At the moment, the only way I can tolerate listening to fucking human tumor Steve K. Bannon’s podcast is if I drink a huge amount of rye. And, yet, I find something about it interesting. And there’s something missing: me.
He and I are in some ways so similar that I think it would be amusing to have us play off each other. Having someone who, like, uh, disagrees with him, is the element that’s missing to his hate-filled, rage-filled podcast. He and Peter Navarro get way too overheated with their self-generated bullshit that it would be quite entertaining to have me in the mix.
People would download the podcast specifically to hear me get “owned.”
I think what I see with his podcast is has a lot of potential from a surreal, over-the-top entertainment level, more than any kind of serious podcast. It pretty much like listening to Howard Beale rant on a podcast.
Adding me to the mix would be very interesting and entertaining. I know I like to rant a lot on this blog, but I can also be quite measured in my conversations when need be.
Tik-Tok can not read our minds. This is simply me idly imaging why it would be so hard for us to believe that it could.
If I’m regularly being pushed videos on Tik-Tok that have no logical explanation other than there is some way that the service is rooting around my mind, why is it so difficult for anyone to believe me? And, that, is really, why this bothers me so much — reality (especially a shared reality) is very, very important to me and if something is obviously happening and I’m the only person seeing it, it makes me question my own sanity and I fucking hate that.
The biggest obstacle is how unexpected something like that would be. The moment one establishes that something is even possible, you begin to have severe cognitive dissidence as you process it. There are a lot of questions associated with this possiblity.
If Tik-Tok of all people can read our minds, who else can? And what’s the technology being used for? How extensive is it? Is it a point-to-point technology or is the information that Tik-Tok (and others) is gleaning from reading our minds being aggregated and processed somewhere for some later, nefarious reason?
Then there is the issue of how such technology could be developed in secret. Digital telepathy would be equal to the mass adoption of the Internet itself in historical and cultural significance. And, given the national security implications, Tik-Tok being able to read our minds in secret might, in itself, be seen as an act of war on the part of the Chinese government at some point.
It also opens up the Pandora’s box of, essentially, the Singularity already being here now, but in secret. Or maybe some sort of “soft Singularity” may exist. And, again, the issue of — why hide such technology and what’s the long-term goal of its secret use?
Also, how do you explain how subtle, granular and nuanced some of the editorial decisions this mind reading technology seems to be making about me (and others.) Now, obviously, some of this comes not from any mysterious mind reading technology, but they really do have some very advanced “algorithms.”
And, yet, how is it possible that these “algorithms” could figure out not just the phenotype of girls I like, but their personalities? Is it even possible that it’s not just mindreading going on, but some sort of AI hooked up to what it finds out about me? When a service can figure out that there is a specific young woman in New York City that I would fall in love with at first sight if I met her in person…that’s pretty eerie. That takes some abstract thought on whatever “algorthims” are involved.
If my mind is being read — which it isn’t — it’s not just being read, it’s being read and rooted around in to make some meta-editorial decisions using the videos I’m being pushed on a regular fucking basis.
Or, put another way — given how eerie, how spooky, how specific Tik-Tok is when it comes to what it pushes me these days, whatever the reason seems like a pretty severe national security threat. If it takes bonkers white racist Tucker Carlson to draw attention to it, then, lulz….I guess?
But, again, if Tik-Tok has mindreading technology, then, you know damn well that Facebook, Google, et al have it, too, they’re just a lot more sly about it. Tik-Tok, because its nebulous connection to the autocratic Chinese government doesn’t give a shit.
Anyway, thanks for attending my TEDtalk. I don’t believe Tik-Tok can read our minds, but I fucking hate how spooky their algorithms are.
I’ve stopped thinking Tik-Tok can read my mind. It can’t. But I will note another EXTREMELY SPOOKY co-incidence that took place recently. As part of writing in long-hand scene summaries for the four novels I’m working on, there’s a word (it’s inciting, if you must know) that I write so sloppily that it looks like another word, a word that evokes alarm in my mind.
Tik-Tok is not reading my mind!
Occasionally in the last few months, Tik-Tok has pushed me some very alarming videos purporting from the product of that alarming word. I was aghast that I would be pushed that type of video for any reason and began to question why Tik-Tok’s fucking algorithms would be pushing me such alarming content.
Then it hit me — in my mind, I’m thinking “OH MY GOD…oh, I just wrote inciting…” If you wanted to believe that Tik-Tok had the ability to read my mind, you would say that what was happening was is the reason I was getting such weird videos pushed to me was the alarm in my mind that initial confusion generates within me.
But this is just crazy talk. Tik-Tok can’t read my mind.
At just about 2:30 p.m. today, I started thinking about something in a very concreat fashion. I could see the thing I wanted and I began to game out how I would get it.
It occured to me that since my phone was in my lap as this happened, if Tik-Tok really does have the ability to read my mind in some way, I will be pushed a very specific video on that subject in the next few days.
I won’t tell you what I was thinking now, but if I get pushed a spooky video on my FYP, I will.
It happened again. Today I was looking at Tik-Tok and was pushed an extremely and I mean EXTREMELY specific video on my For You Page. Here’s what happened: I went to the doctor yesterday and he asked me around my alcohol consumption.
After some joking around, I admitted I drink a lot.
Ok, flash forward 24 hours and what am video am I pushed on my For You Page? A video a man having that specific conversation with his doctor. Like the literal same conversation.
Let’s go through how this is possible.
There’s the case that somehow, in aggregate, that Tik-Tok knows via my likes and time watched that people like me drink a lot and have that type of conversation with our doctors…so I got the video. That’s a fair enough explanation other than it happened 24 hours after I had that specific conversation with my own doctor.
The Future is Now.
Another argument could be made that through a combination of knowing about people like me aggregate and my phone’s location that they knew to push me that video because they knew that not only do I drink a lot, but within the last 24 hours I had been to a doctor. (This one actually seems to make sense.)
Then, there’s the more kooky explanations — at a minimum Tik-Tok is listening to me via my phone. I’m beginning to think a lot Big Tech companies do this already and Tik-Tok is just the most conspicuous.
Of course, I continue to have a lingering suspicion that Tik-Tok is much more direct than any of the above — it is somehow reading my mind.
But, lulz, that couldn’t possibly be happening, right? Right?
Editor’s Note: I can’t tell if Undead Gawker is boring or if the snarky milieu of the OG Gawker has so permeated our mainstream culture so much that…meh. But the following is all in good snarky fun and it’s the type of post that would get people talking if my dream of a Modern Political Gawker every magically came into being.
I sometimes find myself thinking — is Canada a real country? The reason why I ask this is Canada is so nationalistic compared to the United States that it’s almost like they know they’re not a real country. The “country” of Canada hides its insecurity about itself via being really nationalistic.
Let’s look at what Canada is more closely. It’s not really a nation-state. It’s more of two nations force-fused together with some leftover land above the United States tacked on. What race is to the United States, language is to Canada. There’s a reason why Canada defines itself as being NOT the Untied States. They don’t really have much of an identity otherwise because of the Anglophone – Francophone divide.
In a sense, North American geopolitical boundaries make no sense in the context of geography. What North America SHOULD look like is a huge French Canada that comes down through the center of the continent and reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The United States should be a small — but powerful — country that resides from Maine to about North Carolina.
Why this didn’t happen is, well, the French weren’t all that interested in North America and so the English speakers were able to plow through the middle of the continent, leaving the rump remains of New France and the parts of America that remained loyal to the crown.
But is that a real country? Defining yourself by what you’re NOT is kind of a strange national identity. What’s worse, the United States is so big that should we have another civil war, it’s very possible that this particular issue will solve itself.
You’re the real MVP.
If the United States should, say, split into the rump Blue USA and Trumplandia, it’s easy to imagine Blue USA gobbling up Canada so Blue States remain contiguous. This would happen regardless of what Canadians felt about the matter.
Another issue that faces Canada is global climate change. It’s very easy to imagine 50 years from now the United States finally invading Canada for its “resources” which, in this case would be the resource of livable land.
So, is Canada a country? I guess so. But it’s more a construct of the modern world that started about 1865 when America figured out that whole slavery thing. Once the United States realized it had the Wild West to settle and the “Dominion of Canada” wasn’t all that interesting, it’s position as a “country” was finally established.
I’m day drinking rye on my way to working fleshing out the outline of the first of four novels I’m planning, so think of this as me channeling Lester Bangs while I psyche myself up to my attention to the main event.
In short, I’m drunk and writing.
Anyway, the new Gawker is boring. It has an element of spunk to it, and, yet, not one of the article headlines I glanced out just a moment ago was enough to make me sit up and take notice. Sometimes, you need to be ornery. We live in such surreal times that if you had the backing to start a new blog like the Undead Gawker, I would pull out the stops.
Find a few young obsessives — or maybe an old obsessive like me? — and tell them to rant. They would get traffic through marketing and buzz. Now, here’s what I would do if I was in charge Undead Gawker. I would very carefully study the site’s Webstats and try to glean what, specifically was catching the most people’s interest then I would attack that subject with the strangest, snarkiest hot takes I could possibly pull out of my ass.
You know what Undead Gawker reminds me of right now?
Radar Online.
Give me a blog format, a jug of rye, access to Undead Gawker’s webstats and an expectation of 10 solid posts a day and I could put that site on the map. I know what makes Twitter liberals tick. I know their internal media narrative. I can make bankshot references to cultural touchstones that every Twitter power user knows.
The point is: fucking hire me, Undead Gawker.
Ugh.
Anyway, this rye tastes nice and the novels I’m supposed to be working on are looking more and more attractive.
Ugh. Seeing undead Gawker is beginning to eat away at me because I know I could really help them out, given the opportunity. What I feel like doing is obsessively writing about the site until they take notice and let me write for them in some capacity.
I would love to cover the Civil War Or Autocracy Beat.
And, yet, I don’t know. I do have four novels to develop and write. It seems like a huge waste of time. If I were to go the “Leave Britany alone” route, it would be just because my frustration got the best of me.
The point is — now that we’re (maybe?) coming out of the Rona era, there may be a first mover advantage for a blog to cover this new era we are entering. I’m the perfect person to start it, but only in the context of having a business partner. Given I’m apparently the most ghostable person on the planet, I need to just buckle down with the novels.
The thing I want — to either work for Gawker or found my own Gawker-like site, just isn’t going to happen. Or, it will only happen if something rather spectacular happens, like I win the lottery or something.
So, lulz, I need to focus on the four novels I’m developing and writing.
I can already feel my interest in this particular idea fading. I’m obsessed with developing and writing four novels and this is just another summer daydream. But maybe I should just get this out of my system by writing a bit about it before turning to the scenes I need to develop before I go on a personal writer’s retreat this weekend.
Ok, here’s why someone with some business sense should be my partner in a new politics – and culture blog.
You wouldn’t have to pay me at first Because of a very specific set of circumstances, just to get things off the ground in the first few days of any new professional blog, if you were a business type, you could “pay” me in access to the site’s Webstats. Just being able to see the site grow from zero would be enough pay at first. Once the site began to make money I would obviously want some pay, though, duh.
I’m obsessed with this subject If you look at this Website, you can tell I have VERY STRONG opinions about the specific issue of civil war or autocracy coming to America by 2025. I’m a turnkey solution.
I’m good at thinking up weird post ideas. If you look over this blog, you can see proof that I’m pretty good at coming up with strange, interesting post ideas that if they had some proper marketing probably would have a chance of going viral.
Anyway. Lulz. No one listens to me. Unless someone approaches me about this, this summer daydream is going to burn out very, very soon.
Now that we have had 24 hours to look at the soft-reboot of Gawker, and it’s obvious that my personal media tastes have moved on from the Gawker of yore. Besides my gripe about the new Gawker’s layout (it’s not really a blog), I feel kind of sad that none of the posts are as spicy-hot as the old Gawker’s. The whole thing is well done and interesting, but…not really viral-worthy.
This could change, of course, but it got me thinking.
Most of the traffic for this blog is coming from searches of people obviously worried about an impending civil war in the United States. My gut tells me that if I could find someone with some business savvy (read, money) and I wrote actual journalistic articles that were laser focused on pondering what appears to be our never-ending march towards the choice of autocracy or civil war (probably around January 2025) that you would have a recipe for some sort of success.
I could do it, but I have no money and no friends.
You get people hooked by long, interesting posts about how this or that recent event seems to indicate we’re closer to autocracy or civil war, and keep them hooked with weird articles like, “Is Tik-Tok Reading Your Mind?” and “Is Taylor Swift A Virgin?”
In the past, this would be the point when I would get frustrated, buy a URL and struggle for a few days to make this dream a reality. But, lulz, I four novels to work on.
So, I don’t know, maybe someone contact me about this? Or, hell, someone else can start this type of blog so I can have something to read?
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