The way you talk is like how I wish I could talk more frequently. I try to have conversations with people and it's almost like they only know how to have a structured conversation and once I deviate from the plan, you know like actually try to come up with some new and interesting thoughts or perhaps just be completely vulnerable and show my ignorance, people can be uncomfortable with it. I love that you're not scripted. Maybe I'll post some of my stuff sometime. This is inspiring. Definitely subscribing
Thanks! It can definitely be tough to find people willing to engage in abstract conversation all the time, but they are definitely out there, and it's really fulfilling when you find them. And I've found TH-cam to be a great platform to develop and present some of the things I think about, I'd highly recommend it :)
You do not want to sound like this when trying to sell a narrative to other people to try and convince them of a better position to hold. They are not smart enough, they’ll think you’re being arrogant and obnoxious. Case in point Trump Case in point the Democratic Party Point is to learn to speak at as many level of languages that resonate with people where they are not where you’re trying to get them. Finally it requires epistemic humility than it does intellectual knowledge. Have to be human first to people to resonate before the convincing with evidence, facts, logic occurs
You can't just engage people without small talk most of the time - that isn't just shallow people. I don't want to project my own former tendencies here ~ but that's how I'm reading it.
As a chronic lurker, there is something inhuman about the dynamics of influence on digital platforms. I consume orders of magnitude more content than I produce. Most of the digital information available about me is held in preference data rather than actual thoughts I strung together. While I am proud of my curated, intellectual, esoteric, ... feeds -- this is a one-way dynamic. I almost never give back in any form. In fact, my conversation history with Claude and ChatGPT is the most robust digital record of my existence.
i see you, friend, and feel very much the same! the internet can give the impression of total apathy. it’s a real treasure to find a work you can’t help but interact with, to find a creator that can’t help but create! it’s intoxicating and infectious; hope you know it’s never too late, and that anything made Is
Earlier today I thought of this actually: unlike conversations in real life, Discord lack splinter conversations. If you’re in a group of four or more and someone tries to have a 1 on 1 conversation with someone, you’re either putting a spotlight on yourself, waiting your turn to speak again, or talking over each other. Anyway, I just thought it was a good example of what you talked about since Discord is basically a diluted form of social interaction
@@JoeyMisner-zl9cc you guys are thinking about it all wrong, what if you wake up and what's real is a post apocalypse nightmare? Or worse, what if you wake up and you're actually paralyzed from the neck down? I mean what if you're actually in hell? like literal hell.
I took waaaaaaay to much shrooms once, passed out and had a dream/vision where I was searching for something in the desert and when I woke up in the middle of the night I lost all my memories. I was laying on the bed alone in a dark room and I forgot all my friends, family and I was convinced that I'm the only existing person in the world. I thought my entire life was just a dream, a cruel trick of my brain to survive being stuck in the bed alone in the world. That was the most terrifying moment of my life that changed me forever. That felt absolutely 100% real and there was no way of knowing that it's just a bad trip. It felt like waking up from the matrix into the machines world but there are no machines, no friends, no mission to save humanity just that empty terrifying feeling. That sort of unsettling feeling we had as kids when playing a video game and stopping the car in the middle of the race and driving into random alleys to explore the map just to realise all the houses, streets, forests are empty and we were not supposed to see that.
Don't do drugs, but as someone who likes psychedelics, the experience of peaking feels like forgetting what reality is supposed to be like. When I put mental effort into remembering that I'm just a guy in my room or shower things feel and look more normal, but when I get lost in the experience I almost completely forget what things are supposed to look like and and the warping/distorting becomes the reality that always was. I usually think, "I can't wait for this to be over"
Im so glad this video exist. Life is slowly losing its complexity by shrinking into bits and bytes. We are thus losing are ability to grow expression and creation. We are slowly fading our social relaties into nothingness. I hope people will wake up. Also be careful of online cults.
Only slightly related to anaesthetisation, but the ways in which the internet has reproduced the frameworks of capitalism has actually furthered my understanding of why such frameworks are bs in the real world. Your video has definitely reminded me of this and clarified some of my thoughts, which I'll share! In the real world, we interact with objects and people, which have the constraints of impermanence and physcial exlusivity. Thus in capitalism, the properties of excludability and rivalry arise in physical products. Meanwhile, on the internet we only ever interact with information, which is free from these constraints. Rivalry means "scarcity of use". Rivalry refers to how products may only be used a limited number of times in limited ways. Exludability is "scarcity of access". Excludability is the degree to which certain people (mainly non-payers in capitalism) are excluded from using a product. By creating scarcity, these properties enable transactions as we know them. In fact, these "products" are actually just objects. Their status as "product" is dependant on them being obtained through transaction, and thus dependant on the scarcity created by rivalry and excludability. This is where anaesthetisation *might* tie in. Picture a digital "product", such as a game, movie, or piece of software like Photoshop. Through the legal framework of Digital Rights Management, rivalry and excludability are artificially induced. Right now, my family's Netflix plan is limited to two devices at once (rivalry), but there is no property of information that requires this. Someone who lacks a subscription is not allowed to watch a show, even though I could easily (but illegally) record my screen and send it to them (excludability). Companies backed by the threat of violent legal action use their power to contort the boundless potential of the internet into a little box they can sell back to us. The concept of "product" has been placed in a frame which doesn't suit it. Whenever I "buy" a movie or game digitally, it feels flimsy. My ownership means nothing. In fact, Sony has removed content that people have "bought" before. I think this incongruence might be a form of anaesthetisation. This crystalised for me the fact that much of the scarcity of physical products is also artificially induced. Rivalry is an unavoidable consequence of the finite nature of objects. There's not much we can do about the fact that only one person can write with a pencil at a time and that it will eventually by consumed. However, excludability is nakedly artifical. There is nothing inherent in an empty house that prevents a homeless person from sleeping in it, only a legal framework enforced with violence. Obviously, some exclusion is desirable, which inherently requires some level of violence to enforce. I'd like strangers to not be in my personal house and using my toothbrush. But there are other cases we can question. Should the workers who spend much of their lives working be excluded from controlling/owning the place they work? Should things necessary for people to live, such as shelter, food, and medical care be exclusive commidities? Socialism posits that ownership (which is inherently exclusionary) should be contingent on use, not something that can be bought. TL;DR: Capitalism is very artificial and should be questioned. This is made very clear with digital products and digital "ownership" which feel very anaesthetic (love this word now) due to the mismatch between the scarcity required for a product to be sold and the frame of the boundless internet.
Well if you actually look into how the digital products you buy are produced you'd see that it isn't as simple as you portray. The difficult to enforce ownership is an intrinsic property of digital media, but that doesn't make the enforcement of its ownership any less real. Once upon a time it was really hard to prevent pirates from raiding your shipments of goods, but that didn't make the physical incursion any less real. To say that protecting intellectual property is an artificial capitalist construct is to deny the real suffering of those who lose out on the fruits of their labor due to piracy. We've just become mentally detached from the effects of piracy, only blind to its consequences. The physical hardware the runs the digital world has a real world cost, and stealing data from the services rendered is no different than stealing a banana from a shipment containing thousands. They might not notice the single banana being taken, or even care to take legal action, but it was still stolen. If enough people stole in a similar manner, it would quickly become a major problem. Scarcity is often lost on us, because we require something to be scarce to us before we consider it scarce, not understanding that scarcity is intrinsic to all goods and services digital or otherwise. The enforcement of ownership therefore is natural for us, and based on the motivations of a human centered world. The artificiality of modern capitalism has more to do with its corrupt implementation where corporations are shielded from competition from both the government and anti-competitive practices. So in reality the modern implementation of capitalism is in a weird sort of way anaesthetic to the concept of capitalism itself. It's the appearance of a capitalist system instantiated inside corporatism. That's the issue.
@Billy4321able I get what you're saying. Maybe I should have changed how I phrased things. I don't think that artificially introducing constraints is inherently bad. The existence of law and protection from harm is artificially constructed, like you point out with the pirate ship, but I think it's good. What I'd like to point out is that we should recognise that these constraints are artificial so that we can question them and choose better ones. I think people often don't even question the fact that capitalism is a constructed system. One could argue that it's a good one, but I think most people instead assume that it's inevitable. That it's just a reflection of human nature or the final form of society. With regards to digital products, crowdfunding might be a better monetisation framework than traditional buying and owning of individual instances. In this case, funding is given at the start to cover development and distribution is free or very cheap, reflecting the way labour is distributed. I'm not 100% sure on this, as I haven't thought about it enough. The reason I focussed on digital products is because it related the most to the concept of anaesthetisation, where I personally feel that something is "off" when I buy things like movies online. With regards to the cost of running the internet, I agree that it's taken for granted. I wouldn't mind if the internet wasn't free or was publicly funded (free at point of use), so that users and their data weren't the product. Right now the internet is essentially publicly funded but through the invasion of privacy and advertising rather than through taxes.
@Billy4321able that last reply was about clarifying what I meant. I do also disagree with you on the nature of intellectual property. You liken protection from intellectual property theft to protection from physical theft. But ideas are not the same as objects. It's hard to prevent actual pirates from robbing a ship because of logistics. It's hard to prevent intellectual/digital product theft, because such theft doesn't really exist and we have to go out of our way to make it a thing. It takes labour to make an object and give it to someone. If an object is stolen, it takes labour to replace it. Theft presents a real loss to the victim, in the sense that the victim has to work to replace the item. Information can't really be stolen, only copied. If someone pirates a movie, it doesn't remove it from its source. There is no limit to the number of copies of movies. Theft doesn't represent a loss in the same sense as in a physical product (I am treating the friction of the internet as negligible). NOW, piracy of intellectual property is theft and does produce a loss in the sense that it's a loss in business opportunity. But, in my opinion this does not legitimise the enforcement of intellectual property. Imagine we live in a world where you can buy a book, but it's considered theft to read it to other people, such that only one person can use its information at a time. I think we'd find this ridiculous -- there's no theft in reading my kid a bedtime story! But it's also true that such theft costs the bookseller business. If everyone has to buy their own copy, more books will be sold. I think this imaginary world is ridiculous, but I don't see how it's much different from our intellectual property, just more restrictive. Violation of IP laws presents a loss to the business only because the enforcement of IP laws forces more people to buy a thing. I think we should find a better monetisation model for intellectual property than what he have now. I'm not saying businesses shouldn't make money, just that we should fund them in a way that matches the nature of the product.
@@Shack263 Books, movies, and videogames are not the same product and are therefore not comparable. Books are meant to be read by one person, as a mechanism to deliver information. I would argue the existence of libraries have in a way desolved the value of books. Children's books are culturally mean't to be read to others since young children are usually still learning to read on their own, so it's an expected way that the product is used. With videogames there are no publicly funded libraries where games can be checked out, they must be bought from a store. It's not expected that games be shared, therefore doing so is considered theft. The shareability of a product is determined by the culture it exists in and the decision of the company that creates it.
this is a great lecture, thank you. every day i become more aware of how growing up online has fucked with my brain, i'm glad that people are theorizing on this topic
I think it’s time we forget the old internet, but we cannot vilify it. I’m from a third world African country, and the internet is still making huge strides- allowing improvised/enslaved communities to have a voice on the global scale, making basic education more accessible, and allowing often repressed communities to start forging. However, I grew up on the internet thanks to luck and privilege. I see the warning signs already- but I have hopes that our ability to utilise the internet as a tool primarily will avoid late stage internet “brain damage” (derealisation??) in the people.
amazing content. thank you for the content. you verbalize concepts that help me think. and you say things I've been thinking about. i thought about making the internet more organic in exactly the way you suggested, making it change, making it alive.
long live the associative thinkers, and down with rigidly structured lectures and discussions! thank you so much for sharing and thank you for thinking and NEVER STOP. you’re appreciated greatly ✌️🫀
A lot of the characteristics of the anesthetic relationship that you draw attention to can be supported by combining a lot of the discrete cognitive phenomena available in categorical perception, and the mechanisms of selective attention, feature extraction, and schema formation. Attentional resources can be conceptualized as filling cognitive load with details classified at the subordinate level when interacting with cognitive schema. For example, in a perceptual scene, the superordinate level might involve a broad classification such as "standing on a city street," while subordinate details focus on elements like the bark of a tree, the way sunlight interacts with its leaves, or the root formation against the surrounding concrete. When attentional resources are fully devoted to these subordinate details without disruption, a frame of reference is established around the tree as the central element of the schema. However, when a violating element enters the perception-such as a loud noise or a sudden movement-the established schema breaks. This triggers a cycle of schema reorganization, shifting attention away from the subordinate details of the tree toward a broader perspective. In this process, the tree transitions from being the focal point of its own subordinate-level schema to becoming a subordinate element within a new, larger schema at the superordinate level (e.g., the broader "city street" schema). This transition involves collapsing the detailed subordinate elements of the tree into a more generalized classification, integrating them into a broader, interconnected system of sub-schemas. This reorganization illustrates how attentional focus toggles between levels of classification, transferring subordinate details into superordinate categories and enabling the formation of new schema connections within the broader cognitive hierarchy.
The anesthetization of a (present) phenomenon into a (represented) framework or concept or idea reminds me a lot of Barfield's work on Idolatry (The Study of Appearances) . I feel like modern education is very much a "beta thinking about idols" and is thus inherently removed from experience (original participation), or to put it in your words "anesthetic is without feeling, without sense". We now seem to act as if (believe) our models (frames, concepts) of the world are MORE REAL than the real world of present phenomena. There is something about learning how to swim from reading a book that is insufficient when compared to actually getting in the water and flailing about until you figure out how to swim with your body. There is something less real about reading words about how to swim; and something way more real about actually doing it. It seem' as though modern civilizations presupposes this separation between idea of a thing and the thing itself, which then creates a sort of alienated experience by the person (participator). And thus we raise kids to "live via ideas" rather than to unite body and mind through the guidance of ideas. We seem more willing to dissociate from our bodies and insists that we conform to the ideas or frameworks that we are presented as "right". Society seems to communicate primarily through ideas, and that implies we no longer communicate with unconscious body language and other contexts. We are so focuses on the WORD ITSELF, that we have lost the connection, the meaning, the purpose, the significance. This anesthetization of modern culture is akin to disconnecting from our embodied roots. This is horrifying and seems to only end in disaster. Barfield on Idols McGilchrist on "The matter with Things" Baudrillard on Simulacrum Peterson on Ideology (maps of meaning) Graham Hancock (Thoth's prophecy) -> what happens when civilization comes completely unmoored from the "real world" If the story of man is the battling energies between Jesus and Satan, or is the unified experience of a person whilst under the influence of 2 hemispheres with different personalities...then the spirit of "believing in idols" seems akin to worshipping the Luciferian intellect. It seems as though this anesthetization of living experiences to numb life into a simulacrum of formulaic concepts used in stead of actual present participatory awareness and integration of the unconscious bodily involvement -> seems to be turning away from the "god" of unconscious confrontation with reality. ((Mixing McGilchrist and Peterson philosophies here) How do we in modernity try to live in ways to live motivated by reality (believe in the ability to navigate unexplored territory) instead of this tempting and contagious desire to re-present reality into simulacrums of frameworks that enable us the pretense of beta thinking without "act"ually living. I know this is all over the place...but your video was thought provoking.
True, though I don't think society is strictly imposing the status quo itself, that being because the status quo being a product of continuation and homogenity of its own being, than we are to suppose that we're also a continuation and a "expounding" of this autonomous entity. As much as I think a representation of the thing itself and the alienated engagements of a thing are false and should be frequently avoided, there are certain axioms that are ever revolving and self learning itself that are True and should set the "average", continuation I think, is one of them, appearence sets the facial value of a thing, how can we be therefore ugly then? As I'm typing, we're aware that we are a commodified type of species, commodified and made perfect by our proximal environs that seemed fit for urban survival and reproduction. I'm thinking that the reason our "aesthetic" per se is opposing "society" is because the facial value in which society integrates its discrete units is a form of self learning and commodification. There is certain symmetries between a person and a sum of them, one being the idea of self conservation, if you aren't wanted, then you aren't wanted. A strategic impulse to this is firstly dissociation, since pursuing your desired facial value is a risk to be taken, having mortal consequences. How then one should pursue itself when "itself" itself is bleak and made bleaker by the capital apparatus in which we devote our lives? How can one engage in its proximity, as it is a prereqruisite for divination and meaning, that is not itself ourselves, but ever becoming ourselves?
This reminds me of the story of all-wise the dwarf, who was pale from lack of sun while studying, and able to recite great deals of information, but was bested by Thor, who is often represented as an oaf no less, because he didn't have any practical knowledge and Thor, as a god of going out and doing things(killing giants specifically), had practical knowledge learned from experience as opposed to all-wises knowledge of study.
You should also definitely make a Discord or Telegram or web forum or something where you can foster a community. I have a hunch I'm not the only person who feels the dire desperate thirst for a community of like-minded modern people who are paying attention and aren't completely braindead
yeee you're doing god's work here. we've been yapping about these things for years, but this is a really cool compact format with some cool new aspects, thanks for your work and i might come back to comment after some reflection. we defo need a new internet btw
Love to see this kind of content, inspiring for me just coming out of a philosophy and psych major in regards to your last comment about changing ideas through discourse, i like what Foucault said about using Nietzsche, that “the only valid tribute to though such as Nietzsches is precisely to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and protest. And if commentators say that i am being faithful or unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is of absolutely no interest.” Looking forward to seeing more stuff from you also if you ever write any of this up i’d love to be able to interpret it in writing
how i see it is a different way of explaining existentialism and how entropy affects how we think about time. we all change so much and due to how time works, we cant go back in time. we cant ever capture what once was for the same reason we cant see what will be. living in the moment, i think, is the remedy to the anaesthetisation that we see from the internet. also what you said at the end about how ideas should be changed and reunderstood is so important. we arent using stone wheels anymore
I like how you said social media is a kind of self report. It’s How we want to be shown to the world / how we perceive or want to perceive ourselves. social media feels so fake is because of this. It isn’t a completely accurate representation of people. It is just what we want people to think of us. Often Showing our best moments, never the worst. But even best moments are fudged- for example people who are in not so good relationships trying posting their partners putting them on a pedestal- as if they have the most amazing relationship. Another example that I have seen frequently is the sweet comments on posts. Sweet but for status- I’ve heard someone talk shit about somebody, then comment on a post as if they are best friends. Fake relationships for fake status. I love how you referenced the pep rally’s as an example of anesthetic relationships. I completely agree. I went to maybe one and the off feeling is unlike anything else. a forced closeness with people we don’t want to be around. I am wondering if this type of thing is an aspect of why it is hard to break out of negative thought patterns/ behaviors. We know our self’s to think a certain way, then to think in another way is new and out of the frame we’ve created for ourselves at an individual level. And it is just easier to return to the frame we already have instead of building a new one. Hope this comment makes sense. I will think more about it and possibly add to it later
I think your comment is insightful. I’ll add that socializing in and of itself is a self-report. We are always putting forward how we want to be perceived to people (whether it’s our true self or not), but social media may make the presentation more rigid and discrete. There is more control in what you choose to put forward to show other people online, which is both comforting to people that struggle with identity and authenticity but also telling of their desire for that particular aesthetic. I think this comes down to identity, self-acceptance, and the interaction between how we want to be perceived and how we really are. Creating a new frame to perceive ourselves as what is more authentic, or closer to reality, can be more painful than creating a frame for ourselves that protects us from that pain. Negative thoughts for example are an extension of that recognition - we are not acting authentically, but we cannot act authentically without facing WHY we are not acting authentically - which could be a whole host of reasons, anything from how we were raised to how we are presently treated.
Glad you enjoyed, and that would be super cool to see! Always feel free to adapt, modify, deconstruct, or alter anything I say on this channel, ideas shouldn't belong to a single person. I'd love to see what you end up with, feel free to get in contact if you feel like sharing your result!
I'm genuinely curious, because the topic interests me: How does this differ from dissonance? From simulation/simulacra? I feel like you're thinking originally about a well-explored topic, but it's hard for me to notice your original contribution because of others' preexisting "frames." If you more explicitly drew the distinction between disassociation/derealization (as an example) your concept of anesthetic it would help to make your own ideas more salient.
Thanks! This is a super good point, and I don't really have an answer. I know the broad strokes but not the specifics of simulation/simulacra, and I've never bumped into theories involving dissonance. I'd definitely like to read into them more in the future, but this idea isn't meant to be an alternative or response to those preexisting frames.
I think introspection on one's own perspective on a topic and thinking out loud in public is powerful. Thank you for doing that @WebReceptor! It's also great to be able to have different perspectives on the same experience since our identities mediate how we derive and share meaning with others. That said, it is also massively helpful to follow up after and compare notes with those who came before and to also see how to fit your conceptualisation into whatever existing ontologies there be. For me, a lot of what you spoke about rang familiar with Disembedding (Anthony Giddens) and modernism since similar disembedding shifts have happened a couple of times historically.
Language learning is a really good way to access areas of the mind that were previously "hidden". It is possible to implement different ideas with different languages... I have four definitions of sociology in my head (my main area), each in a different language, and the difference in meaning is really surprising. I think the problem you're discussing can be summarized as a problem of scope. What portion of reality are we focusing on? This feeling of alienation kind of fades away when you start to really dive into language. Things as a cluster of concepts, vocabulary. The idea is really similar to programming... different languages for different task. A think of natural languages as domain specific languages, most of them are evolving and morphing into new ones and lingua francas, like english or chinese, are entering culture in complex new ways. We've entered the age of language, information.
Thanks for this, much of my life has been a violently dissociative and derealized mess and I've only been present some 30% of it (am working on increasing that number incrementally, is working somewhat), but I was always terrified of the Internet growing up. It had felt like an actor forcing me to dissociate and derealize more, wedging me from reality farther than I already was and my first instinct had been fear. I was an autistic child, there wasn't much that I feared growing up except for that. And my tendency to hyperfixate already made it a habit to dissociate past myself, kid-me was terrified that the Internet would make it worse and she was right, but entangling myself out of that enmeshment was a necessary practice bc as a tool the Internet was needed. I also don't know what to do abt the Internet's anaesthetization, it's the nature of the product itself, but maybe a shift in the idea that the Internet would replace socialization totally is a good idea, the Internet as a limb/tool instead of a replacement maybe?
I really like your formulation of anesthetization as a general principle of dealignment between essence and representation (this is broadly how I understood it at least) but what I found somewhat "leaky" in your theory is its apparent (to me) insistence on the existence of an essence for things. It's not clear to me that things ever contain an irreducible essence which is then lost when they are containerized in representation through - for example - digitization, as you say. In a sense, I don't think there is such a thing as a "real" tree or a "real" community where "real" socialization occurs. To me, because of our unique sense-mix as humans, the world is always representation anyways so we're always at a distance from the thing-by-itself (e.g. we can't see radiation so we can never sense Plutonium as a thing-by-itself). And on top of that since our ability to turn our sense perceptions into meaning is constrained by language, we're also at a distance from our sense-of-the-thing too. So we're really always at least twice removed from "the real" in the case of tactual things (love the term btw) and even more steps removed from metaphysical objects and concepts due to frame effects of society and prior knowledge. Because of that, I don't think we can consider things to be perimetal - rather, we can only know things as parametal. In the example of a "toy" or "tree", there is no moment where you cross the boundary (perimeter) of toy-ness and tree-ness. But toy-ness and tree-ness are inherently dependent on a dynamic and fluid mix of attributes that are then defined socio-techno-politically and depend on our sense-mix. To me, it's more valuable to think of the only real thing as the relationship between two things. Or the "encounter" of things (e.g. you and tree). In this sense, digitization is still inferior due to the alchemy that it performs on tree - but this time, it's not because digi-tree is essentially non-tree because it doesn't have the essence of tree. Rather, it's because the encounter with (relationship with) digi-tree is of a different material than the encounter with tree. I think this adjustment makes your theory more resilient! On a similar note, I think you'll really enjoy "Alien Phenomenology, Or, What It's Like to be a Thing" by Ian Bogost and "The Infra-World" by Francois Bonnet. Both short little books that sit in the intersection of ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology - like your own work!
In a sense, the internet is a very inefficient database. Information is contained in videos, proprietary files, and web pages of text. I use inefficient because the process of gathering information requires a lot of work on the part of the querier, looking for sources and processing that information.
Excellent video - probably one of the best and you are really onto something and explain it extremely well. The zombification and reference to an old thread that's dead until someone awakens it. So, I've had this feeling for a while that data - whatever it may be.. the bits of data are simply substrate. Instantiated classes are called "observables" . Does anyone resonate with me on this? Why is junk email addresses something we need to hold on to for eternity? What's the point. Is it just matter to float on? And what exactly is floating. Sorry HS drop-out here, but something is "awry". :)
The few people I come across who seem to be actually "living" are either older people or autistic. Or both. All of my friends are neurodivergent. I typically cannot be around neurotypical people without feeling some strange sense of things "feeling off" which makes me want to immediately leave the conversation Most of the time I have a good time talking to someone they are autistic
Hi! This video just appeared in my feed and I’m glad it did, great quality content. I love the way you broke down and piece by piece you built concepts using clear language, the graphics and drawings are great and I can relate them easily with what you are trying to explain. I found your video really useful and actually like that it appeared on the perfect moment; yesterday I had my first date with a friend I’ve known now for a year, we are in the same major at uni, he suddenly asked me out last week. I’ve never been formally asked out nor had a “date” even though I’ve had partners before, as an autistic person (he knows I’m autistic, he is also neurodivergent) for a great part of the date I was feeling surreal, this thing I get when I’m overstimulated but this time not as an uncomfortable gut feeling… for the first time I got the expression “feeling numb” in my head and actually googled it (English is not my first language) to see if I was correct, yet the concept didn’t fully sink in as I often tend to rationalize feelings to be able to let myself get immerse on them. Your video came in perfect timing, helping me understand why I feel the way I do when I do, even if it makes me uncomfortable not being able to identify those feelings🫶 Just subscribed to your channel, keep up the good work ✨
As a middle-aged woman who has seen the Internet evolve (though, not right from the start, we in New Zealand were a little behind), I really appreciate your thoughts here. It's had me reconsidering whether i should set my Mastodon accounts to delete old "toots" ... I naturally think in an "archival" sense, despite only being one of the "little people" that historically gets scrubbed from the historical records. But then ... That is something of the magic of the "forever Internet" (though, i still imagine some disaster just wiping out all one day); that the little people get remembered, even though that would be too much work (but then, AI could just summarize us, huh?). Too many thoughts, now. I liked listening to this, it definitely got me thinking, particularly with regards how my children may see the world differently to me (who very much grew up touching grass). It doesn't feel like it's about right/wrong or fixing things. But it does feel like a little philosophical thought now & then it's good for everybody.
interesting video dude. you earned a subscriber. i look forward to seeing your developments in philosophy as you continue creation and research. have you ever read Plato?
I wanna watch this video so bad but I'm sick rn and cannot figure out how to even pronounce anashhratization so I will just leave this comment here and come back when I feel better, for the engagemebt and whatnot
i didnt watch your video because its half an hour but im part of a small group that while no longer functioning has preserved some of the more organic stuff out there and we've gotten a lot of stuff put into libraries. i watched this whole modern internet in-construction from what it was before and continue to engage with it and play with how content is serialized and the rather perpetually changing framework that exists for how content is "ideally" realized. i think you'd be fun to talk to. would be cool to get into contact with you somehow
This makes me wonder what role AI will play in how we interact with each other on the Internet going forward. This "appearance of socialization" as you call it and that feeling of something being off reminds me of the Uncanny Valley and the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. It's becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate real people from AI no matter what site you're on. Also, aesthetics in this context is interesting because it sounds like it relies on consciousness to an extent, and I'm not certain AI can possess consciousness at all, let alone to the extent we people can. So I wonder how this will continue to shape how we use the internet. Zombification has an even creepier connotation to it when you think about AI adopting dead or archived accounts or reposting content. Sorry for the incoherence. Loved the video!
Really interesting concept! Have you read Huxley’s Art of Seeing? He speaks on the disconnect between our senses and internal concepts and how it could actually affect our vision. Great video
this felt really important in a way that makes me feel like I shouldn't have been allowed to watch it. like you went and revealed some secret truth about our reality that is so very clearly present yet everyone is somehow blind to it, or afraid to bring it up. you know what else is anesthetized? larvae in the cells of a hive. are we becoming more insect like as we retreat into our bedrooms?
a very interesting video im glad it found my way to me! What I find especially thought provoking is your comment on the Dichotomy of what the Internets "promises" is and how it actually is "presented to us". I would argue that Change or process of becoming something different works differently on the internet, as the Internet is not bounded by time, as you said. It is another realm where different rules apply as to our "real" world. So rather change happening on an Object through its environment or time, change on the internet happens through the Interactions that users have with the digital object. Specifically "active" users .The active user can mold, copy and change the meaning of the digital object as they please. Either by taking snippets of a video and reuploading them. Or would you say that this form of "change" is just referencing the original digiatl object ?
I love the video. certified goop content. I feel like frame of the internet for many people has become this user generated but static/frozen version which is controlled by a few big sites. So that now truly dynamic things exist here there is some sorta boundary defying aspect to it - even though the boundary only exists in the first place because of big tech's influence. An example would be r/place - which is something that truly was dynamic in a place (reddit) that otherwise very digitalization-ing. But then after it ended, recording of it began to appear - cementing it as something digitized as well. I don't understand, however, what the basis for the perspective that digitization as a whole is bad. I understand how lack of change leading to anesthetic relationships is not good - but i don't feel like digitization needs to be entirely ditched - especially in more academic leaning areas where it certainly provides value (in terms of distribution of knowledge). I think that different mediums are better for different types of ideas. For example, mediums that digitize are not great for emotion driven ideas but are great for academically driven ideas. So the goal would be to find/use/popularize mediums that are half-digitalizing (and only keep the good parts of both - instead of the bad parts). idk if that makes sense. also it seems like digitization is only increasing everywhere constantly...
yeah i totally agree, I would go as far as to say that digitization is good on the whole! Definitely makes information more accessible, and it allows for people to be exposed to a lot more information. I do think, however, that dealing with digitized information (especially in excess) can lead to feelings of alienation. And the more I think about it, the more that I feel like this system is failing to distinguish between mediums like TV which are fully digitized, and books or artworks that demand some engagement in a process from the audience.
hi i'm a college student and i'm really intrigued by your thoughts!! is there a way that i can contact you like through email? you think in a really similar way to how i perceive reality i find that beautiful
I'm not sure if I agree that the original promise of the internet was to be entirely ephemeral, that the present preservative nature of its platforms is contrary to that (let alone that it is a bad thing), or that it is the reason behind why it may feel anaesthetic to some. Same with the points about anonymity. I do see how those make it different from IRL conversations.
I find it fascinating that you make offhand comments in fear of objective truth, as it seems you’ve discovered something similar to Plato’s idea that everything has a sort of ideal abstract form which it aspires to, and the thrust of your argument appears to be that the real internet as we experience is not aligned to our platonic ideal of the internet and thus we feel dissonance. All that being said, keep going.
as per this definition, i was truly anesthetized when i heard that handsome voice having such a beautiful wellput form. Had me confused for a minute, but as i kept watching it made more sense. Thank you! really admire your presentation. I'm subscribed now :D
There is a lot here but essentially there is two topics, one I agree with, the second I believe you oversimplify The first would be the analysis of anaesthetization itself, which nails down the concept of alienation and encapsulates it into a bigger narrative (no longer social alienation, now objects are abstracted from their true "framework"). There is something I will add to this: The tree, given enough time, becomes PART of the framework of say, the city or street. This is because things don't have a specific context where they belong per se, but we socially construct a system of relationships (relationships of symbols, a framework of symbols, akin to a language, the language of the city) that becomes the norm, the context. The second part is a bit more complex: I feel like you're touching on a lot of ideas and encapsulating them on a narrative I either don't understand or is reductive. Digitization as I understand it, is a reformulation of the essence of a manmade object (individual or collective). Man or society creates object with an intent. Object is decontextualized for X or Y reason (by society or other man) from it's original essence. Now the object is digitized, Mona Lisa'd, The Dark Side Of The Moon'd, little-toy-robot-of-Buzz-Lightyear-made-into-an-animatronic'd. Original intent is lost, the creator has been overpowered by an individual or cultural force. However when you present the examples I think that something becomes obvious: The different forms which digitization takes aren't so straightfoward as they might seem. Sometimes part of the original intent IS preserved, and this problem accentuates itself when you speak of the appearance of socializing. In stuff like big name Twitch streams, the idea runs smoothly: We have an idea of socializing, the streamer is reusing that idea to essentially earn himself a living, and now there is a "new" perception of this socializing, this parasocial relationship becomes a phony doppleganger of what once was a very human process (socializing), intended socially to be human, and now turned into a way of labour and consumer exploitation. However the example of the zoom class suddenly strikes odd: The problem is you fail to take into account the loyalty towards the original intent. In the case of zoom class, you have an example of a partial reformulation of an object (from "teach in classroom" to "teach in virtual space"), but some of the essential aspect of the objective remains pure. Basically, I believe you miss this gray scale, which is important. EDIT: IMPORTANT TO CLARIFY that burgeois exploitation isn't the only way in which digitization can happen but it is a very prevalent one. I think idk TL;DR: Lmao tldr more like too stupid didnt read stufosfpsaft gotcha
Thank you, and yes I totally agree with your critique of this process existing on a spectrum. The more edge cases that come up, the more I start to believe that this isn't a clear cut phase change, but much more of a continuum. Whether that be the existence of intermediate steps, or truly a smooth continual change, I really am not sure. As for anaesthetization, I am split between two perspectives on this. Examples of frames like the Web or Society are undoubtedly socially constructed, and could have a completely different sense within a different culture. However, when I look at a tree in an urban environment, or see animal behavior within a zoo, there seems to be such an obvious disconnect between the thing and its frame that I have a hard time imagining it ever feeling fully integrated. This could be resolved, at least for me, by saying that an instance of a thing can integrate into an instance of a frame, but the generalized senses of some things seem to be incompatible with the generalized senses of some frames. (When a zookeeper is playing with sea otters at my local zoo, the otter is integrated into the frame. However, without further context it seems intuitively "wrong" to try to understand the underlying senses of an otter within a frame characterized by man-made boxes containing animals in an artificial habitat.) That last paragraph might be incoherent, but I largely agree with what you're saying about anaesthetization, but it's hard for me to shake that feeling of separation sometimes.
@WebReceptor So the thing here is that what you call frames isn't as much of a static concept as it seems. Think of concepts as general flows of ideas that run into each other and form clusters (eat, fork, diner, making spaghetti). All of these concepts associate themselves quite abstractly, with stronger ties with some and looser with others. In common language, words (actually semas but oversimplifying for the sake of the explanation) represent the significant, the thing that carries the meaning physically. When talking about, say a tree, the tree itself is the significant and the signifier (the concept that it carries) is 'tree' (the concept tree), with a bubble of context around it (branches, nature, green, bark). The general idea is that your conception of tree is strongly tied (via cultural influence) to what we socially think a tree "ought to be" where it "belongs". Suddenly, this object, which is more tied to the "nature" bubble, is placed in the "city" bubble. You find this to be noisy. The more you find this connection, the more trees in the streets, thd more normal its gonna be to associate "city" with "tree". Wether this is right or wrong is beyond the field of semiotics, however your perception of the signifiers, their meaning, will change depending on your preconceptions of what is right or wrong.
Lukacs' theory of reification is really similar to the way that you describe digitization. I think the structure of the internet, especially with Web 2, is top down like you said which conflicts with the kind of utopian, democratic ideal of the internet. Growing up always having the internet, I was aware of how alienating the internet can be before I heard about how people had hoped it would be. I think the huge gap between real social interaction and the reified/digitized communication could also contribute to anesthetization/alienation. I don't think Web 3 will solve the structural issues of the internet despite ideas of decentralization and democratization. I don't think that tokenizing/commodifying everything fixes any real structural problems. With crypto being equally likely to be a rugpull or tied to something evil, I don't think the solution to the issues of Web 2 is to hand the reins of the internet to cryptobros. I thought what you said about critically engaging with your content to really get value out of the ideas was really cool, seeing stuff like your vid reminds me about how the internet could be
I feel like theres an impirtsnt distinction to be made for the wayback machine and internet archive verses intellectual property being regurgitated to milk profits. IA and TWBM exist as sort of librarys just cataloging information so it doesnt become forgotten to the collective boat of knowledge. It doesnt need to be accessed at all times and most people can live their life without going back to access it.
This is insane omg. I'm literally writing about this for my senior thesis right now. Except my lens is religious anthropology and your lens is affect/sense/sensibility. I'm not gonna like, leave my whole thesis in comments in ur comment section tho bc spam but like. i'll drop the link to my google doc if u want.
okay i realized i should like clarify here um. like the example with the animatronic buzz lightyear, the way i'd phrase that with my research is the toy is possessed by the spirit of a realized ideal [the cartoon character buzz. he is not real he is a character, an idea, an idea can attach to an object and possess it.] but the issue with this animatronic is the toy object used to be a ritual object of imagination and self discovery, but that open resource is now occluded by the realized-possessive spirit of buzz lightyear. the toy is Alive for its own sake regardless of the child or an observer or context.
Commenting before seeing the whole video, but my dad only leaves the house to go to work. And he works hybrid so that's only 2 or 3 days a week. And he doesn't have any friends to my knowledge. And doesn't have any family left. He talks about how much people suck. The thumbnail of this video made me think of him, and I'm hoping this video helps.
He is right, people do suck. It's better to go full hermit, introvert, hikkokomori, than to participate in this giant shit show. You can spend your whole life worrying, doing everything people tell you to do, and then you die and you simply don't exist, or you can spend your whole life doing whatever the fuck you want, and then you die and you simply don't exist. Which choice makes the most sense?
Not really, isolation kills you. Take it from someone who has been isolating for years because of trauma. It's really not the way. We have a need to see each other.
Very cool video but I think that digital content isnt really frozen, for example look at memes and how they mutate and change meaning based on the context they are in.
yeah very fair point. the conclusion i came too is that even after things are digitized, they can still be abstracted, and this process of abstraction makes it possible to reshape and reform the thing.
The way you talk is like how I wish I could talk more frequently. I try to have conversations with people and it's almost like they only know how to have a structured conversation and once I deviate from the plan, you know like actually try to come up with some new and interesting thoughts or perhaps just be completely vulnerable and show my ignorance, people can be uncomfortable with it. I love that you're not scripted. Maybe I'll post some of my stuff sometime. This is inspiring. Definitely subscribing
Thanks! It can definitely be tough to find people willing to engage in abstract conversation all the time, but they are definitely out there, and it's really fulfilling when you find them. And I've found TH-cam to be a great platform to develop and present some of the things I think about, I'd highly recommend it :)
You do not want to sound like this when trying to sell a narrative to other people to try and convince them of a better position to hold. They are not smart enough, they’ll think you’re being arrogant and obnoxious.
Case in point Trump
Case in point the Democratic Party
Point is to learn to speak at as many level of languages that resonate with people where they are not where you’re trying to get them.
Finally it requires epistemic humility than it does intellectual knowledge. Have to be human first to people to resonate before the convincing with evidence, facts, logic occurs
You can't just engage people without small talk most of the time - that isn't just shallow people. I don't want to project my own former tendencies here ~ but that's how I'm reading it.
@@WebReceptordo you have a discord community where people can talk about this?
@@ash_lee_vrhahahahahah funny but fr
I can tell the things you say aren’t just regurgitated content and are actually your own thoughts in there too and i think that is awesome
As a chronic lurker, there is something inhuman about the dynamics of influence on digital platforms. I consume orders of magnitude more content than I produce. Most of the digital information available about me is held in preference data rather than actual thoughts I strung together. While I am proud of my curated, intellectual, esoteric, ... feeds -- this is a one-way dynamic. I almost never give back in any form. In fact, my conversation history with Claude and ChatGPT is the most robust digital record of my existence.
Right there with you. Trying to fix this but it’s hard. Makes me feel stuck
i see you, friend, and feel very much the same! the internet can give the impression of total apathy. it’s a real treasure to find a work you can’t help but interact with, to find a creator that can’t help but create! it’s intoxicating and infectious; hope you know it’s never too late, and that anything made Is
Earlier today I thought of this actually: unlike conversations in real life, Discord lack splinter conversations. If you’re in a group of four or more and someone tries to have a 1 on 1 conversation with someone, you’re either putting a spotlight on yourself, waiting your turn to speak again, or talking over each other. Anyway, I just thought it was a good example of what you talked about since Discord is basically a diluted form of social interaction
Discord has threads.
@@CTimmerman Sorry if I was too vague; I was specifically talking about voice chat. Though, I've never used threads so I'll look into them
one of my biggest fears is that i'm secretly in surgery or really really high and that this entire life is just a fever dream
If you were to wake up into a life more real that this would you be happy or sad
We live in a simulation, and a rather shitty one. Maybe we can graduate to a better simulation after we die, but I doubt it.
@@JoeyMisner-zl9cc you guys are thinking about it all wrong, what if you wake up and what's real is a post apocalypse nightmare? Or worse, what if you wake up and you're actually paralyzed from the neck down? I mean what if you're actually in hell? like literal hell.
I took waaaaaaay to much shrooms once, passed out and had a dream/vision where I was searching for something in the desert and when I woke up in the middle of the night I lost all my memories. I was laying on the bed alone in a dark room and I forgot all my friends, family and I was convinced that I'm the only existing person in the world. I thought my entire life was just a dream, a cruel trick of my brain to survive being stuck in the bed alone in the world. That was the most terrifying moment of my life that changed me forever. That felt absolutely 100% real and there was no way of knowing that it's just a bad trip. It felt like waking up from the matrix into the machines world but there are no machines, no friends, no mission to save humanity just that empty terrifying feeling. That sort of unsettling feeling we had as kids when playing a video game and stopping the car in the middle of the race and driving into random alleys to explore the map just to realise all the houses, streets, forests are empty and we were not supposed to see that.
Don't do drugs, but as someone who likes psychedelics, the experience of peaking feels like forgetting what reality is supposed to be like. When I put mental effort into remembering that I'm just a guy in my room or shower things feel and look more normal, but when I get lost in the experience I almost completely forget what things are supposed to look like and and the warping/distorting becomes the reality that always was.
I usually think, "I can't wait for this to be over"
Im so glad this video exist. Life is slowly losing its complexity by shrinking into bits and bytes. We are thus losing are ability to grow expression and creation. We are slowly fading our social relaties into nothingness. I hope people will wake up. Also be careful of online cults.
Only slightly related to anaesthetisation, but the ways in which the internet has reproduced the frameworks of capitalism has actually furthered my understanding of why such frameworks are bs in the real world. Your video has definitely reminded me of this and clarified some of my thoughts, which I'll share!
In the real world, we interact with objects and people, which have the constraints of impermanence and physcial exlusivity. Thus in capitalism, the properties of excludability and rivalry arise in physical products. Meanwhile, on the internet we only ever interact with information, which is free from these constraints.
Rivalry means "scarcity of use". Rivalry refers to how products may only be used a limited number of times in limited ways. Exludability is "scarcity of access". Excludability is the degree to which certain people (mainly non-payers in capitalism) are excluded from using a product. By creating scarcity, these properties enable transactions as we know them. In fact, these "products" are actually just objects. Their status as "product" is dependant on them being obtained through transaction, and thus dependant on the scarcity created by rivalry and excludability.
This is where anaesthetisation *might* tie in. Picture a digital "product", such as a game, movie, or piece of software like Photoshop. Through the legal framework of Digital Rights Management, rivalry and excludability are artificially induced. Right now, my family's Netflix plan is limited to two devices at once (rivalry), but there is no property of information that requires this. Someone who lacks a subscription is not allowed to watch a show, even though I could easily (but illegally) record my screen and send it to them (excludability). Companies backed by the threat of violent legal action use their power to contort the boundless potential of the internet into a little box they can sell back to us. The concept of "product" has been placed in a frame which doesn't suit it. Whenever I "buy" a movie or game digitally, it feels flimsy. My ownership means nothing. In fact, Sony has removed content that people have "bought" before. I think this incongruence might be a form of anaesthetisation.
This crystalised for me the fact that much of the scarcity of physical products is also artificially induced. Rivalry is an unavoidable consequence of the finite nature of objects. There's not much we can do about the fact that only one person can write with a pencil at a time and that it will eventually by consumed. However, excludability is nakedly artifical. There is nothing inherent in an empty house that prevents a homeless person from sleeping in it, only a legal framework enforced with violence. Obviously, some exclusion is desirable, which inherently requires some level of violence to enforce. I'd like strangers to not be in my personal house and using my toothbrush. But there are other cases we can question. Should the workers who spend much of their lives working be excluded from controlling/owning the place they work? Should things necessary for people to live, such as shelter, food, and medical care be exclusive commidities? Socialism posits that ownership (which is inherently exclusionary) should be contingent on use, not something that can be bought.
TL;DR: Capitalism is very artificial and should be questioned. This is made very clear with digital products and digital "ownership" which feel very anaesthetic (love this word now) due to the mismatch between the scarcity required for a product to be sold and the frame of the boundless internet.
Well if you actually look into how the digital products you buy are produced you'd see that it isn't as simple as you portray. The difficult to enforce ownership is an intrinsic property of digital media, but that doesn't make the enforcement of its ownership any less real. Once upon a time it was really hard to prevent pirates from raiding your shipments of goods, but that didn't make the physical incursion any less real. To say that protecting intellectual property is an artificial capitalist construct is to deny the real suffering of those who lose out on the fruits of their labor due to piracy. We've just become mentally detached from the effects of piracy, only blind to its consequences.
The physical hardware the runs the digital world has a real world cost, and stealing data from the services rendered is no different than stealing a banana from a shipment containing thousands. They might not notice the single banana being taken, or even care to take legal action, but it was still stolen. If enough people stole in a similar manner, it would quickly become a major problem. Scarcity is often lost on us, because we require something to be scarce to us before we consider it scarce, not understanding that scarcity is intrinsic to all goods and services digital or otherwise.
The enforcement of ownership therefore is natural for us, and based on the motivations of a human centered world. The artificiality of modern capitalism has more to do with its corrupt implementation where corporations are shielded from competition from both the government and anti-competitive practices. So in reality the modern implementation of capitalism is in a weird sort of way anaesthetic to the concept of capitalism itself. It's the appearance of a capitalist system instantiated inside corporatism. That's the issue.
@Billy4321able I get what you're saying. Maybe I should have changed how I phrased things. I don't think that artificially introducing constraints is inherently bad. The existence of law and protection from harm is artificially constructed, like you point out with the pirate ship, but I think it's good. What I'd like to point out is that we should recognise that these constraints are artificial so that we can question them and choose better ones. I think people often don't even question the fact that capitalism is a constructed system. One could argue that it's a good one, but I think most people instead assume that it's inevitable. That it's just a reflection of human nature or the final form of society.
With regards to digital products, crowdfunding might be a better monetisation framework than traditional buying and owning of individual instances. In this case, funding is given at the start to cover development and distribution is free or very cheap, reflecting the way labour is distributed. I'm not 100% sure on this, as I haven't thought about it enough. The reason I focussed on digital products is because it related the most to the concept of anaesthetisation, where I personally feel that something is "off" when I buy things like movies online.
With regards to the cost of running the internet, I agree that it's taken for granted. I wouldn't mind if the internet wasn't free or was publicly funded (free at point of use), so that users and their data weren't the product. Right now the internet is essentially publicly funded but through the invasion of privacy and advertising rather than through taxes.
@Billy4321able that last reply was about clarifying what I meant. I do also disagree with you on the nature of intellectual property.
You liken protection from intellectual property theft to protection from physical theft. But ideas are not the same as objects. It's hard to prevent actual pirates from robbing a ship because of logistics. It's hard to prevent intellectual/digital product theft, because such theft doesn't really exist and we have to go out of our way to make it a thing.
It takes labour to make an object and give it to someone. If an object is stolen, it takes labour to replace it. Theft presents a real loss to the victim, in the sense that the victim has to work to replace the item.
Information can't really be stolen, only copied. If someone pirates a movie, it doesn't remove it from its source. There is no limit to the number of copies of movies. Theft doesn't represent a loss in the same sense as in a physical product (I am treating the friction of the internet as negligible).
NOW, piracy of intellectual property is theft and does produce a loss in the sense that it's a loss in business opportunity. But, in my opinion this does not legitimise the enforcement of intellectual property.
Imagine we live in a world where you can buy a book, but it's considered theft to read it to other people, such that only one person can use its information at a time. I think we'd find this ridiculous -- there's no theft in reading my kid a bedtime story! But it's also true that such theft costs the bookseller business. If everyone has to buy their own copy, more books will be sold. I think this imaginary world is ridiculous, but I don't see how it's much different from our intellectual property, just more restrictive. Violation of IP laws presents a loss to the business only because the enforcement of IP laws forces more people to buy a thing. I think we should find a better monetisation model for intellectual property than what he have now. I'm not saying businesses shouldn't make money, just that we should fund them in a way that matches the nature of the product.
@@Shack263 Books, movies, and videogames are not the same product and are therefore not comparable. Books are meant to be read by one person, as a mechanism to deliver information. I would argue the existence of libraries have in a way desolved the value of books. Children's books are culturally mean't to be read to others since young children are usually still learning to read on their own, so it's an expected way that the product is used. With videogames there are no publicly funded libraries where games can be checked out, they must be bought from a store. It's not expected that games be shared, therefore doing so is considered theft. The shareability of a product is determined by the culture it exists in and the decision of the company that creates it.
Thank you for keeping me in touch with reality. People don't think like you do and it's a refreshing perspective.
this is a great lecture, thank you. every day i become more aware of how growing up online has fucked with my brain, i'm glad that people are theorizing on this topic
I think it’s time we forget the old internet, but we cannot vilify it. I’m from a third world African country, and the internet is still making huge strides- allowing improvised/enslaved communities to have a voice on the global scale, making basic education more accessible, and allowing often repressed communities to start forging.
However, I grew up on the internet thanks to luck and privilege. I see the warning signs already- but I have hopes that our ability to utilise the internet as a tool primarily will avoid late stage internet “brain damage” (derealisation??) in the people.
amazing content. thank you for the content. you verbalize concepts that help me think. and you say things I've been thinking about. i thought about making the internet more organic in exactly the way you suggested, making it change, making it alive.
long live the associative thinkers, and down with rigidly structured lectures and discussions! thank you so much for sharing and thank you for thinking and NEVER STOP. you’re appreciated greatly ✌️🫀
A lot of the characteristics of the anesthetic relationship that you draw attention to can be supported by combining a lot of the discrete cognitive phenomena available in categorical perception, and the mechanisms of selective attention, feature extraction, and schema formation.
Attentional resources can be conceptualized as filling cognitive load with details classified at the subordinate level when interacting with cognitive schema. For example, in a perceptual scene, the superordinate level might involve a broad classification such as "standing on a city street," while subordinate details focus on elements like the bark of a tree, the way sunlight interacts with its leaves, or the root formation against the surrounding concrete.
When attentional resources are fully devoted to these subordinate details without disruption, a frame of reference is established around the tree as the central element of the schema. However, when a violating element enters the perception-such as a loud noise or a sudden movement-the established schema breaks. This triggers a cycle of schema reorganization, shifting attention away from the subordinate details of the tree toward a broader perspective.
In this process, the tree transitions from being the focal point of its own subordinate-level schema to becoming a subordinate element within a new, larger schema at the superordinate level (e.g., the broader "city street" schema). This transition involves collapsing the detailed subordinate elements of the tree into a more generalized classification, integrating them into a broader, interconnected system of sub-schemas.
This reorganization illustrates how attentional focus toggles between levels of classification, transferring subordinate details into superordinate categories and enabling the formation of new schema connections within the broader cognitive hierarchy.
yeah, i was also thinking that a city street with tree can become its own frame
I really wish for the world to have more intelligent and well articulated minds like this gorgeous human being honestly
"the deep freeze of digitization" really stood out to me as an amazing quote. Really great rhythm word stuff.
Very cool, thanks for the work you put into this and sharing.
The anesthetization of a (present) phenomenon into a (represented) framework or concept or idea reminds me a lot of Barfield's work on Idolatry (The Study of Appearances) .
I feel like modern education is very much a "beta thinking about idols" and is thus inherently removed from experience (original participation), or to put it in your words "anesthetic is without feeling, without sense". We now seem to act as if (believe) our models (frames, concepts) of the world are MORE REAL than the real world of present phenomena.
There is something about learning how to swim from reading a book that is insufficient when compared to actually getting in the water and flailing about until you figure out how to swim with your body. There is something less real about reading words about how to swim; and something way more real about actually doing it.
It seem' as though modern civilizations presupposes this separation between idea of a thing and the thing itself, which then creates a sort of alienated experience by the person (participator). And thus we raise kids to "live via ideas" rather than to unite body and mind through the guidance of ideas. We seem more willing to dissociate from our bodies and insists that we conform to the ideas or frameworks that we are presented as "right". Society seems to communicate primarily through ideas, and that implies we no longer communicate with unconscious body language and other contexts. We are so focuses on the WORD ITSELF, that we have lost the connection, the meaning, the purpose, the significance.
This anesthetization of modern culture is akin to disconnecting from our embodied roots. This is horrifying and seems to only end in disaster.
Barfield on Idols
McGilchrist on "The matter with Things"
Baudrillard on Simulacrum
Peterson on Ideology (maps of meaning)
Graham Hancock (Thoth's prophecy) -> what happens when civilization comes completely unmoored from the "real world"
If the story of man is the battling energies between Jesus and Satan, or is the unified experience of a person whilst under the influence of 2 hemispheres with different personalities...then the spirit of "believing in idols" seems akin to worshipping the Luciferian intellect. It seems as though this anesthetization of living experiences to numb life into a simulacrum of formulaic concepts used in stead of actual present participatory awareness and integration of the unconscious bodily involvement -> seems to be turning away from the "god" of unconscious confrontation with reality. ((Mixing McGilchrist and Peterson philosophies here)
How do we in modernity try to live in ways to live motivated by reality (believe in the ability to navigate unexplored territory) instead of this tempting and contagious desire to re-present reality into simulacrums of frameworks that enable us the pretense of beta thinking without "act"ually living.
I know this is all over the place...but your video was thought provoking.
True, though I don't think society is strictly imposing the status quo itself, that being because the status quo being a product of continuation and homogenity of its own being, than we are to suppose that we're also a continuation and a "expounding" of this autonomous entity. As much as I think a representation of the thing itself and the alienated engagements of a thing are false and should be frequently avoided, there are certain axioms that are ever revolving and self learning itself that are True and should set the "average", continuation I think, is one of them, appearence sets the facial value of a thing, how can we be therefore ugly then? As I'm typing, we're aware that we are a commodified type of species, commodified and made perfect by our proximal environs that seemed fit for urban survival and reproduction. I'm thinking that the reason our "aesthetic" per se is opposing "society" is because the facial value in which society integrates its discrete units is a form of self learning and commodification. There is certain symmetries between a person and a sum of them, one being the idea of self conservation, if you aren't wanted, then you aren't wanted. A strategic impulse to this is firstly dissociation, since pursuing your desired facial value is a risk to be taken, having mortal consequences. How then one should pursue itself when "itself" itself is bleak and made bleaker by the capital apparatus in which we devote our lives? How can one engage in its proximity, as it is a prereqruisite for divination and meaning, that is not itself ourselves, but ever becoming ourselves?
This reminds me of the story of all-wise the dwarf, who was pale from lack of sun while studying, and able to recite great deals of information, but was bested by Thor, who is often represented as an oaf no less, because he didn't have any practical knowledge and Thor, as a god of going out and doing things(killing giants specifically), had practical knowledge learned from experience as opposed to all-wises knowledge of study.
People just gotta touch grass lol
"The menu is not the meal." or " The map is not the territory." all these things are just models :)
This is really well put together. I can only imagine the pondering you must get up to.
I love a good ponder
I can only imagine the size of your obsidian notebook. Great job! You earned a new subscriber!
Good shit. I like how your brain works. Keep it up.
Your hair is so pretty! totally taking notes professor!
This was great, its refreshing to find people who think and articulate like this. Would love to collab/discuss with you in future videos!
You should also definitely make a Discord or Telegram or web forum or something where you can foster a community. I have a hunch I'm not the only person who feels the dire desperate thirst for a community of like-minded modern people who are paying attention and aren't completely braindead
yeee you're doing god's work here. we've been yapping about these things for years, but this is a really cool compact format with some cool new aspects,
thanks for your work and i might come back to comment after some reflection. we defo need a new internet btw
only 4min in, thank you for sharing this!!
This video is basically my mind emptied out into visual format. I'm thinking about this thing constantly. You just put a word on it.
thrilled to have found your/this channel 😍
this was so dope this explained a feeling ive never been able to explain thank you❤
love you! subbed and shared
Writing a script about almost exactly this concept... this vid will be a huge help lol
Oh shit this is the best Christmas gift from the algorithm i could ever ask for! Insta-subscribed
I love how you organize everything
Love to see this kind of content, inspiring for me just coming out of a philosophy and psych major
in regards to your last comment about changing ideas through discourse, i like what Foucault said about using Nietzsche, that “the only valid tribute to though such as Nietzsches is precisely to use it, to deform it, to make it groan and protest. And if commentators say that i am being faithful or unfaithful to Nietzsche, that is of absolutely no interest.”
Looking forward to seeing more stuff from you
also if you ever write any of this up i’d love to be able to interpret it in writing
how i see it is a different way of explaining existentialism and how entropy affects how we think about time. we all change so much and due to how time works, we cant go back in time. we cant ever capture what once was for the same reason we cant see what will be. living in the moment, i think, is the remedy to the anaesthetisation that we see from the internet.
also what you said at the end about how ideas should be changed and reunderstood is so important. we arent using stone wheels anymore
Never ask Wittgenstein what he thinks a chair looks like
I felt like I had to find the citation for this joke.
Aphorism 76-80 from
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations
I like how you said social media is a kind of self report. It’s How we want to be shown to the world / how we perceive or want to perceive ourselves. social media feels so fake is because of this. It isn’t a completely accurate representation of people. It is just what we want people to think of us. Often Showing our best moments, never the worst. But even best moments are fudged- for example people who are in not so good relationships trying posting their partners putting them on a pedestal- as if they have the most amazing relationship. Another example that I have seen frequently is the sweet comments on posts. Sweet but for status- I’ve heard someone talk shit about somebody, then comment on a post as if they are best friends. Fake relationships for fake status.
I love how you referenced the pep rally’s as an example of anesthetic relationships. I completely agree. I went to maybe one and the off feeling is unlike anything else. a forced closeness with people we don’t want to be around.
I am wondering if this type of thing is an aspect of why it is hard to break out of negative thought patterns/ behaviors. We know our self’s to think a certain way, then to think in another way is new and out of the frame we’ve created for ourselves at an individual level. And it is just easier to return to the frame we already have instead of building a new one.
Hope this comment makes sense. I will think more about it and possibly add to it later
I think your comment is insightful. I’ll add that socializing in and of itself is a self-report. We are always putting forward how we want to be perceived to people (whether it’s our true self or not), but social media may make the presentation more rigid and discrete. There is more control in what you choose to put forward to show other people online, which is both comforting to people that struggle with identity and authenticity but also telling of their desire for that particular aesthetic.
I think this comes down to identity, self-acceptance, and the interaction between how we want to be perceived and how we really are. Creating a new frame to perceive ourselves as what is more authentic, or closer to reality, can be more painful than creating a frame for ourselves that protects us from that pain. Negative thoughts for example are an extension of that recognition - we are not acting authentically, but we cannot act authentically without facing WHY we are not acting authentically - which could be a whole host of reasons, anything from how we were raised to how we are presently treated.
this is really strong stuff, I'd love to try and formalise it in a paper if you wouldn't mind / be interested.
Glad you enjoyed, and that would be super cool to see! Always feel free to adapt, modify, deconstruct, or alter anything I say on this channel, ideas shouldn't belong to a single person.
I'd love to see what you end up with, feel free to get in contact if you feel like sharing your result!
@WebReceptor will do! how should i contact you? both for results and some clarification/discussion on the matter?
oh good question! my email is webreceptor05@gmail.com, that's probably the best way to get in touch
This is epistemology it's already been gone over, but I agree everyone should write out their beliefs and ideas.
I'm genuinely curious, because the topic interests me: How does this differ from dissonance? From simulation/simulacra? I feel like you're thinking originally about a well-explored topic, but it's hard for me to notice your original contribution because of others' preexisting "frames." If you more explicitly drew the distinction between disassociation/derealization (as an example) your concept of anesthetic it would help to make your own ideas more salient.
Thanks! This is a super good point, and I don't really have an answer. I know the broad strokes but not the specifics of simulation/simulacra, and I've never bumped into theories involving dissonance. I'd definitely like to read into them more in the future, but this idea isn't meant to be an alternative or response to those preexisting frames.
I think introspection on one's own perspective on a topic and thinking out loud in public is powerful. Thank you for doing that @WebReceptor! It's also great to be able to have different perspectives on the same experience since our identities mediate how we derive and share meaning with others.
That said, it is also massively helpful to follow up after and compare notes with those who came before and to also see how to fit your conceptualisation into whatever existing ontologies there be.
For me, a lot of what you spoke about rang familiar with Disembedding (Anthony Giddens) and modernism since similar disembedding shifts have happened a couple of times historically.
@@ryanmarvin2399is "disembedding" analogous to "deterritorialization" by D&G ?
Language learning is a really good way to access areas of the mind that were previously "hidden". It is possible to implement different ideas with different languages... I have four definitions of sociology in my head (my main area), each in a different language, and the difference in meaning is really surprising. I think the problem you're discussing can be summarized as a problem of scope. What portion of reality are we focusing on?
This feeling of alienation kind of fades away when you start to really dive into language. Things as a cluster of concepts, vocabulary.
The idea is really similar to programming... different languages for different task. A think of natural languages as domain specific languages, most of them are evolving and morphing into new ones and lingua francas, like english or chinese, are entering culture in complex new ways.
We've entered the age of language, information.
This is awesome, great goop
0:00 - 18:23 Peak intellectual sophistication
18:24 No no! The lights went out!
This is what I come to the internet for
you have great videos, thank you!
Thanks for this, much of my life has been a violently dissociative and derealized mess and I've only been present some 30% of it (am working on increasing that number incrementally, is working somewhat), but I was always terrified of the Internet growing up. It had felt like an actor forcing me to dissociate and derealize more, wedging me from reality farther than I already was and my first instinct had been fear. I was an autistic child, there wasn't much that I feared growing up except for that. And my tendency to hyperfixate already made it a habit to dissociate past myself, kid-me was terrified that the Internet would make it worse and she was right, but entangling myself out of that enmeshment was a necessary practice bc as a tool the Internet was needed.
I also don't know what to do abt the Internet's anaesthetization, it's the nature of the product itself, but maybe a shift in the idea that the Internet would replace socialization totally is a good idea, the Internet as a limb/tool instead of a replacement maybe?
I really like your formulation of anesthetization as a general principle of dealignment between essence and representation (this is broadly how I understood it at least) but what I found somewhat "leaky" in your theory is its apparent (to me) insistence on the existence of an essence for things.
It's not clear to me that things ever contain an irreducible essence which is then lost when they are containerized in representation through - for example - digitization, as you say. In a sense, I don't think there is such a thing as a "real" tree or a "real" community where "real" socialization occurs.
To me, because of our unique sense-mix as humans, the world is always representation anyways so we're always at a distance from the thing-by-itself (e.g. we can't see radiation so we can never sense Plutonium as a thing-by-itself). And on top of that since our ability to turn our sense perceptions into meaning is constrained by language, we're also at a distance from our sense-of-the-thing too. So we're really always at least twice removed from "the real" in the case of tactual things (love the term btw) and even more steps removed from metaphysical objects and concepts due to frame effects of society and prior knowledge.
Because of that, I don't think we can consider things to be perimetal - rather, we can only know things as parametal. In the example of a "toy" or "tree", there is no moment where you cross the boundary (perimeter) of toy-ness and tree-ness. But toy-ness and tree-ness are inherently dependent on a dynamic and fluid mix of attributes that are then defined socio-techno-politically and depend on our sense-mix.
To me, it's more valuable to think of the only real thing as the relationship between two things. Or the "encounter" of things (e.g. you and tree). In this sense, digitization is still inferior due to the alchemy that it performs on tree - but this time, it's not because digi-tree is essentially non-tree because it doesn't have the essence of tree. Rather, it's because the encounter with (relationship with) digi-tree is of a different material than the encounter with tree.
I think this adjustment makes your theory more resilient! On a similar note, I think you'll really enjoy "Alien Phenomenology, Or, What It's Like to be a Thing" by Ian Bogost and "The Infra-World" by Francois Bonnet. Both short little books that sit in the intersection of ontology, phenomenology, and epistemology - like your own work!
THANK YOU QUEEN
OMG. You are amazing!
I already love you 😅😊❤🎉.
我爱你啊!
In a sense, the internet is a very inefficient database. Information is contained in videos, proprietary files, and web pages of text. I use inefficient because the process of gathering information requires a lot of work on the part of the querier, looking for sources and processing that information.
That’s where AI comes in.
Wow I just subscribed and I'm exited to see more videos from you:)
I have never gone outside
Excellent video - probably one of the best and you are really onto something and explain it extremely well. The zombification and reference to an old thread that's dead until someone awakens it. So, I've had this feeling for a while that data - whatever it may be.. the bits of data are simply substrate. Instantiated classes are called "observables" . Does anyone resonate with me on this? Why is junk email addresses something we need to hold on to for eternity? What's the point. Is it just matter to float on? And what exactly is floating. Sorry HS drop-out here, but something is "awry". :)
The few people I come across who seem to be actually "living" are either older people or autistic. Or both.
All of my friends are neurodivergent. I typically cannot be around neurotypical people without feeling some strange sense of things "feeling off" which makes me want to immediately leave the conversation
Most of the time I have a good time talking to someone they are autistic
Hi! This video just appeared in my feed and I’m glad it did, great quality content. I love the way you broke down and piece by piece you built concepts using clear language, the graphics and drawings are great and I can relate them easily with what you are trying to explain.
I found your video really useful and actually like that it appeared on the perfect moment; yesterday I had my first date with a friend I’ve known now for a year, we are in the same major at uni, he suddenly asked me out last week. I’ve never been formally asked out nor had a “date” even though I’ve had partners before, as an autistic person (he knows I’m autistic, he is also neurodivergent) for a great part of the date I was feeling surreal, this thing I get when I’m overstimulated but this time not as an uncomfortable gut feeling… for the first time I got the expression “feeling numb” in my head and actually googled it (English is not my first language) to see if I was correct, yet the concept didn’t fully sink in as I often tend to rationalize feelings to be able to let myself get immerse on them. Your video came in perfect timing, helping me understand why I feel the way I do when I do, even if it makes me uncomfortable not being able to identify those feelings🫶
Just subscribed to your channel, keep up the good work ✨
As a middle-aged woman who has seen the Internet evolve (though, not right from the start, we in New Zealand were a little behind), I really appreciate your thoughts here. It's had me reconsidering whether i should set my Mastodon accounts to delete old "toots" ... I naturally think in an "archival" sense, despite only being one of the "little people" that historically gets scrubbed from the historical records. But then ... That is something of the magic of the "forever Internet" (though, i still imagine some disaster just wiping out all one day); that the little people get remembered, even though that would be too much work (but then, AI could just summarize us, huh?). Too many thoughts, now. I liked listening to this, it definitely got me thinking, particularly with regards how my children may see the world differently to me (who very much grew up touching grass). It doesn't feel like it's about right/wrong or fixing things. But it does feel like a little philosophical thought now & then it's good for everybody.
Love your hair
interesting video dude. you earned a subscriber. i look forward to seeing your developments in philosophy as you continue creation and research. have you ever read Plato?
I wanna watch this video so bad but I'm sick rn and cannot figure out how to even pronounce anashhratization so I will just leave this comment here and come back when I feel better, for the engagemebt and whatnot
i didnt watch your video because its half an hour but im part of a small group that while no longer functioning has preserved some of the more organic stuff out there and we've gotten a lot of stuff put into libraries. i watched this whole modern internet in-construction from what it was before and continue to engage with it and play with how content is serialized and the rather perpetually changing framework that exists for how content is "ideally" realized. i think you'd be fun to talk to. would be cool to get into contact with you somehow
this is the vibe
This makes me wonder what role AI will play in how we interact with each other on the Internet going forward. This "appearance of socialization" as you call it and that feeling of something being off reminds me of the Uncanny Valley and the Dark Forest Theory of the Internet. It's becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate real people from AI no matter what site you're on. Also, aesthetics in this context is interesting because it sounds like it relies on consciousness to an extent, and I'm not certain AI can possess consciousness at all, let alone to the extent we people can. So I wonder how this will continue to shape how we use the internet. Zombification has an even creepier connotation to it when you think about AI adopting dead or archived accounts or reposting content.
Sorry for the incoherence. Loved the video!
Everything digital is technically it's own, unique, physical thing
I love your hair
Really interesting concept! Have you read Huxley’s Art of Seeing? He speaks on the disconnect between our senses and internal concepts and how it could actually affect our vision. Great video
Your video reminds me of Bo Burnham's work. "That Funny Feeling" in particular comes to mind.
Hello Internet-person
wtf hai
this felt really important in a way that makes me feel like I shouldn't have been allowed to watch it. like you went and revealed some secret truth about our reality that is so very clearly present yet everyone is somehow blind to it, or afraid to bring it up. you know what else is anesthetized? larvae in the cells of a hive. are we becoming more insect like as we retreat into our bedrooms?
a very interesting video im glad it found my way to me!
What I find especially thought provoking is your comment on the Dichotomy of what the Internets "promises" is and how it actually is "presented to us".
I would argue that Change or process of becoming something different works differently on the internet, as the Internet is not bounded by time, as you said. It is another realm where different rules apply as to our "real" world. So rather change happening on an Object through its environment or time, change on the internet happens through the Interactions that users have with the digital object. Specifically "active" users .The active user can mold, copy and change the meaning of the digital object as they please. Either by taking snippets of a video and reuploading them. Or would you say that this form of "change" is just referencing the original digiatl object ?
I'm protesting this shithole simulation we are stuck in by not doing anything. The simulation hates it when you simply do nothing.
bartleby-lookin ass
REAL
W Vid
Brilliant thank you
huel is awesome. Glad to see a fellow vegan ;)
I love the video. certified goop content.
I feel like frame of the internet for many people has become this user generated but static/frozen version which is controlled by a few big sites.
So that now truly dynamic things exist here there is some sorta boundary defying aspect to it - even though the boundary only exists in the first place because of big tech's influence. An example would be r/place - which is something that truly was dynamic in a place (reddit) that otherwise very digitalization-ing. But then after it ended, recording of it began to appear - cementing it as something digitized as well.
I don't understand, however, what the basis for the perspective that digitization as a whole is bad. I understand how lack of change leading to anesthetic relationships is not good - but i don't feel like digitization needs to be entirely ditched - especially in more academic leaning areas where it certainly provides value (in terms of distribution of knowledge).
I think that different mediums are better for different types of ideas. For example, mediums that digitize are not great for emotion driven ideas but are great for academically driven ideas. So the goal would be to find/use/popularize mediums that are half-digitalizing (and only keep the good parts of both - instead of the bad parts). idk if that makes sense. also it seems like digitization is only increasing everywhere constantly...
yeah i totally agree, I would go as far as to say that digitization is good on the whole! Definitely makes information more accessible, and it allows for people to be exposed to a lot more information. I do think, however, that dealing with digitized information (especially in excess) can lead to feelings of alienation.
And the more I think about it, the more that I feel like this system is failing to distinguish between mediums like TV which are fully digitized, and books or artworks that demand some engagement in a process from the audience.
hi i'm a college student and i'm really intrigued by your thoughts!! is there a way that i can contact you like through email? you think in a really similar way to how i perceive reality i find that beautiful
Yeah, my email is webreceptor05@gmail.com ! Feel free to reach out about anything
Good channel
I'm not sure if I agree that the original promise of the internet was to be entirely ephemeral, that the present preservative nature of its platforms is contrary to that (let alone that it is a bad thing), or that it is the reason behind why it may feel anaesthetic to some.
Same with the points about anonymity.
I do see how those make it different from IRL conversations.
thats an awfully scary busy-body background ya got there
this is too big brained for me as a non-intellectual but I will come back to this
Do you have a link to your notes ? I really like your ideas and I want to read them over and think about it more deeply!
Sounds like ketamine ngl
I find it fascinating that you make offhand comments in fear of objective truth, as it seems you’ve discovered something similar to Plato’s idea that everything has a sort of ideal abstract form which it aspires to, and the thrust of your argument appears to be that the real internet as we experience is not aligned to our platonic ideal of the internet and thus we feel dissonance. All that being said, keep going.
Do you know Relational Frame Theory?, i think it is themed with the content of the video
tech upgrade, very fancy.
as per this definition, i was truly anesthetized when i heard that handsome voice having such a beautiful wellput form. Had me confused for a minute, but as i kept watching it made more sense. Thank you!
really admire your presentation. I'm subscribed now :D
Kudos for casually explaining the mechanics of morphic resonance as if you have the keys to the forbidden section of the akashic records
Is this video related to the concept of simulacra/simulacrum or something like that asking bc i dont recall what those words mean
You look like the type of person who actually has independent thought. I loved the video. (Also, cool hair!)
so similar to alienization but with your senses?
There is a lot here but essentially there is two topics, one I agree with, the second I believe you oversimplify
The first would be the analysis of anaesthetization itself, which nails down the concept of alienation and encapsulates it into a bigger narrative (no longer social alienation, now objects are abstracted from their true "framework"). There is something I will add to this: The tree, given enough time, becomes PART of the framework of say, the city or street. This is because things don't have a specific context where they belong per se, but we socially construct a system of relationships (relationships of symbols, a framework of symbols, akin to a language, the language of the city) that becomes the norm, the context.
The second part is a bit more complex: I feel like you're touching on a lot of ideas and encapsulating them on a narrative I either don't understand or is reductive. Digitization as I understand it, is a reformulation of the essence of a manmade object (individual or collective). Man or society creates object with an intent. Object is decontextualized for X or Y reason (by society or other man) from it's original essence. Now the object is digitized, Mona Lisa'd, The Dark Side Of The Moon'd, little-toy-robot-of-Buzz-Lightyear-made-into-an-animatronic'd. Original intent is lost, the creator has been overpowered by an individual or cultural force.
However when you present the examples I think that something becomes obvious: The different forms which digitization takes aren't so straightfoward as they might seem. Sometimes part of the original intent IS preserved, and this problem accentuates itself when you speak of the appearance of socializing. In stuff like big name Twitch streams, the idea runs smoothly: We have an idea of socializing, the streamer is reusing that idea to essentially earn himself a living, and now there is a "new" perception of this socializing, this parasocial relationship becomes a phony doppleganger of what once was a very human process (socializing), intended socially to be human, and now turned into a way of labour and consumer exploitation. However the example of the zoom class suddenly strikes odd: The problem is you fail to take into account the loyalty towards the original intent. In the case of zoom class, you have an example of a partial reformulation of an object (from "teach in classroom" to "teach in virtual space"), but some of the essential aspect of the objective remains pure. Basically, I believe you miss this gray scale, which is important.
EDIT: IMPORTANT TO CLARIFY that burgeois exploitation isn't the only way in which digitization can happen but it is a very prevalent one.
I think idk
TL;DR: Lmao tldr more like too stupid didnt read stufosfpsaft gotcha
Thank you, and yes I totally agree with your critique of this process existing on a spectrum. The more edge cases that come up, the more I start to believe that this isn't a clear cut phase change, but much more of a continuum. Whether that be the existence of intermediate steps, or truly a smooth continual change, I really am not sure.
As for anaesthetization, I am split between two perspectives on this. Examples of frames like the Web or Society are undoubtedly socially constructed, and could have a completely different sense within a different culture. However, when I look at a tree in an urban environment, or see animal behavior within a zoo, there seems to be such an obvious disconnect between the thing and its frame that I have a hard time imagining it ever feeling fully integrated.
This could be resolved, at least for me, by saying that an instance of a thing can integrate into an instance of a frame, but the generalized senses of some things seem to be incompatible with the generalized senses of some frames. (When a zookeeper is playing with sea otters at my local zoo, the otter is integrated into the frame. However, without further context it seems intuitively "wrong" to try to understand the underlying senses of an otter within a frame characterized by man-made boxes containing animals in an artificial habitat.)
That last paragraph might be incoherent, but I largely agree with what you're saying about anaesthetization, but it's hard for me to shake that feeling of separation sometimes.
@WebReceptor So the thing here is that what you call frames isn't as much of a static concept as it seems. Think of concepts as general flows of ideas that run into each other and form clusters (eat, fork, diner, making spaghetti). All of these concepts associate themselves quite abstractly, with stronger ties with some and looser with others. In common language, words (actually semas but oversimplifying for the sake of the explanation) represent the significant, the thing that carries the meaning physically. When talking about, say a tree, the tree itself is the significant and the signifier (the concept that it carries) is 'tree' (the concept tree), with a bubble of context around it (branches, nature, green, bark).
The general idea is that your conception of tree is strongly tied (via cultural influence) to what we socially think a tree "ought to be" where it "belongs". Suddenly, this object, which is more tied to the "nature" bubble, is placed in the "city" bubble. You find this to be noisy. The more you find this connection, the more trees in the streets, thd more normal its gonna be to associate "city" with "tree".
Wether this is right or wrong is beyond the field of semiotics, however your perception of the signifiers, their meaning, will change depending on your preconceptions of what is right or wrong.
I enjoyed reading this comment and it's replies! Thanks.
Lukacs' theory of reification is really similar to the way that you describe digitization. I think the structure of the internet, especially with Web 2, is top down like you said which conflicts with the kind of utopian, democratic ideal of the internet. Growing up always having the internet, I was aware of how alienating the internet can be before I heard about how people had hoped it would be. I think the huge gap between real social interaction and the reified/digitized communication could also contribute to anesthetization/alienation. I don't think Web 3 will solve the structural issues of the internet despite ideas of decentralization and democratization. I don't think that tokenizing/commodifying everything fixes any real structural problems. With crypto being equally likely to be a rugpull or tied to something evil, I don't think the solution to the issues of Web 2 is to hand the reins of the internet to cryptobros. I thought what you said about critically engaging with your content to really get value out of the ideas was really cool, seeing stuff like your vid reminds me about how the internet could be
A theory of perception?
I feel like theres an impirtsnt distinction to be made for the wayback machine and internet archive verses intellectual property being regurgitated to milk profits. IA and TWBM exist as sort of librarys just cataloging information so it doesnt become forgotten to the collective boat of knowledge. It doesnt need to be accessed at all times and most people can live their life without going back to access it.
What social interactions? What life online? This video is for humans.
Is the answer making portals. Is it portals? Portals?
This is insane omg. I'm literally writing about this for my senior thesis right now. Except my lens is religious anthropology and your lens is affect/sense/sensibility. I'm not gonna like, leave my whole thesis in comments in ur comment section tho bc spam but like. i'll drop the link to my google doc if u want.
okay i realized i should like clarify here um. like the example with the animatronic buzz lightyear, the way i'd phrase that with my research is the toy is possessed by the spirit of a realized ideal [the cartoon character buzz. he is not real he is a character, an idea, an idea can attach to an object and possess it.] but the issue with this animatronic is the toy object used to be a ritual object of imagination and self discovery, but that open resource is now occluded by the realized-possessive spirit of buzz lightyear. the toy is Alive for its own sake regardless of the child or an observer or context.
nature has no outline
~ 7:45 Anaesthetic
Commenting before seeing the whole video, but my dad only leaves the house to go to work. And he works hybrid so that's only 2 or 3 days a week. And he doesn't have any friends to my knowledge. And doesn't have any family left. He talks about how much people suck. The thumbnail of this video made me think of him, and I'm hoping this video helps.
He is right, people do suck. It's better to go full hermit, introvert, hikkokomori, than to participate in this giant shit show.
You can spend your whole life worrying, doing everything people tell you to do, and then you die and you simply don't exist, or you can spend your whole life doing whatever the fuck you want, and then you die and you simply don't exist. Which choice makes the most sense?
Not really, isolation kills you. Take it from someone who has been isolating for years because of trauma. It's really not the way. We have a need to see each other.
Yes the internet has not help have a sense of senses.
❤
tom scott 'broke the frame' with that video that showed how many views it has in the title, right? atleast perceived frame if any
ooh that’s a cool example! yeah it’s like he took control of the digital container and imbued it with process
Very cool video but I think that digital content isnt really frozen, for example look at memes and how they mutate and change meaning based on the context they are in.
yeah very fair point. the conclusion i came too is that even after things are digitized, they can still be abstracted, and this process of abstraction makes it possible to reshape and reform the thing.