I know, I know, I'm going on another anti AI, social media, and/or tech rant again. I can't guarantee that I'll try not to do this for the next blog, either, but no guarantees.
So I realized something lately. There are some people that I used to know well growing up, and now...we're all living pretty separate lives. That's not necessarily a bad thing, we all have our own lives and all. However, whenever they do get in contact with me, I feel like I'm being shown an Instagram reel's worth of their life highlights with no talk of what's going on inbetween. There's no discussion about the lows they went throguh and how they dealt with it, no talk about their current works in progress, etc. Everything always feels like it has to be the constant "I accomplished X" or "I experienced Y, be happy for me!"
I did not sign up to try to keep up friendships by portraying our lives to each other as social media highlight reels. It feels increasingly surface-level and it's becoming a barrier to wanting to know someone more, let alone stay in contact.
Is this a sign that I need to make an effort to make more offline friendships, like what I rambled about in a past blog of mine? Probably...
I also watched a video on how TikTok in particular is addictive...and the video was made by a former TikTok employee, so I think it carries some weight to the subject the video addressed. It's scary how social media is being made increasingly more addictive to keep us glued to our screens. Surely it can't be good for future generations (let alone my own, and I fall somewhere on the cusp of the end of Gen Y/beginning of Gen Z). I'm sure there are video essays on this so I won't ramble on too long about it here. At least, not today.
In the midst of keeping up with AI news and discourse lately, I learned that those who are often anti-tech and so on are called "Luddites." More specifically, lately, a lot of pro-AI people call the anti-AI people "Luddites" (I presume it's meant to be offensive). The image of a Luddite projected to most people are of people who are constantly scared of progress and new tech and modernity.
However, this is kind-of further from the truth than one would think, which I discovered recently. I read some article (which I'll list below). According to said articles, the real Luddites weren't necessarily anti-tech. They were actually pretty proficient with machinery. However, what they really just wanted were decent wages and being able to maintain making high-quality goods so their own labour wouldn't be devalued by machines. I recognize that I'm explaining this a bit too generally still, but again - I have articles linked below for more info.
Considering this actual definition...does that mean I'm technically a Luddite? I like tech. I think there is great potential to do good with it. But I also know that using it in ways that devalues human work (like those AI art generators) isn't the way to go, either.
Speaking of Luddites, I also heard of the book "Breaking Things At Work" by Gavin Mueller which is supposed to be pretty good, and I haven't read it yet. Hopefully I can pick up a copy sometime this summer!
Because I rambled enough about the things that annoy me above, I don't need another Things That Did Not Spark Joy For Me section, so let's just skip to the stuff that gave me joy recently.