Violent kooks have really ruined the word “manifesto” for the rest of us. So I guess this is more of a proclamation, okaaaay? (See, I’m normal.)
This video was filmed by Noah Kalina and you should check out his Substack for cool photography, videos, nature/culture stuff, etc. This vid is a decent summary of my worldview re: tech and humanity – and there’s a couple more clips like it below too.
Transcript:
Screens make everyone feel like some kind of emperor. “I should get what I want when I want. I’m right all the time. Anyone who disagrees with me is the enemy.”
You see it manifesting everywhere, most obviously in politics. You’re a progressive, you’re Antifa, you’re evil, you need to be stopped. You’re MAGA, you’re steering us into fascism, you need to be stopped. But get those same people in a room actually talking about what should happen at the school district and, a lot of times, some compromise could be reached. But online, it’s just two rams butting heads.
The same thing is happening in dating. All these men are listening to other men tell them how to feel, and all the women are listening to other women tell them how to feel. When really, men should be listening to women and women should be listening to men — because that, in my opinion, is the magic of having different genders. The duality. The yin and yang. Completing each other.
Instead you’ve got incels listening to each other: “These gold-digging women, all they want is this or that, screw them.” And you’ve got women: “Everything’s a red flag, everything gives me the ick. I didn’t like the way he put his ChapStick on, it was weird.” Well, you might have to get used to that. That’s part of life in a relationship — compromising.
Online you never have to settle. You’re always told you’re right. It’s constant ego inflation, non-stop. And then real life becomes untenable because you go out into the world and suddenly you have to negotiate, compromise, persuade someone else. Online, you’re just told you’re right all the time.
It keeps popping up everywhere: I can live in my screen and have my ego stroked, or I can get off my screen and negotiate things that are tricky, uncomfortable, and human. And that friction — that’s why people just plug back in.
Be an outsider
It’s the inside people vs. the outside people (also filmed by Noah):
Transcript:
I think eventually we’re going to descend into inside people and outside people.
The inside people will just stay inside and live life on a screen. Their whole life is a video game. They’re plugged into AI, they’ve got a robot girlfriend, they dunk on each other online on social media.
Then there’s the go-outside people who actually touch grass, go into nature, go to comedy shows or concerts or church, go out dancing — people who exist around real human beings and have to negotiate interactions with other people in real life.
There’s going to be a fork in the road where people either plug into that video game life or actually live a farm-to-table life.
I think there’s a middle ground now, but I wonder if it’s going to slowly evaporate. Going offline will become a luxury item — the same way you can pay money to buy something that makes your phone not work, or there are luxury resorts with no Wi-Fi, or comedy clubs that take your phone away and lock it in a pouch. The luxury item becomes having technology taken away from you.
And then, in order to prevent a revolution, the poor, suffering people will just plug into constant stimulation — fed slop all the time that keeps them satiated and not noticing what a bummer the rest of their lives are.
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Instagram vs. IRL
From Ep 99 of Artists of NY podcast:
Transcript:
Technology is ripping us apart at the seams. Poisoning our minds. Turning us into morons. Making us all hate each other. Making us unable to understand nuance or tolerate complexity in any form — in favor of tribalism and ego stroking. We just exist on devices all day that tell us we’re right about everything and anyone who disagrees is the enemy.
You go to Instagram and everyone’s more beautiful than they are in real life. You go to a podcast and everyone’s more interesting than they are in real life. You go to ChatGPT and it tells you how amazing and thoughtful you are.
And then you come home to your wife and she’s telling you that you load the dishwasher wrong. And you’re like, “How do I mute you? You’re not as pretty or as interesting as what I’ve been consuming all day.”
So I think technology is turning us away from being human. Away from understanding other human beings. Away from empathy and compassion. And I think that’s the root cause of so much of what’s going wrong in society right now.
So now I just have to figure out how to make that funny. That’s all.
Funny How
Over at Funny How newsletter, I’ve been writing about the craft and business of comedy: whether YouTube or Netflix is the better home for a special, how artists actually make a living, why bombing matters, what the algorithm wants from comedians, the enduring appeal of roasts, lessons from comics like Roy Wood Jr., the Adam Carolla joke that Jerry Seinfeld loves, and more. If that sounds up your alley, come check it out…
Adios.
-M.
P.S. Two more related bits…
1) Here’s a bonus segment of “Substance” that relates too. It’s about the antidote to all this screen addiction and why the stage feels like a holy space to me.
2) Similar themes here too…
The ego pandemic
As a Gen X guy, I grew up without a smartphone and, increasingly, that makes me feel like some strange experiment where I’m both the control group and the lab rat. I remember what it was like before I had a universe of distraction in my pocket delivering dopamine with every swipe. Back then, I’d do stuff like read books and daydream. Now, I’m just a mod…
