• #10528 (no title)
  • 15 September 2020
  • Gourmet, Down South
  • The Author
  • Walking
  • What Endures. What Passes.

Dispatches From Dystopia

~ "What man by worrying can add one cubit to his span of years?"

Dispatches From Dystopia

Category Archives: Futurism

Having Enough

19 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by David in food, Futurism, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

love

The Great American Fear: 😱

Will I have enough?!?!?!? Oh. My. God. What if I run 🏃 out?

This hit me today, more than usual, as I was counting my spare change in order to go buy ice cream. (Nothing odd in that behavior. No Sir-ree).

Well, I walked back from that ledge, did a quick mental inventory of all the stuff I did have, and determined I had more than enough food, coffee, tea, and seltzer to last through Wednesday when I get my Social Security deposit again.

But the salesmen, advertisers, and the hustlers in general, nearly set a hook in me.

I ended up fixing Greek yogurt with banana, 🍌 some malt, and a squirt of Fox’s U-bet Chocolate Syrup. And it was good. Real good.

I fixed black beans for tomorrow. I made a fresh tomato sandwich on Good Bread, toasted, with a liberal amount of good mayonnaise. (Hellmann’s or Best Foods. Duke’s is a highly regarded local brand.)

I slept til noon today, because I can and also because I was tired. After the usual non-vocal mental self-flagellation and self-criticism for being lazy, I finally got the message that this stuck phase might have a purpose, that there is a lesson to be learned.

Maybe I need to write about being stuck. And taking stock. And observing what is not working in my life and what is working. For example, I have a marriage that is a full-on “till death do us part” proposition. Everything extra needs to be built on that foundation.

Bear in mind, that these tech moguls, Beezos, Zuckerberg, etc. are in this game to get in your head. Repeat GET. IN. YOUR. HEAD. At first blush, just to sell you stuff, or sell your digital data to somebody else. But the real creeps, like Elon Musk, want to literally get in your head, with Artificial Intelligence eventually accessing, and controlling the neural transmitters in your brain.

If you want to have trouble sleeping tonight, consider that Pervert Of The Year, Jeffery Epstein, was funding research on AI and its interaction with the brain on the level of the synapses. I know. He’s just another eccentric philanthropist.

“Hey. Tiffany, it’s time for my back rub.”

So, just a tip. Unplug, at least, for a little while. Get in touch with a Higher Power, that inspires you to love and serve others more than yourself. That High Power doesn’t have to be God, as Christians define God. Or Jews. Or Muslims. Just consider the collective wisdom of the Universe that wants children and old people safe. Maybe just acknowledge that there is Evil out there. As in Auschwitz or Hiroshima or Jonestown. And live to prevent such horrors from happening again.

“Shazzam”

02 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by David in Futurism, Smartphones, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Technology

I got a text from a long time friend just as I was sitting down to the huevos rancheros I ordered for brunch at my friendly neighborhood trendy restaurant.

He was on a weekend bicycling excursion to where we call The Center Of The Universe, Ashland,Virginia. Virtual Railcam LLC has a camera placed there, so that trainspotters like me can watch rail traffic at home. (Amtrak’s Northbound Silver Star #92 just passed by.)

He texted to let me know he just bought a cookie and would be riding by the webcam. I have known John since sixth grade. We were roommates our First Year at the University of Virginia. We live in the same town and communicate almost daily.  Fifty-plus year continuing friendships are remarkable these days, but  I could not have imagined receiving a text from him, then seeing him wave at me in a live image on a tiny handheld computer fifty four years ago.

Breath-taking. 

The larger point I want to make is that assumptions we have about progress are being outpaced by that actual progress itself. We still cling to Nineteenth and Twentieth Century ideas about the world and exercise little scepticism about them. Malthusian ideas about population growth and food supply were advanced before mechanization, plant genetics, and animal breeding revolutionized agricultural productivity. Think about that.

Do we face a technological utopia or dis-topia? I don’t know. But our visions of the future say more about us today than they do about what tomorrow has in store.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • March 2014

Categories

  • #cricket
    • Cricket
  • #Grief
  • Addiction
  • Adult Children
  • Aesthetics
  • Age Play
  • alcoholism
  • American History
    • Politics
  • Amtrak
  • Animal Baby Cuteness
  • Anti-Marxist Activity
  • Art
  • Autism Spectrum Disorders
  • Automobiles,
  • Baby Names
  • Baltimore
  • Big Business
  • Birthday
  • Bloggers
  • British Empire
  • Capitalism
  • Cartoons
  • Catholic Life
  • Cats
  • Civilization
  • Class
  • Classical Music
  • cooking
  • Cricket
  • Cuba
  • Cycling
  • Delta Blues
  • Depression
  • Dogs
  • Erotic Writing
  • Exercise/ Fitness
  • Existential Despair
  • Fame
  • Family
  • Fantasy
  • Fashion & Grooming
  • Florida
  • Flowers
  • food
  • Foreign Films
  • Fruit
  • Futurism
  • Gay/Straight Dichotomy
  • Gender Identity
  • Gender Roles
  • Gentrification
  • Going Dark.
  • grafitti
  • Gratitude
  • Health Issues
  • Hedonism
  • Hidtory
  • History
  • Housework
  • kitsch
  • Literature
  • loneliness
  • Love and stuff
  • memoir
  • Mid Century Modern
  • Modernism
  • New York
  • Old Cameras
  • Otakon 2016
  • personal grooming
  • Pie Crust
  • Politics
  • Popular Song
  • Post Office
  • Railroads
  • recovery
  • Refugees
  • Relationships
  • Russian Orthodoxy
  • Sacrifice
  • sadomasochism
  • seduction
  • self-indulgence
  • Sexual Identity
  • Sexuality
  • sleep
  • Smartphones
  • Sobriety
  • Soup
  • Soviet History
  • Spirituality
  • Sport
  • Suburbia
  • Summer
  • Taste
  • Tasteless Gifts
  • Tattoo
  • Tea
  • The Villages
  • Tolerance
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Urban Brutalism
  • Vietnam
  • Wildlife
  • World War II
  • YMCA
  • YouTube-Videos

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Dispatches From Dystopia
    • Join 573 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Dispatches From Dystopia
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar