Okay this was a tough read even if not bad. Allow me to elaborate why I struggled reading it, especially with inanimate or non-thinking objects "having no incentive". A plant's genetic coding has a strong incentive on producing as much seed pods as possible (and some plants want to be eaten by animals enjoying the fruit around it, so their faeces spread the seeds across the earth). Plants are competitive in growing larger to have more sun than a moss cover that evolved to thrive even in low light.
Even a rock containing an ore had an incentive to form. The behaviour of elemental orbitals determines which phases and minerals crystallize first and last (see HFSE).
You can take this further that even sand dunes have emergent behaviour governing their formation and movement in a desert. Is everything still going to crap when we run out of energy and reach a final state of entropy? Sure! But this is one hell of a ride.
Now in regard to Doctorowian Enshittification: Companies favour short term solutions these days because they cannot function like something that evolved over millions of years to perfection. We started with probably 3 streaming services (for movies), now we have 30 and they wonder why we cannot pay each of them 55 USD as we had to with cable and 100+ paid channels?
They don't know (yet/ever) the real incentive is to find an evolutionary niche to thrive on. You can never cater to all tastes at once. Explain this: Why do most restaurants focus on one nationality? (the owner can have a different nationality and it still works). Now you have hit the jackpot to de-shittify.
To see a tiny seed grow into a massive sequoia is way beyond the scope of one of our lifetimes, but we can still experience a few dozen years of it.
Just as humbling as kafka-esque everything-is-bullshit or entropy theory, and it just feels better.
But yours is a nice essay. Yes the more we read the news lately, the more it all seems like BS. But I try to remember Bannon's warning that we would soon be flooded with it.
Okay this was a tough read even if not bad. Allow me to elaborate why I struggled reading it, especially with inanimate or non-thinking objects "having no incentive". A plant's genetic coding has a strong incentive on producing as much seed pods as possible (and some plants want to be eaten by animals enjoying the fruit around it, so their faeces spread the seeds across the earth). Plants are competitive in growing larger to have more sun than a moss cover that evolved to thrive even in low light.
Even a rock containing an ore had an incentive to form. The behaviour of elemental orbitals determines which phases and minerals crystallize first and last (see HFSE).
You can take this further that even sand dunes have emergent behaviour governing their formation and movement in a desert. Is everything still going to crap when we run out of energy and reach a final state of entropy? Sure! But this is one hell of a ride.
Now in regard to Doctorowian Enshittification: Companies favour short term solutions these days because they cannot function like something that evolved over millions of years to perfection. We started with probably 3 streaming services (for movies), now we have 30 and they wonder why we cannot pay each of them 55 USD as we had to with cable and 100+ paid channels?
They don't know (yet/ever) the real incentive is to find an evolutionary niche to thrive on. You can never cater to all tastes at once. Explain this: Why do most restaurants focus on one nationality? (the owner can have a different nationality and it still works). Now you have hit the jackpot to de-shittify.
try gardening.
To see a tiny seed grow into a massive sequoia is way beyond the scope of one of our lifetimes, but we can still experience a few dozen years of it.
Just as humbling as kafka-esque everything-is-bullshit or entropy theory, and it just feels better.
But yours is a nice essay. Yes the more we read the news lately, the more it all seems like BS. But I try to remember Bannon's warning that we would soon be flooded with it.
I've grown a couple sequoias but :( none of them made it.
https://www.jonsteen.com/
Same here. Dawn redwoods are hardier for sure
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Bad day?
I say "shit" all the time, and I'm one of the lamest motherfuckers out there.