I was waiting for your “therapist” to return at the end and reveal itself to be ChatGPT, lol.
This was great. One of my favorites.
The mixture of sincerity and satire was tuned just right, and very modern. Metamodern, in fact. Have you heard of the post-postmodern movement?
You have a pretty metamodern take on AI generally, I’ve noticed it before. Might be good to reach into that community—could find some new readers and be EVEN MORE Substack-famous!
Oh! That would've been so perfect haha. Re: post-postmodern movement. Actually have no idea what that is. But you've piqued my interest for sure - Any links to read more?? Thank you Geoff! (I'm low-key aware that I'm quite anti-postmodernism, but didn't know there was a movement!)
And if you really want to dive deep, Brendan Graham Dempsey wrote a good book on Metamodernism that I think he reproduced chapter by chapter in serial format on his substack iirc.
Inspiring stuff. Much appreciated. Managed to make me feel like writing a microstory. Sharing it. Thanks for your writing, always makes me think. And today, made me smile.
---
I tried to do OnlyFans. It was wasn't long before I was deriving at chalkboards in booty shorts, sniffing the chalk dust lines, and playing fast and loose with units. I soon realized I developed a problem. An addiction of sorts. I needed the adulation of lesser scientists, like chemists, to feel better about myself. But in so doing I ended up bringing myself to a level lower than them; I hit rock bottom. I started doing psychology ...
That's when I checked into rehab. Been clean 6 months now.
"Okay, maybe it's not the chatbots exactly, but it's the compound effect of a variety of social and technological trends tearing at our social fabric, which manifest most acutely in the form of chatbots?"
I fear this piece lumps retrospectively blaming existing problems on chatbots ( people not having as much sex) with legitimate fears over the increasing role of chatbots + LLM-powered media ( kids spending hours entranced by ultra-addictive machine generated videos).
Yes TikTok already exists. Yes it’s a disaster. But removing whatever human element remains from it is worse in every conceivable way.
I was waiting for your “therapist” to return at the end and reveal itself to be ChatGPT, lol.
This was great. One of my favorites.
The mixture of sincerity and satire was tuned just right, and very modern. Metamodern, in fact. Have you heard of the post-postmodern movement?
You have a pretty metamodern take on AI generally, I’ve noticed it before. Might be good to reach into that community—could find some new readers and be EVEN MORE Substack-famous!
Oh! That would've been so perfect haha. Re: post-postmodern movement. Actually have no idea what that is. But you've piqued my interest for sure - Any links to read more?? Thank you Geoff! (I'm low-key aware that I'm quite anti-postmodernism, but didn't know there was a movement!)
I was introduced when someone linked me to this article by Joe Lightfoot (who is actually here on Substack now) https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/the-liminal-web-mapping-an-emergent-subculture-of-sensemakers-meta-theorists-systems-poets
And if you really want to dive deep, Brendan Graham Dempsey wrote a good book on Metamodernism that I think he reproduced chapter by chapter in serial format on his substack iirc.
Edit: Found a link for you: https://brendangrahamdempsey.substack.com/t/metamodernism
Awesome, thank you!
We call it neo-postmodern but metamodern probably has legs. Thanks for the creativity...
Inspiring stuff. Much appreciated. Managed to make me feel like writing a microstory. Sharing it. Thanks for your writing, always makes me think. And today, made me smile.
---
I tried to do OnlyFans. It was wasn't long before I was deriving at chalkboards in booty shorts, sniffing the chalk dust lines, and playing fast and loose with units. I soon realized I developed a problem. An addiction of sorts. I needed the adulation of lesser scientists, like chemists, to feel better about myself. But in so doing I ended up bringing myself to a level lower than them; I hit rock bottom. I started doing psychology ...
That's when I checked into rehab. Been clean 6 months now.
---
"Okay, maybe it's not the chatbots exactly, but it's the compound effect of a variety of social and technological trends tearing at our social fabric, which manifest most acutely in the form of chatbots?"
Hmm, yes except the last part. "Most acutely" I wouldn't say so. Just the last manifestation, the last piece in a long chain
I fear this piece lumps retrospectively blaming existing problems on chatbots ( people not having as much sex) with legitimate fears over the increasing role of chatbots + LLM-powered media ( kids spending hours entranced by ultra-addictive machine generated videos).
Yes TikTok already exists. Yes it’s a disaster. But removing whatever human element remains from it is worse in every conceivable way.