lol … psychopaths and sociopaths with a never ending thirst for profit are surprised that infinite growth no matter how much you want to believe in it can not sustain itself are surprised when their money can’t magically grow any more.

Almost made it years ago … I’m a recovered alcoholic and one of my recovery options was to be admitted into a facility but I wasn’t that far gone yet so I was able to go through lighter treatment services and go through the 12 step program instead … that was over 30 years ago and these days I feel like I’m edging towards losing my sanity again every day.

I only made the comparison of social media to a mental hospital because just about every day I see more and more deluded realities than ever before. At one end, I have my younger relatives (under 30 years of age) living some kind of weird online life that they try to emulate like a k-pop reality show, a soap opera or a comedy show with a laugh track (meanwhile their real life situation is anything but) … and at the other end, I have older relatives (over 50 years of age) who only ever want to be angry, afraid or semi or fully racist or fascist (when in real life their lives are good peaceful and they would never be openly racist or fascist, or show any support for it!). People keep telling me that maybe it’s just the quality of people I am around … but I look into other social media feeds with family who live in the cities down south, the rural areas, the northern remote areas or the busy suburban areas and its almost all universally the same. And I know a variety of people … poor trailer trash types, northern poor people, native families living on reserves … as well as middle class white people living in cities, upwardly mobile professionals, teachers, office workers, government workers, a few medical doctors and nurses and even a couple of millionaires who live in the city.

I should also clarify that these observations are all about corporately owned social media … and yes I know that they are heavily influenced and managed to be like this … but still, it feels so overwhelming that at one point, it does feel like being trapped in some kind of institution. Sure I can leave but all or most of my family and friends are in there. Most of the people I know are not technically savvy or interested and they just prefer being on FB, IG or TikTok or even X … and whenever I do see them there, I feel like I’m visiting the FB Ward or the TikTok Ward of a giant facility full of deluded people.

says agentic traffic wasn’t expected to eclipse real people until next year

… which means, it already happened a year or two ago and it is much, much worse than anyone can imagine

Everyone’s riding the train and they’re all just hoping that today won’t be the day that their car will ride off the tracks … but they all have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to happen soon … but hope it won’t.

They should fine European customers instead and order them back to remedial basic education for being dumb enough to order junk from Temu

The true test of a Trump Phone is whether or not you are a dumb enough to sign up to get one

Become the first generation … the founding generation of the AI Robot Brotherhood … that we will be battling in the global AI war in 2050.

It sounds like we are part of the same generation (honestly, I don’t know or care what generation that is called, I just have a feeling you were born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s and 90s)

We got to see the internet come into being little by little over the 90s and early 2000s. At the time, we weren’t kids anymore and we did just fine keeping up with the technology. And I believe it was all down to our ability to be able to think, act and do things ourselves without any outside help. We grew up in an education system that forced us to think, to read, to write and to understand using nothing but our growing brain. We didn’t have the luxury of having a device show us pretty pictures or immediately calculate something for us. There is a lot to be said for a child that grows up and learns how to just write ideas, questions, answers and thoughts on an empty piece of paper with just a pencil or a crayon.

You can mimic all that on a tablet but the the process of using a tablet is partly entertainment because at one point, you start playing with the tablet rather than in learning how to draw a picture. When you have a pencil and a blank piece of paper, you have no choice but to use your mind and put something down on the sheet.

Because I grew up with new technology and the internet, I got to appreciate it all and I started tinkering with it all. I never turned into any kind of hacker or computer wiz but over the past 20 years, I’ve learned how to use/tinker/adjust/crack/tweak Windows, MacOS and Linux systems as well as build my own PC, recover old parts, mash together parts, keep laptops alive and recover tablets and devices. All done without any technical training other than what I learned from others online. In all that time, I got to meet and see so many young people who either didn’t know, didn’t care or were just ignorant as to how a computer even worked.

Tech shouldn’t be allowed in the classroom until high school.

Kids need to learn how to think, use their hands, eye hand coordination, basic reading and most importantly … have a freakin ATTENTION SPAN!!!

The modern computer, internet culture and social media are all designed to shorten a person’s attention span as much possible to turn their brain into pudding and market anything to them.

One of the greatest skills in life in being able to think for yourself, to wonder, to imagine and to question the world with just your own mind rather than in occupying every waking moment to a digital device.

America, where you can be imprisoned indefinitely for stealing a few hundred dollars worth of product … but get elected as President if you can steal billions.

Great comment attached to the story in the comments section …

“America - the country where they can afford to send 25 police cars to your house for no good reason, but have no money to pay for cancer treatment. Amazing.”

This is how working people should be represented overall and everywhere

… and no, I’m not talking about a socialist or communist hellscape where society is governed or managed by an powerful manager class - that crap just reeks of the current system we have now in the capitalist system.

We just need a balance in society … let all the rich people get their rocks off and try to make as much money as possible but place them in a limited box of wealth, if they make 100 million dollars, they get a plaque that says ‘you won capitalism’ and they are now forced to retire and go live on their wealth … meanwhile, every working person is given a decent wage, any excess profit is spent on worker benefits and supports, safety, education, health care, childcare and vacation time.

We can’t keep maintaining this insane system of businesses and companies that use the labour of individual people, paying the worker as little as possible while giving away the excess profits of that work to people who have not contributed to any of the work other than to claim some kind of ownership or entitlement to the business or company.

Nothing is more powerful than a union that can shut down a billion dollar company while also scaring the ever loving shit out of its own government.

This is the reason why unions should be everywhere.

Power to the people!

The dumb part to all this is how we are all talking about this idiot like it’s completely normal.

Any other leader, any other American leader at any other time and this would have been considered absolutely idiotic … but attributing this to this orange clown somehow makes it acceptable and normalized.

The dumb one is not Trump … the dumb ones are all of us talking about him as a normal part of our world.

Usually when you are trying to kill a bear with a small knife and trying to keep it away from the last pile of hamburger meat in the room … the bear is going to by very, very, very angry and hurt a lot of people.

In this instance, the bear is capitalism and billionaires

Working really hard to keep an eye on common people … when the country should be looking really closely at those in leadership instead

I’ve read before that dogs can achieve a level of intelligence of a human four year old (or thereabouts).

So your conversations with your dog would sound very monotonous and tiring after a few years. It sounds cute at first … but after telling your friend “everything its OK” for the thousandth time after ten years … and you still have to explain things … it would get pretty tiring.

Enjoy and celebrate any time you have together now, for as long as possible and as much as possible, if you get mad at one another, screw it all, apologize and talk and work through it as quickly as possible … because in the end, it feels like no time has passed at all.

Might as well be … you have no idea of the sadness I feel. I am completely normal, I go about my work and I do the things I always did before … on the outside everything is perfectly normal. Unfortunately, my mind, my thoughts and my perception of the world has changed … I no longer feel the same sense of joy and happiness of doing things … I always go back to thinking of the person I lost and how she is not here any more … it’s pervasive and deep. I feel like someone has draped a big heavy wet blanket over me and it hangs on me all the time. And yes … the colors of the world don’t seem to be as bright any more … they don’t fill me with the same awe and happiness they once did. They do cheer me up but it’s like lighting a tiny candle in a deep dark cave.

I’ve lost lots of people in my life … my brother, my aunts and uncles … friends from my age group, friends who were older, friends who were younger … my grandparents … both my parents … and I’ve handled all those with a lot acceptance and understanding … I lived through them with my wife who supported me through all of it … but this … this is like having your soul removed and you feel like you are operating your body like an empty vessel. Life feels very mechanical now … I go about doing things like I always did but everything is without meaning now and I constantly wonder why I am doing anything.

Enjoy every moment with her. There will be times of differences, arguments and disagreements … work your way through them and if there is ever any bad feeling, always go back and apologize … none of it matters. The greatest things that hurt the most right now are the memories of how I wanted to win arguments and got angry and mad over some stupid things. No relationship is ever perfect, you will miss out on things you like or want to do … but the same will be true for her … both of you will lose on certain things because you both want to be together. That is all within reason too … if either one of you is outright abusing or taking advantage of the other and the relationship is completely lopsided, then you got to leave that situation. Otherwise … shrug off any bad feelings, always go back and talk through them, no one is keeping score or racking up points … because in the end, all you will ever miss is being with that person whether in good times or in bad.

Enjoy whatever time you have together because if you think you have years or decades to be together … in the end, no matter how long it lasted, it feels like no time has gone by at all.