I do think you make a very good point about the feel-good, instant gratification shortcuts that LLMs can provide. I think you'd probably enjoy reading about Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman, which discusses in depth the "plastic culture" you talk about.
That being said, I'm often baffled by the ability of people to do "sexism rickrolls" while talking in spaces (such as tech) where it's inherently hard to do so because of the nature of the topic. I was very surprised to see this on my inbox, no offense. Even if she really was a gold digger*, why is she the only one in the story seemingly doing a transaction? A transaction takes two parties. From what I can read, you were clearly accepting that she was using you for money, but other benefits outweighed that. That mindset is exactly living like Tiana (not getting that trust, depth, purpose). From the post, it seems like you never liked this person that much at all, as a human, as if you did one would expect to have a moral conflict stemming from the fact that you were enabling something harmful for her (and for you). I think this also applies to AI, and that therefore we should also reflect on the user's social environment (why is it that they are accepting this transaction in the first place, while being very much aware of its nature?), not only in the features of the other party (AI/LLMs, dark patterns).
Just to point out how the first part of the article reads, I'll rewrite a bit for you:
"And men—especially older men dating younger women—this dynamic is so interesting because, in a sense, it’s not interesting at all. It’s always the same fucking thing."
I appreciate this thoughtful comment. I didn't put in the post that I asked her to marry me, and I was trying to get her out of that lifestyle, but in the end she just chose it. The last I heard from her she was getting indicted for some felony. I don't even know what it was for. Does that change anything for you?
Oh absolutely, sorry to hear that is the case. Then I'd say it is less about full transactional acceptance and more about low-key acceptance (and on that we still have to think why) mixed in with denial/wishful thinking (honestly, been there done that; and sometimes it does work out somehow, as our evolutionary bias in this sense shows).
I wonder how much of a role does that play for LLM relationships, i.e. people anthropomorphizing them. AFAIK it does seem to be a trend for men, for women somewhat less, at least based on news? Hard to say because of the lack of research.
Nevertheless, I think there are some generalisations in the post which are maybe not that helpful (just like the men's version excerpt isn't). Conversely, I have seen a fair amount of men who were put off by the fact that I earned more than them/did not play the "damsel role" when they wanted me to, but I'm more interested on the systemic reasons behind that than anything else, although that takes some distance. It still objectively absolutely sucks though.
Wow! Here are two of my favorite science writers and contemporary critical theorists. I read John's End of Science and his later "My Doubts about The End of Science" Cross-Check article. And, while living in Santa Fe, I especially resonated with John's take on the (lack of) progress on Complexity Theory at the Santa Fe Institute. Full disclosure: I wanted to be a science writer just like John. Didn't have the chops to be published. :-(
Yes, the World (existence, experience) is baffling to those trying to intellectually mine its essence, as with Erik's attempt here. Not only mining the mystery of existence, but also the intrinsic nature of technology, the psycho-biological powerplay (?) "transactions" between the sexes, and ultimately the human condition. Red Pill or Blue Pill?
I, too, was surprised by the rawness of Erik's subject article, wondering if this was the same Erik J Larson whose writings I enjoy and support. What was this?! However, as I read on, the Hiedeggarian "enframement" allegory began to unfold. [I am referring to enframement in the sense of the twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger's 1954 essay "The Question Concerning Technology."]. Here, Erik is setting us up to see something new and not easily apparent, which evolved in the human condition: a new response mimicking an ancient psycho-biological response to transactions between the sexes. Tiana is not just the consumer here, John, but allegorically represents the profit-driven, male-herding, siren-like, emframing (and enframed in the Tiana case) commodity newly minted with all the bells and whistles and by a capitalistic system. So, in the allegory, Tiana is the commodified consumer. Commodified by capitalism. Erik is the consumer, IMHO.
As "addicted" high-tech consumer-users, humans become unwittingly transformed (enframed) as on-demand energy sources ("standing-reserve") for the technology (eg, TikTok and ChatGPT), as essential "cogs in the machine." Allegorically, high-tech capitalism surreptitiously commodifies its consumers as loyal conduits of cash, much like cattle. This technological worldview reduces the intrinsic value of entities to their quantifiable utility, obscuring deeper truths and potentially alienating us from our essence (and a possible life partner in the Tiana case). So, what was alienating Erik and Tiana from their potential roles as cooperating human partners in life? Have men been enframed by a male-dominated culture (system) in which women must compete to survive anyway they can, including turning to the "liberating" system of capitalism? Are we all just cogs in some machine?
Is Friedrich Neitsche's Übermensch in his work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" the ideal form of the redeemed--those freed from enframement of any type? The Übermensch is not a static ideal, but rather a dynamic goal of human evolution, constantly striving to surpass itself, rejecting nihilism, and creating its own goals.
Curiously, Heidegger said our redemption from this "plastic world" is in "posey" (i.e., poetry or art). We have to step outside the enframing system to reveal it as an entity that reduces everything to its usefulness as a commodity. In this essay, Erik is painting a picture to reflect on and redeem (in the rescue sense).
Further reflecting on the essay, I see the redemptive quality of Erik's allegory in revealing the essence of our human condition as a system of responses to a beguiling world, plastic and physical. The plastic one is purposely designed to exploit the hard-wired emotional responses to the survival-driven evolved physical one. But because our brains evolved (for survival) with neuroplasticity, we can learn to change this vulnerable part of our human condition to see the essence of enframement-seeking capitalism.
This is an allegory of exploitation, and yes, it is a two-way street between the sexes. No doubt. Think of capitalism as the pimp and ChatGPT (for example) as the pimp's product (Tiana?), perhaps as a reverse of Erik's allegory.
Sorry for the long response. I thought the essay was quite thought-provoking.
Erik, I was curious about your mention of Montaigne in the context of following his practice, which was exploring the human condition through short personal essays with an introspective, humanist approach featuring a sane, skeptical, and curious voice that examines human experience, truth, and culture. Montaigne is often compared to Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher. Montaigne could be considered a Stoic, as well. In both cases, the end product was wisdom that has survived centuries. Difficult acts to follow, IMHO.
Is this essay offered as a prototype for your proposed project? If it is, rather than stoicism, your essay seems to fall more under critical theory (CT) as a philosophical approach to culture that seeks to confront the social, historical, technological, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. CT critiques challenge dominant narratives and systems, aiming to reveal hidden biases, motives, and injustices, and ultimately, to promote social (or personal?) change. Feminism is an example of this school of thought, and is a topic more aligned with the Tiana part of your current essay.
However, there is also the Critical Theory of Technology (CTT), which views technology not as a neutral tool but as a socially shaped system that reflects and perpetuates power structures, arguing that social values embedded in its design cause harm to humans and the environment. This is the ChatGPT part of your current essay that is more in your wheelhouse, IMHO. And I would be a subscriber to such essays. For example, is the social impact of ChatGPT any different from that of, say, the steam engine? Where is AI taking us as a free-thinking society? Is social media really social?
Much of my current reading is aimed at understanding the human condition as conditioned by prevailing social (and technological) conditions. I find good science fiction (e.g., Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy) a good place to explore for insights. The science fiction genre offers a safe place for modern-day philosophers to practice openly as critical theorists in today's society, with its overly litigious, free-speech-abhorring, Orwellian power structures that constantly surveil, de-platform, and punish any official-narrative dissidence.
Erik, as a final thought on this, the idea of escaping ("looping out" of) the (enframing) mind trap by purposely getting our mind outside the entrapping system is very reminiscent of your previous. thought-provoking May 4th article titled "Gödel’s Ghost and the Left Hemisphere Trap."
In this context, it is interesting how Iain McGilchrist and Michel De Montaigne both mistrusted reason (as a way out of such traps). In Montaigne's "An Apology for Raymond Sebond (his longest essay), a masterful work of skepticism toward intellectual arrogance, he questions the ability of human reason to achieve certain truths, particularly about God and the universe.
Both thinkers argue that a narrow, abstract mode of thinking—represented by McGilchrist's left hemisphere and Montaigne's intellectual rationalism—can become a trap. It prioritizes the "map" of reality over the rich, complex "territory" of lived experience.
Isn't ChatGPT a "flattened" conglomeration or mashup of everyone else's experiences? Certainly, that is true of social media.
You’re stating what we “peasants” have always known. We’re not kulaks and your sentiment falls sadly - flat and elitist. That’s a no to learning more about what other brittle ideas are clattering about in your head. No offense.
Appreciate the read. It’s a personal story, not a manifesto. Thinly disguised, sure—but not pretending to speak for anyone else. You’re free to walk away. No offense taken.
My Substack buddy Erik Larson has a raw piece about relationships and tech, and lives lived according to transactional, ultimately limited, scripts. A short, sharp, diagnosis of a grave disease. In response, I said/I'm sharing, the following.
This is great, and much of my intellectual (and personal, I guess) life might be considered in the light you are shining. But let's consider three things: Dostoevsky's "The Gambler," in which compulsion is about the next throw. Well, gambling generally, which substitutes expectation for a real sense of time. Lots of recent work on this.
In "Between Citizen and State: An Introduction to the Corporation" and a lot of my class, I talk about the temporality of finance. The student borrows money from a capital provider in the hopes of becoming a lawyer who can repay the loan. The renter borrows money from a bank in order to become a homeowner. The start up issues equity to a VC . . . all of finance has this basic triangular structure. Finance is, by design, progressive, and often transformative. (Contra what "progressives" tend to think.)
Now consider, as already mentioned, tech. Or any engineering problem. Attention and resources are devoted to solving the problem; the solution lies in the future, the near future one hopes.
So we see a tight affinity, in tech, between pure finance and engineering. My CS friends (present company excepted!) have real difficulty seeing this. They are scientists. Fascinated with problems. And for them, the problems exist in some sort of timeless (until solved) intellectual state. It's kind of beautiful, if (perhaps willfully) naive. Get out of the light, said Archimedes . . .
And so we also see, in capitalism generally and tech specifically, a sense of hope, expectation, of "I can do better." This creates great energy, but the flip side is always "this isn't good enough," which leads to a kind of loathing (Doestoevsky, and I think your piece).
Applied to life, the techno/capitalist worldview means not only am I not good enough, my friends, lovers, etc., are not good enough -- which is where your story tellingly starts, with the question of "doing better." But there is much of beauty in the world, your world, as it is, and as you find yourself in it. Friendships and tacos and cold beer, for starters. So one antidote to expectation is appreciation. FWIW, this is what I'm working on with photography.
It isn't clear that we haven't, as a society, reached some sort of terminus, not because we have achieved AGI, but because more of this seems miserable, paralyzing. One of our many problems (in North Atlantic intellectual circles) is that the weight of the Marxian tradition makes it hard to think critically about capitalism in different ways, ways more appropriate to our economy. And at the same time, even so called socialist progressives imagine the self in the transactional terms you describe. That is, few people, and especially few young people, have any other way to think. (Blake Nelson just wrote a story about this.)
I spend a lot of time thinking, well I guess I have for decades now, about (i) how to make the capitalism we have work better, and for more people; and (ii) things I don't want to see monetized, or not much anyway. But we're slouching towards my next book!
Anyway, Erik, a good and brave piece. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to talking more.
Whoa, Erik, this is raw stuff. I applaud your courage in telling us about Tiana and you, and turning your relationship into a parable about tech's dangers. Marx warned that capitalism, although it sucks us in with the promise of wealth, gadgets, the luxuries of bourgeois life, ultimately reduces everything, and everyone, to a commodity. All relations become economic. But I'm curious. If Tiana is the consumer here, addicted to the shallow, short-term high of TikTok and ChatGPT, what does that make you?
Hi John! Let's catch up soon. I appreciate your comment. But I think the real courage comes in answering your question :-) I thought about that as well. Another consumer I suppose. I wish I had a better answer... let me think about it, but yes you definitely nailed the crux of the issue. Also, sorry for being obtuse here but I assume this is John Horgan? As in you wrote the end of science John Horgan?
By the way, I did ask her to marry me and that didn't work out. I should've mentioned that in the post. I suppose I look more like a cad than I really was. But I think I want the rawness of it to come through. It's such an important part of today.
Okay, now this is becoming a Black Mirror episode. Tiana is the sexbot, and you fall in love with her and ask her to marry you. And she, exercising her free will, says no.
About the gravitational pull of social media on young people:
I think it's artificial gravity.
Good thing I’m old.
I was lucky. Really lucky. My gut knew before I did. For whatever reason, I had a deep visceral repugnance towards Facebook from Day One. I think it was the thumbs up thumps down thing. Having everyone vote on everything all the time, forcing people to take sides about everything all day, all night, what possible good could come from that? Instant warring tribes.
For me it was gravitational repulsion not attraction. Facebook promised to connect us. It did the opposite. Anger maxes clicks.
And worse, Facebook, Meta, would make money on MY private data, MY conversations. For which it offers me NO compensation. Isn't that MY IP?
It's like if the phone company was allowed to listen in on my calls, sell what it learns to the highest bidder who, in turn, would then endlessly bombard me with targeted ads.
Ideally, social networks should be regulated just like the phone companies. Phone companies are private enterprises that provide a public benefit, and are GUARANTEED a profit. Are social networks really that different?
True, some of the worst abuses have been corrected, but still, according to an AI that shall go unnamed, in the first quarter of 2025, Meta employed 85 lobbyists, working at a ratio of about one lobbyist for every six members of Congress. It spent $24.4 million in federal lobbying in 2024.
So yes, those kids fell down the (artificial) gravity well, and were even given an extra boost.
I do think you make a very good point about the feel-good, instant gratification shortcuts that LLMs can provide. I think you'd probably enjoy reading about Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman, which discusses in depth the "plastic culture" you talk about.
That being said, I'm often baffled by the ability of people to do "sexism rickrolls" while talking in spaces (such as tech) where it's inherently hard to do so because of the nature of the topic. I was very surprised to see this on my inbox, no offense. Even if she really was a gold digger*, why is she the only one in the story seemingly doing a transaction? A transaction takes two parties. From what I can read, you were clearly accepting that she was using you for money, but other benefits outweighed that. That mindset is exactly living like Tiana (not getting that trust, depth, purpose). From the post, it seems like you never liked this person that much at all, as a human, as if you did one would expect to have a moral conflict stemming from the fact that you were enabling something harmful for her (and for you). I think this also applies to AI, and that therefore we should also reflect on the user's social environment (why is it that they are accepting this transaction in the first place, while being very much aware of its nature?), not only in the features of the other party (AI/LLMs, dark patterns).
Just to point out how the first part of the article reads, I'll rewrite a bit for you:
"And men—especially older men dating younger women—this dynamic is so interesting because, in a sense, it’s not interesting at all. It’s always the same fucking thing."
*(albeit that framing kind of conveniently glosses over systemic issues on economic inequality and the power dynamics that that induces https://feminisminindia.com/2024/10/07/i-used-to-fear-being-called-a-gold-digger-until-i-realised-this/ somehow men trying to be successful to get a gf do not get this kind of treament)
I appreciate this thoughtful comment. I didn't put in the post that I asked her to marry me, and I was trying to get her out of that lifestyle, but in the end she just chose it. The last I heard from her she was getting indicted for some felony. I don't even know what it was for. Does that change anything for you?
Oh absolutely, sorry to hear that is the case. Then I'd say it is less about full transactional acceptance and more about low-key acceptance (and on that we still have to think why) mixed in with denial/wishful thinking (honestly, been there done that; and sometimes it does work out somehow, as our evolutionary bias in this sense shows).
I wonder how much of a role does that play for LLM relationships, i.e. people anthropomorphizing them. AFAIK it does seem to be a trend for men, for women somewhat less, at least based on news? Hard to say because of the lack of research.
https://www.bbc.com/articles/c4nnje9rpjgo
Nevertheless, I think there are some generalisations in the post which are maybe not that helpful (just like the men's version excerpt isn't). Conversely, I have seen a fair amount of men who were put off by the fact that I earned more than them/did not play the "damsel role" when they wanted me to, but I'm more interested on the systemic reasons behind that than anything else, although that takes some distance. It still objectively absolutely sucks though.
On a completely different note and about younger generations and social media, I found this article really interesting: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/08/kids-smartphones-play-freedom/683742/
The LLM and men comment is interesting. I haven't thought about that yet let me process that for a while I appreciate your reply.
Wow! Here are two of my favorite science writers and contemporary critical theorists. I read John's End of Science and his later "My Doubts about The End of Science" Cross-Check article. And, while living in Santa Fe, I especially resonated with John's take on the (lack of) progress on Complexity Theory at the Santa Fe Institute. Full disclosure: I wanted to be a science writer just like John. Didn't have the chops to be published. :-(
Yes, the World (existence, experience) is baffling to those trying to intellectually mine its essence, as with Erik's attempt here. Not only mining the mystery of existence, but also the intrinsic nature of technology, the psycho-biological powerplay (?) "transactions" between the sexes, and ultimately the human condition. Red Pill or Blue Pill?
I, too, was surprised by the rawness of Erik's subject article, wondering if this was the same Erik J Larson whose writings I enjoy and support. What was this?! However, as I read on, the Hiedeggarian "enframement" allegory began to unfold. [I am referring to enframement in the sense of the twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger's 1954 essay "The Question Concerning Technology."]. Here, Erik is setting us up to see something new and not easily apparent, which evolved in the human condition: a new response mimicking an ancient psycho-biological response to transactions between the sexes. Tiana is not just the consumer here, John, but allegorically represents the profit-driven, male-herding, siren-like, emframing (and enframed in the Tiana case) commodity newly minted with all the bells and whistles and by a capitalistic system. So, in the allegory, Tiana is the commodified consumer. Commodified by capitalism. Erik is the consumer, IMHO.
As "addicted" high-tech consumer-users, humans become unwittingly transformed (enframed) as on-demand energy sources ("standing-reserve") for the technology (eg, TikTok and ChatGPT), as essential "cogs in the machine." Allegorically, high-tech capitalism surreptitiously commodifies its consumers as loyal conduits of cash, much like cattle. This technological worldview reduces the intrinsic value of entities to their quantifiable utility, obscuring deeper truths and potentially alienating us from our essence (and a possible life partner in the Tiana case). So, what was alienating Erik and Tiana from their potential roles as cooperating human partners in life? Have men been enframed by a male-dominated culture (system) in which women must compete to survive anyway they can, including turning to the "liberating" system of capitalism? Are we all just cogs in some machine?
Is Friedrich Neitsche's Übermensch in his work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" the ideal form of the redeemed--those freed from enframement of any type? The Übermensch is not a static ideal, but rather a dynamic goal of human evolution, constantly striving to surpass itself, rejecting nihilism, and creating its own goals.
Curiously, Heidegger said our redemption from this "plastic world" is in "posey" (i.e., poetry or art). We have to step outside the enframing system to reveal it as an entity that reduces everything to its usefulness as a commodity. In this essay, Erik is painting a picture to reflect on and redeem (in the rescue sense).
Further reflecting on the essay, I see the redemptive quality of Erik's allegory in revealing the essence of our human condition as a system of responses to a beguiling world, plastic and physical. The plastic one is purposely designed to exploit the hard-wired emotional responses to the survival-driven evolved physical one. But because our brains evolved (for survival) with neuroplasticity, we can learn to change this vulnerable part of our human condition to see the essence of enframement-seeking capitalism.
This is an allegory of exploitation, and yes, it is a two-way street between the sexes. No doubt. Think of capitalism as the pimp and ChatGPT (for example) as the pimp's product (Tiana?), perhaps as a reverse of Erik's allegory.
Sorry for the long response. I thought the essay was quite thought-provoking.
Erik, I was curious about your mention of Montaigne in the context of following his practice, which was exploring the human condition through short personal essays with an introspective, humanist approach featuring a sane, skeptical, and curious voice that examines human experience, truth, and culture. Montaigne is often compared to Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher. Montaigne could be considered a Stoic, as well. In both cases, the end product was wisdom that has survived centuries. Difficult acts to follow, IMHO.
Is this essay offered as a prototype for your proposed project? If it is, rather than stoicism, your essay seems to fall more under critical theory (CT) as a philosophical approach to culture that seeks to confront the social, historical, technological, and ideological forces and structures that produce and constrain it. CT critiques challenge dominant narratives and systems, aiming to reveal hidden biases, motives, and injustices, and ultimately, to promote social (or personal?) change. Feminism is an example of this school of thought, and is a topic more aligned with the Tiana part of your current essay.
However, there is also the Critical Theory of Technology (CTT), which views technology not as a neutral tool but as a socially shaped system that reflects and perpetuates power structures, arguing that social values embedded in its design cause harm to humans and the environment. This is the ChatGPT part of your current essay that is more in your wheelhouse, IMHO. And I would be a subscriber to such essays. For example, is the social impact of ChatGPT any different from that of, say, the steam engine? Where is AI taking us as a free-thinking society? Is social media really social?
Much of my current reading is aimed at understanding the human condition as conditioned by prevailing social (and technological) conditions. I find good science fiction (e.g., Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy) a good place to explore for insights. The science fiction genre offers a safe place for modern-day philosophers to practice openly as critical theorists in today's society, with its overly litigious, free-speech-abhorring, Orwellian power structures that constantly surveil, de-platform, and punish any official-narrative dissidence.
Big fan of Montaigne for essentially the reasons you articulate.
Erik, as a final thought on this, the idea of escaping ("looping out" of) the (enframing) mind trap by purposely getting our mind outside the entrapping system is very reminiscent of your previous. thought-provoking May 4th article titled "Gödel’s Ghost and the Left Hemisphere Trap."
In this context, it is interesting how Iain McGilchrist and Michel De Montaigne both mistrusted reason (as a way out of such traps). In Montaigne's "An Apology for Raymond Sebond (his longest essay), a masterful work of skepticism toward intellectual arrogance, he questions the ability of human reason to achieve certain truths, particularly about God and the universe.
Both thinkers argue that a narrow, abstract mode of thinking—represented by McGilchrist's left hemisphere and Montaigne's intellectual rationalism—can become a trap. It prioritizes the "map" of reality over the rich, complex "territory" of lived experience.
Isn't ChatGPT a "flattened" conglomeration or mashup of everyone else's experiences? Certainly, that is true of social media.
Meant comment to be placed under the John Horgan post. Not sure how this happened.
You’re stating what we “peasants” have always known. We’re not kulaks and your sentiment falls sadly - flat and elitist. That’s a no to learning more about what other brittle ideas are clattering about in your head. No offense.
Appreciate the read. It’s a personal story, not a manifesto. Thinly disguised, sure—but not pretending to speak for anyone else. You’re free to walk away. No offense taken.
My Substack buddy Erik Larson has a raw piece about relationships and tech, and lives lived according to transactional, ultimately limited, scripts. A short, sharp, diagnosis of a grave disease. In response, I said/I'm sharing, the following.
This is great, and much of my intellectual (and personal, I guess) life might be considered in the light you are shining. But let's consider three things: Dostoevsky's "The Gambler," in which compulsion is about the next throw. Well, gambling generally, which substitutes expectation for a real sense of time. Lots of recent work on this.
In "Between Citizen and State: An Introduction to the Corporation" and a lot of my class, I talk about the temporality of finance. The student borrows money from a capital provider in the hopes of becoming a lawyer who can repay the loan. The renter borrows money from a bank in order to become a homeowner. The start up issues equity to a VC . . . all of finance has this basic triangular structure. Finance is, by design, progressive, and often transformative. (Contra what "progressives" tend to think.)
Now consider, as already mentioned, tech. Or any engineering problem. Attention and resources are devoted to solving the problem; the solution lies in the future, the near future one hopes.
So we see a tight affinity, in tech, between pure finance and engineering. My CS friends (present company excepted!) have real difficulty seeing this. They are scientists. Fascinated with problems. And for them, the problems exist in some sort of timeless (until solved) intellectual state. It's kind of beautiful, if (perhaps willfully) naive. Get out of the light, said Archimedes . . .
And so we also see, in capitalism generally and tech specifically, a sense of hope, expectation, of "I can do better." This creates great energy, but the flip side is always "this isn't good enough," which leads to a kind of loathing (Doestoevsky, and I think your piece).
Applied to life, the techno/capitalist worldview means not only am I not good enough, my friends, lovers, etc., are not good enough -- which is where your story tellingly starts, with the question of "doing better." But there is much of beauty in the world, your world, as it is, and as you find yourself in it. Friendships and tacos and cold beer, for starters. So one antidote to expectation is appreciation. FWIW, this is what I'm working on with photography.
It isn't clear that we haven't, as a society, reached some sort of terminus, not because we have achieved AGI, but because more of this seems miserable, paralyzing. One of our many problems (in North Atlantic intellectual circles) is that the weight of the Marxian tradition makes it hard to think critically about capitalism in different ways, ways more appropriate to our economy. And at the same time, even so called socialist progressives imagine the self in the transactional terms you describe. That is, few people, and especially few young people, have any other way to think. (Blake Nelson just wrote a story about this.)
I spend a lot of time thinking, well I guess I have for decades now, about (i) how to make the capitalism we have work better, and for more people; and (ii) things I don't want to see monetized, or not much anyway. But we're slouching towards my next book!
Anyway, Erik, a good and brave piece. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to talking more.
You're too kind Bert thank you. Let me have a think on your excellent comment here.
The antidote for transactionalism is the pure gift.
Whoa, Erik, this is raw stuff. I applaud your courage in telling us about Tiana and you, and turning your relationship into a parable about tech's dangers. Marx warned that capitalism, although it sucks us in with the promise of wealth, gadgets, the luxuries of bourgeois life, ultimately reduces everything, and everyone, to a commodity. All relations become economic. But I'm curious. If Tiana is the consumer here, addicted to the shallow, short-term high of TikTok and ChatGPT, what does that make you?
Hi John! Let's catch up soon. I appreciate your comment. But I think the real courage comes in answering your question :-) I thought about that as well. Another consumer I suppose. I wish I had a better answer... let me think about it, but yes you definitely nailed the crux of the issue. Also, sorry for being obtuse here but I assume this is John Horgan? As in you wrote the end of science John Horgan?
Yeah, I'm that John Horgan.
Or we could go with "there was a fundamental misalignment issue" to keep using the AI jargon.
By the way, I did ask her to marry me and that didn't work out. I should've mentioned that in the post. I suppose I look more like a cad than I really was. But I think I want the rawness of it to come through. It's such an important part of today.
Okay, now this is becoming a Black Mirror episode. Tiana is the sexbot, and you fall in love with her and ask her to marry you. And she, exercising her free will, says no.
About the gravitational pull of social media on young people:
I think it's artificial gravity.
Good thing I’m old.
I was lucky. Really lucky. My gut knew before I did. For whatever reason, I had a deep visceral repugnance towards Facebook from Day One. I think it was the thumbs up thumps down thing. Having everyone vote on everything all the time, forcing people to take sides about everything all day, all night, what possible good could come from that? Instant warring tribes.
For me it was gravitational repulsion not attraction. Facebook promised to connect us. It did the opposite. Anger maxes clicks.
And worse, Facebook, Meta, would make money on MY private data, MY conversations. For which it offers me NO compensation. Isn't that MY IP?
It's like if the phone company was allowed to listen in on my calls, sell what it learns to the highest bidder who, in turn, would then endlessly bombard me with targeted ads.
Ideally, social networks should be regulated just like the phone companies. Phone companies are private enterprises that provide a public benefit, and are GUARANTEED a profit. Are social networks really that different?
True, some of the worst abuses have been corrected, but still, according to an AI that shall go unnamed, in the first quarter of 2025, Meta employed 85 lobbyists, working at a ratio of about one lobbyist for every six members of Congress. It spent $24.4 million in federal lobbying in 2024.
So yes, those kids fell down the (artificial) gravity well, and were even given an extra boost.
"But over time, they reshape how we relate to everything." - Marshal McLuhan could not have phrased it better.