Jove what are you some sort of man!
Well..where’s your billions! Huh. You can’t possibly like dressing like an adult. You are lying to women… trying to intimidate manlets! You great bully. You great lie. You poser!Put on some plaid for the sake of all that is holy! We are at the mall getting lattes! Surely you didn’t forget to bring your wool cap?
Try to say any word containing more than three syllables and you’d better be ready to get psychoanalyzed by an impromptu Oprah panel. You’re so gauche!
– Monkey Suit – Uniform of the Incurably Toxic
No one would have an involved discussion without some darwinian ulterior motive. There is no such thing as passion, or understanding the words you read, and using them in conversation. No, you are being gauche and they would know – they after all went to college. These are the times when English majors in American universities are unfamiliar with Emerson you see. So wax that beard don’t wax poetic.
No, the current situation is something far worse than mob rule, far worse than the bovine bleating of the sheeple, it is the tyranny of malaise.
Malaise leads to atrophy. And you can’t write the next great American novel, be John Williams, or Louis C.K. if everyone’s eyes, ears, and wits have rotted clean off.
This article is an opinion piece of the sort I write as a kind of literary yoga where I stretch wordy ligaments so as to remain limber for more serious work. This is not an apologia for anything written above. Merely a reminder that the journal isn’t a one trick pony. Thanks so much for reading. Feel free to comment. I don’t bite unless you’re into it.
Verklempt? | mellow.mission.productions@gmail.com
Support the Journal
Make a donation via PayPal to help zazz things up.
In an interview with The New York Times, Patreon’s Jack Conte and Jacqueline Hart addressed the fallout from their removal of political commentator Sargon of Akkad.
A fallout that took with it the likes of Sam Harris and a sizeable chunk of patrons. A fallout that affected not only political types but the average Patreon creator.
Patrons often support more than one creator. So if an unsavory move like the removal of Karl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) prompts patrons to exit there is a ripple effect that damages the livelihoods of many creators.
In this Fractal Brief I give a rundown of my impression of the fairness of the ban and why the issues surrounding Patreon are incredibly important.
– Technicians are not intellectuals – Technocrats are not elite (using prebuilt tools isn’t special) – Using technology to enforce worldviews is douchy – What is an intellectual – How credentialism and materialism rot brains and cultures – You need to repeat good concepts (The Great Conversation) – Etc.
Note: Was looking for royalty free music but then remembered ‘O yea I play guitar.’ It’s a good feeling. Whether it’s painting, music, photography expanding your range of expression will always make you more independent.
The economic landscape has shifted dramatically. That is what we are told. It certainly seems to be true. I have my reservations but that’s beside the point. The validity of that statement isn’t the focus of this here essay.
No. What seems of utmost importance to weed (stoner laugh) out is whether this supposed shift is good. So for the sake of some truly Fractal – ‘integrative analysis’ let’s say that the Amazon cheerleaders are correct – brick and mortar is dead – human labor is soon to be obsolete.
Intimidation Perk + 666
What are the pros…the cons…the ethics…if any?
There are those that say this will usher in a renaissance of creativity where people freed from the bonds of common toil will create Sistine Chapels whilst sat in their living rooms.
Thus far I don’t see much besides cat videos.
An industry emerges…
But ok…this Utopia is on the way. Maybe cat portraits are how Michelangelo got his start. I’m game.
Suppose that we have a whole phalanx of virtuoso cellists selling their albums via Amazon to fund a perfected chemotherapy for dwarven children with cancerous buttocks.
Such nobility is surely good? Let’s all scurry to the altar of Bezos and use our Gen Z super powers to be a generation of thinkers, movers, and shakers who through the power of affiliate marketing make dwarven butt less tumorsome.
What of those who know nothing but crab fishing in a depleted bay?
Can everyman learn Javascript? (probably) Should he? Probably not. Seriously outlaw beards…now. Right now!)
Ruby on Rails bought this axe. Which I bought specifically for this photo.
This to me is the crux of the problem the place where principle and profit diverge. I can’t for the life of me understand how a culture in which a teenager flatulating into a microphone has more economic prowess than a chowder soup cannery.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the post-industrial thing is kind of cool. But are we really there yet…and if we are…how cool is it…how sustainable is it?
There are many pundits masturbating with chafed abandon over the concept of meritocracy. I see the exact opposite of meritocracy. I see opportunism. Albeit one that is more often than not unwitting.
Herr Bezos IMO is someone who was at the right place at the right time. I’m sure he’s as clever a lad as any and don’t care to dwell on his character but he’s not that impressive. He was there when a technology emerged and was operating in a milieu where capitalizing on that technology proved succesful. A bit of code a bit of business savvy and boom…he’s basically richer than God.
And there are now a billion microbezos attending to their affiliate market feudal fiefdoms and shilling their ‘systems.’
This didn’t prove as homoerotic as I’d hoped.
What precisely makes these systems possible? Is it merit? Is it genius? Is it meritorious, merit based boostrapping, asskicking 10 simple steps genius?
Or is it this:
Faces of Joy – A history in Photos
Seems to me that people still have to make things. And 3d printing is still quite a ways from conjuring a cozy three bedroom apartment in Seattle with the Iphone that it craves.
So if one has the choice to make something or to position oneself to sell things others make by learning how to weasel with SEO…and he chooses the former…
Is he a buffoon? A dinosaur? Or should the SEO beardo be less easily rewarded by a handholding matrix of taxcuts, backroom deals, and suburbanly available tech so easy my baby cousin could master it in his sleep. And then use it to buy himself Legoland…
I think that something is deeply amiss. And before we pop the champagne we should do some reflecting.
The Fractal Journal 