Infinite scroll is suited for current events putting negative pressures against content creation. Content creation became an economy. Commoditization of content sucked the life out of it all.

It feels like a warped in to another dimension. Did everyone start using only 5 years ago?

They want to virtue signal trivial social issues to avoid admitting they’re just plain conservative.

The music can come screeching to a halt for the US tech industry. They haven’t been innovating for a long time. Just relying on monopolization, rehashing old shit, or straight up VC baiting with useless garbage. The rest of the world needs to continue to realize they can do tech too. They can produce novel and actually useful things. Whereas the US industry has been strangling itself to death with anti-competition.

Especially with regards to AI. Once more others realize the milestone innovations in this field comes from academic research which is then taken by the private sector for profit. Others can realize and follow this path. They can spin up quicker than they think. With the education system being systematically dismantled in a pivot to identity politics protectionism over innovation, the future looks rather grim for the US. Bright for others though.

There was definitely a time when people were smarter. I read a comment on r/xennials that stuck with me. They were lamenting the loss of a the culture of their youth. I’m not sure I can rephrase it as well as they said it.

Basically they were describing how it used to be about how we questioned things. Like the show The X-Files. It was about seeking the truth. They noted how that show was reflective of how reality was. There was this common mindset that the answers are out there. That we can work together even to seek the answers and we will find them inevitably.

You see that doesn’t make much sense in 2025 because everyone has the answer to anything and everything. Except it’s their own answer. Not the answer. More than ever their answer is one which is derived from their internet / social media bubble.

There is no longer some big unknown out there full of mysteries to unravel. Not anymore. The zeitgeist right now is that I have my own world view and that’s the one. I know how the system works. I know the way. It’s the way I see the world. So why doesn’t everyone else come join my world view??? Are they stupid?

In the past we didn’t know everything. Nobody knew anything. Nobody had any illusion that they did. Nor could they whip out their pocket rectangle and find answers immediately.

In the past people had to be more open minded. They had to be honest about not knowing. Without modern media they had to be seekers of knowledge. As opposed to over confident purveyors relying on a quick internet search (these days a simple GPT query). The modern zeitgeist is one where everybody talks. Nobody listens. 8 billion deaf ears listening and learning nothing. Just waiting for their turn to talk. Everyone learned everything and they’re so damn sure of it.

Stupid people think they know it all. Smarter people are unsure of what they know. Of course there were stupid people before. But they knew they were stupid. Today the stupids can mask it by repeating words from the podcast, the tiktoks, the youtube videos they just watched.

It’s not uniquely an American problem. The American symptoms are quite a sight to beheld though.

The gestapo are detaining and interrogating conventionally attractive cis white girls. That means nobody is off limits right now. I sure won’t be going anymore and I don’t fall under a categorically targeted minority.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/american-pie-actress-detained-ice-1236339981/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-canadian-folk-duo-cassie-and-maggie-face-bizarre-loyalty-test-at/

Tech companies hire psychologists to behavior modify us to be engagement zombies. That alone must have done a number on intelligence.

Make solutions in search of problems while collecting big tech premiums. If anyone accuses you of wasteful spending call them science illiterate to turn the public against them to divert the attention away from yourself.

Find people in your area. Do tangible organizational things in real life.

Don’t waste time making solutions in search of problems. Some doodad isn’t going to help anyone. Nobody is wiring up an arduino lora whatever gadget. ‘B-but just buy the modules and conn…’ Stop. It’s useless. Doesn’t help anyone. No on is fidgeting with an Arduino sketch and some antenna wires and checking the 18650 battery while trying send packets to a guy over there. None of this matters when you’re all getting pepper sprayed with boots on your neck.

You can pull out the RF gear when the nukes have sent us back to the stone age.

This quite a historic geopolitical paradigm shift. It’s been implicitly assumed that the two countries are forever allied out of mutual interest.

I’m still waiting to see if the second amendment is actually real.

Yeah obviously we’ve completely lost the plot a long time ago. Nobody even remembers when tech was bands of ragtag nerds making something out of nothing. Now they are the rich whose only purpose to is extract more wealth. Tech what? Who even knows anymore.

That includes the average tech workers. If that angers you then you’re lost too.

Nobody has noticed that there’s more bragging about compensation than accomplishments. It used to be the other way around. Nerds eagerly showing off to anyone who will listen about whatever thing they cooked up. It’s been this way for the past long time long before this LLM AI era.

People aren’t as principled as they like to think they are.

Opsec is more important than ever. Gangs-talking is real.

There’s a whole thing in sports psychology about what happens when you give kids millions of dollars. Not only that but they are the top in the world at what they do. They were raised to believe they are a special breed of human. It’s not just the top pros who get multi-million dollar contracts. It can happen to the kids who don’t even make it pro too. It mindfucks a person.

I’ve been saying for a long time this kind of thing happens in tech too. I grew up with a lot of guys who’ve made various levels of success in tech from average guy to multi-millionaires. It happens. They really do live in another reality. I don’t think it’s much different between the pro-sports bubble and the tech bubble. They live and breath tech. It’s their whole life. Replace tech with sport. Not much different.

One notable difference is that sports actually recognizes this phenomenon. It’s a known studied field of psychology. They make an effort to engage athletes in the community and stuff. Things that keep individuals grounded in reality.

I don’t think such things exists for tech. If anything they believe whatever latest antics they’re up to is what helps the community and helps themselves keep in touch with reality. Because what the world needs is one more world changing app, another bright idea for a startup that is totally making the world a better place and absolutely not strip mining human sanity for profit.

There’s no going back anyways. I’ve tried making new accounts. It’s impossible to post anywhere.

The account vetting filters block me everywhere. Can’t post unless I’m a vetted poster. Can’t become vetted because I can’t post to begin with. I can’t be bothered to seek out and karma farm on random subreddits that aren’t a mess of filters.

Is there any politician that actually stands up to tech? It’s like a cheat code that not even Trump is immune to. Nobody wants to be politician who says no to those nerds who use “innovation” as a weapon. Except most of the tech industry is rather useless but everyone is too afraid to be accused of being tech illiterate. We’re not losing anything by saying no to the 10000th buzzword salad tech company making yet another useless widget.

It’s culture war to distract us from the class war.