Author: harold

So,

Last year in December I notice seeing 4:44 on my phone multiple times. I thought that was fun at first and then I remembered that it meant something. I forget to check what that number means.

At that time I’m still waiting on housing opportunities. I get the place I want the most. I felt like I would/could.

I since then have seen 444 regularly. Like, too regularly. I enjoy it! I stay dumb, still not knowing what that number means but knowing that it means something good. “Don’t fuck up the streak, keep being an idiot”, I think.

And then one day, after seeing 444 multiple days in a row (I don’t know if my body synced with time but also I see 444 on other stuff than clocks; and I usually see the magic number while making or studying music, when time absolutely does not exist), I decide to not look at my phone or computer.

I’m playing music, feeling good, knowing that I can’t see 444 because it’s passed, for sure. I check the time after finishing up a song. It is 5:55.

I had to check what those numbers mean.

Now I’m pressed.

And yeah, they’re still around.

How might this past year look if we’d all tried? If we’d all been willing to give our best efforts to social distancing? If we all had sacrificed parties and holiday gatherings? (I’m trying not to call everyone who met for Thanksgiving a f*cking loser right now, it is very hard; Turkey Day? You were willing to let Auntie Myrtle fast track her ride to the ancestors for some f*cking Turkey Day? LOOOOOL I am so sorry, you are a f*cking loser to me. Just to ME! I ain’t nobody, but just know, you are a loser in my nobody-ass eyes.)

Jamilah is telling the truth and you know this. I ain’t nobody either, but I’m still mad at my friend who jeopardized our health for a stupid ass, fucking plate of food. Ugh.

Girl, we got REALLY lucky.

“it’s Sunday whatever, peace”

“Is that a fruit fly in my juice”

“Fuck it”

“What am I gonna bass real quick?”

“Oh yeah, that thang”

I am realizing that scarcity creates dynamism: you don’t get what you want enough, so you look after it.

Abundance creates the opposite: you have as much as you want, so you don’t look after it.

It becomes creepy, when you realize that knowledge is abundant as hell right now. Just look up your phone for anything you want to know. Anything. Therefore, no one does it.

For the actual digital natives (born 00s and up), knowledge (abundant) is boring. But rare skins (completely artificial scarcity) in a game is exciting to the point of spending hundreds of dollars on them. Even though those “skins” are just 0s and 1s hosted on a server.

I experienced irl scarcity as a kid. You had one magazine to read for a month, and that was it. Maybe two if you spent all your money on them. No videos.

We had the absolute necessity to simulate things in our minds, as you were looking at video games screenshots or pictures of basketball players, levitating in the air.

So, as a species we solved scarcity with abundance. But capitalism is sending us back to scarcity because abundance doesn’t create growth, which is the only metric capitalism cares about.

The complex part is that the way we feel about scarcity and abundance are directly the result of how we experienced them while growing up. It’s baked-in. We don’t really control this.

Brands know this, though. *breathing intensifies*

Considering the news, UBI (Universal Basic Income) would have saved lives.

Sex workers do sex work because they have to. It pays enough to pay bills, compared to this outrageous hourly rate from $7 in Texas to a paltry $15 at best for so many jobs, none allowing you to house yourself and cover your needs.

So sex work it is. With UBI though, most would stop doing it and would be better off. Dudes would have to find solutions in themselves instead of driving to the next massage spa because those wouldn’t exist.

I know most of those women would flourish. They would save up money, send their kids wherever they need to be send if they have some. They would create companies that take care of stuff around. They would provide to society, just like they are now, only better.

I’m a realist dreamer and I hate seeing that just a little adjustment in how we live and BOOM, things are insanely better. And people don’t die abruptly, for no reason. I like that.

Here’s how it could have been.

We don’t have a duopoly on mobile phones. We have four players –Microsoft, Apple, Google, RIM and they roughly each have a quarter of the market.

Facebook doesn’t become as big, as the four players tell FB to be quiet with its ad business on mobile. FB can’t side with Google on this and Apple is busy competing instead of making deals with Internet companies. FB would likely have had way less power. Quite possibly, IG stays independent.

Google doesn’t become as obnoxiously big because EVERYONE is competing with Google on everything.  Google can’t force-feed Chrome or make its services run badly on other platforms because, well, competition. Every single happy customer is important.

What we customers gain is likely way less surveillance: it’s a lot harder to make four, very different companies agree on not caring about privacy, especially when the business isn’t about gathering user data but is simply about selling devices and software.

Maybe this way freemium doesn’t become the de-facto business model because tons of developers make a living doing the incredible thing of selling their apps on markets where platforms don’t take 30%, but 10%, maybe less (competition, remember?).

Developers would have to build different versions of their apps, exactly like they’re doing with a duopoly (it’s always been the holy grail: code once, deploy everywhere except that it’s never been the case and probably never will). The difference would be that they would have a lot more independence and would actually own platforms.

What we’d also gain is a slower technological pace: because phones wouldn’t have been subsidized by carriers (remember, this is why the iPhone won), and that they cost so much, we’d be using them on a 5-year average instead of 18 months.

At the scale of the world and billions of devices, it is not hard to see the gains in terms of environmental waste and rare metal mining.

Those four companies would have to work together to make a few things happen smoothly. Like sim card, contact, pictures and videos transfer between devices. Interoperability would be QUEEN and that would be very nice for us, customers. No lock-in. Free.

Instead we’re stuck in two walled gardens which increasingly are trying to make us even more dependent on.

We suck at capitalism.

I’m always impressed at how when I close my eyes, my body re-syncs itself automatically.

It immediately gets my nose to reach out for more oxygen. To breathe deeper.

Slowly, muscles relax and reach a comfortable position. Usually with limbs along the body.

If I’m eating with my eyes closed, my body starts slowing the process down. I masticate longer and swallow less air with each bite. Just automatically.

I think kisses are so much more enjoyable to give or receive with your eyes closed. It becomes a moment rather than a thing to do.