I’m finding it really difficult to write, as of late - at least hard writing in ways that are poised to explore my own thoughts and emotions. I think it’s a symptom of the times, there’s a lot of things happening on Earth right now. Nations comitting war crimes, economic spirals, technological transformations, elite pedo cabals, moon missions - seemingly endless things to be anxious about. It feels wrong to not write about any of it, but when putting fingers to the keys, my brain would rather dissasociate. I’ve really been resonating with the above image; it’s somewhat of a meme these days, but I think the motivation behind the artwork holds some deeper relevance to the modern human condition.

The Flooded Zone

There’s a really frustrating tension that I think a lot of people experience, yet we cope with in different ways. Living in the modern era has us exposed to information overload. We can see what’s happening, where it’s happening, 24 hours a day, on tap, in your pocket, on your desk, on your living room wall. We are bombarded with information from many sources - both truthy and falsy - just constant data inputs, and what are we supposed to do with all of the information? Try to deceminate truth from fiction and propaganda, and if you can navigate that labyrinth, then what? We are informed. Following being informed, we have the option to take action I suppose? But then it depends on the subject - taking action in the context of your local environment is a lot more achievable than taking action in the context of geopolitical conflict. Maybe I can stock a few extra non-perishables, or constrain my fuel usage some - but at the end of the day an individual like me has no real say in whether or not people on the other side of the globe choose to go to war, or pull their heads in.

This leaves me feeling helpless, basically. I think the general population prefers we not go to war, war sucks ass - so why is it that if the majority of an informed society would prefer no war, then why the f*ck is there a war?

I reckon this feeling of helplessness is a crafted situation of information overload, to ensure that the general public remains somewhat paralytic. To ensure that a class of wealthy folk can continue steering the direction of society in favor of their own profit with minimal push-back from the general public. Call it a hot take or conspiracy if you like, but really to me it just presents as a pretty logical argument. Wealth distribution is directly tied to influence, “money makes the world go round” so they say; wealth is distributed to a very small global percentage of people, and no doubt these people enjoy this arrangement and would prefer to keep it that way; but they know that just on sheer numbers, if the general population understood the dynamics of wealth and power, they’d realise that we could fix a lot of problems with a handful of revolutions.

Precog to Aisle Five

Speaking of dystopian pop culture, my local grocery store is now in their Minority Report era. Coles is now in cahoots with Palantir, which is fucking crazy to me. My face and purchase history is now being recorded and piped through a software platform actively being used to orchestrate and optimise the mass genocide of innocent civilians in another country. That’s great guys, really good stuff, solid vendor choice there. /s

I’m sure Coles isn’t sitting in a boardroom, jerking it over genocide machinery - it’s probably something far more boring like “theft-reduction” and “customer insights”. Surely there was a competitive offering that suited their business needs without funnelling customer money towards war crimes? It’s pretty rich too tbh, Coles might be some of the biggest thieves in Australia if you see how they treat the farming industry, yet a few in-need people lifting some basic necessities is enough to justify a B2B contract with possibly the most morally bankrupt software company in the world. The co-founder of Palantir is giving lectures on the return of the anti-christ… I’m not even sure what to make of that, but I know I don’t want him deciding the next layout of my local grocery store.

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