So that’s what I just wanted to say today, it’s just ‘stay curious, look after your mental health and if you do find you’ve hit an avenue where you don’t think you’re being validated or the person you’re talking to isn’t connecting with you, then it’s okay to end that and start looking for something different.
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When asked about the logic of ImageAI, its developers and evangelists will not only give contradictory answers, they will tell you only what you want to hear. If you are a director in a creative business, they will mention the huge potential for cutting expenses, speeding up production times and reducing team size. If you are an artist, they will tell you about the opportunity to stay afloat in the industry by learning the invaluable skill of AI prompting. If you are the social activist type, they will exalt ImageAI’s potential for making art more inclusive and accessible, both by lowering production fees and by eliminating the glass ceiling of elitist skilled artists. If you are the right-wing bodybuilding type, they will exalt ImageAI’s beauty and visual excellence as opposed to the sickening flat style and abstract art made by contemporary artists.
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You may have heard the late sir Roger Scruton recall his experience of the soixante-huitard riots while he had been a student in Paris. The destructiveness of his fellow colleagues, their righteous indignation, the shallowness and irrationality of their anger produced such an impression on Roger, that he knew right then he wanted nothing to do with anything these pampered narcissists stood for, and decided he would oppose them in any way he could.
I had a very similar journey away from liberalism and the fashionable strands of thoughts forming the contemporary consensus. If you are a dissident of any kind, you certainly have your own tale to tell. A deep sense of betrayal is what unifies
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The following lines are an accurate re-telling of a dream I had in January 2021. Nothing’s made up or embellished, all except for the character names which have been replaced with ones that, I believe, are more evocative.
SCENE 1 – HYDE PARK
Dr. Phaedrus was all over Youtube. His lectures on his peculiar Neo-Platonic thought were spreading exponentially, and still he had the common sense to promote real life meetings over impersonal online interactions. Large crowds were gathering in Hyde Park to listen to his free talks on various issues, and I was always there to hear him speak. I was generally favourable towards his ideas, although still not an adept. Certain aspects of his philosophy were over the top; he and his wife had 13 or 14 children of various ages and some of his actions were too eccentric for my tastes.
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‘The Social Dilemma’ is the kind of documentary that makes you realise Black Mirror is mild compared to reality. It is definitely worth a watch, although everyone across the political spectrum (centrists excluded) can instantly notice its ideological biases. Which means bipartisan consensus on the effects of social media is possible in theory.
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The more intellectual people become, the less they can find agreement on any matter. One of the few things most of us (intellectuals or not) can agree on is the fact that internet, social media and smartphones are impacting our lives mostly negatively, generating unhappiness, anxiety, social isolation and political polarisation.
In the early 2000s it was Evangelical Christians who warned against the addictive effects of social media and
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Along with many other mutations, over the past few years we have witnessed the rise of the Social Media Influencer – a person paid to distribute news from a variety of news aggregators on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Initially perceived as benign, though a bit annoying in their unrelenting posting, their content grew increasingly more political and partisan
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