h. Play

Teenagers and early 20s folks are often on Snap these days.

I’m wondering about the cultural impact of a service based on ephemerality, once those people realize that their youth will be a hollow memory with nothing to show.

Especially when they compare themselves to previous generations who have most of their digital memories saved.

Y’all will have 5,000 questionable selfies and 240fps footage of random shit on icloud to remember when you were young. And that will be it.

We will talk a lot more about that in ten years, once they reach 30.

I had been in the family for a year by then, I believe. We were busy building the family house every weekend, which included trips to the French Lowe’s or Home Depot. Dad drove a Ford Fiesta hatchback because who cares about driving people around? We’re moving weight (concrete mix bags), bro!

So weird to look at now. Another life, another dimension, I don’t know.

Summer. On a sunny Sunday morning on the freeway, we were on our way to get some lumber or something. Maybe I was a little bored, though really happy to be sitting in the passenger seat instead of laying down in the back. Dad decided to do something.

“So, I’m thinking about pushing the car, to see how fast it can go, don’t tell your mom”

My face probably lit up at the idea of not only doing something risky and illegal, but doing it without anyone else knowing about it. Plus, I really wanted to see what’s like to drive really fast. I imagine I just said “ok!”

It was on the A4 freeway, which where we were about to get our “speed demon” scream, was the largest freeway in France: four lanes both ways. He also chose the part where it goes a little bit downhill.

“Is your seatbelt tight? Here we go!”

He jumped on the left lane and started to push his foot on the gas. I remember feeling so giddy.

130 km/h (80 mph) is the max authorized on freeways, but we used to rarely go that fast in general. 110 km/h was the usual freeway speed. And we were about to pass it!

115…120…130…145… Now we’re passing everyone. 150.

“I still have a bit of room under the pedal, but not much!” Dad is yelling now because the noise inside the car is pretty loud. That freeway at that time is a lot like a lot of US freeways: no asphalt, just rough concrete. He floors it.

155…160… I want to see 200!! I know it’s impossible –I already know at that time that only sports cars can go that fast– but it seems so close. The needle moves slower now. 165… 170…

We reach 177 km/h (110 mph). The car is vibrating heavily. We stay at that speed for a few minutes. It’s thrilling, the engine is roaring. It’s also not really as exciting as I thought it would be! We’re passing other vehicles faster. But it’s Sunday and we are not late for anything.

Dad slows down. We exit and go back home, silently. We never did that ever again with any of the next family cars.

It was cool enough that I remember it to this day, though.

Maybe we have too much entertainment.

I asked this 9 year old, short braids-wearing little sister who happened to have watched Squid game while I had not yet:

“Did you like it?”

She answered, looking into the void, kind of distressed, “NO! I didn’t like it, it’s too violent.”

Now that I’ve watched it, I get why she answered like that.

Ultra-violence or violence aesthetic really started in the 90s. Entertainment could be gore or gross before, but the explosion of violence, the normalization of sadism and most brutal aspects of humanity really happened in 90s entertainment.

And then it was just kind of normal. Which means that younger generations grew up on the new ultraviolent normal. Which might have created the mid 2000s Emo culture, as a reaction to constant brutality in entertainment.

Squid game, where people get killed failing at school games, was last fall’s worldwide icon. Ultra-violence is basic pop culture now. Thanks to our collective brains being destroyed by police brutality videos, thousands of headshots in more and more realistic games, school shootings, World Star, 4Chan and so forth, for 20 years, we just take it all in. We’re used to it. Almost a million dead from COVID in the US? LMFAOOO

I want to reverse that, in a way. The hunting and preying culture needs to stop. I so want to see people fancying love and laughs. That shit is brutally awesome. I’m sure this young girl would agree. Ultra-violence is part of the world but it’s not like it’s super cool or that we need more of it…

In no particular order:

• The rich are getting richer faster than the rest of us.
• Real wages are stagnant. Social safety nets are constantly being removed.
• Labor protections have been being rolled back or enforcement lax since the ATC strike.
• Atomization and alienation have taken root.
• The mythos of the nuclear family being paramount is fully embedded in the culture, destroying the older concept of a broader family and community taking part in the rearing of the next generation and just general socialization.
• We’re heading to the failure of multiple systems, including food production and power, due to climate change and the increasing frequency of disastrous weather systems.
• "Greed is good" has been a value promulgated by the elites for a few generations now.
• Things are getting more expensive faster than wage growth, especially basics and things needed for economic upward mobility (housing, education, healthcare, etc).
• Identity politics and wedge issues are dividing people who otherwise have similar interests.
• Modern life is anxiety and depression inducing, creating a rise in interpersonal conflict.
• Our government is no longer accountable to the people or representative of them in any real way unless you’re in the top quintile of wealth/income (and that is generous).

All of these things, and many more, are ripping apart the social contract. People no longer feel invested in the wellbeing of the places in which they reside or the governmental and societal systems they are a part of. Instead, they merely endure them with resentment. This won’t end well.

UBI would solve all of that within a few years. We just did it, worldwide, in 2020 and most of 2021! Did the economy crumble? No. Did all that money given to people killed the economy? Also no. Many big companies recorded their best years ever.

That is the best proof you can possibly have that UBI works and would/will safe us.

We have the knowledge, the tools and still time to fix our issues. It’s embarrassing how the resistance to obvious solutions leads us further down the hole while people who could modify laws, who could heavily promote UBI are like “nah bro, it’s a done deal; you can apply for a gig at my tech company if you want the chance to get exploited real quick”.

Keep your head up.

I’ve had email conversations lately.

A young customer this week asked me if we had Brave on our machines and I told him “it’s Chrome or IE” and he said “IE is fine, I can’t stand Google”. True story.

Tumblr is apparenty hot these days?

RSS and blogs are hot topics in nerdy forums?

Hey, I’ll take that. This is good.