it's hard to put into words, but the feeling is becoming stronger and stronger as time goes on. i think that part of it is me getting older, but i get the impression that other people are feeling it too

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612378)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612387)

nothing feels magical. nothing feels 'open.' the future feels deterministic rather than a shared, ongoing story that you and everyone else are participating in together

like i said, part of it (i think) is me getting older. but i really get the sense from other people, even younger people, that they feel the same way too

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612432)

it has become less than Life. it has become Content

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612512)

online drives offline - making everything feel robotic/fake/deterministic

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612456)

https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5813069&mc=10&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612422)

(1) recursive political/cultural predictions; i make predictions about the future and to the extent they turn out to be wrong, i update my worldview

(2) phenomenological living, i.e. i trust my senses and ground authority much more within myself than before

people who don't think about how to ground themselves are really flailing

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612443)

"people who don't think about how to ground themselves are really flailing"

*opens up free chatGPT app and gets blasted with invisible tunnels and ads*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612466)

The doctor doesn't bother to see patients. You only get to see a nurse pracitioner who doesn't have a medical degree.

The nurse assistant taking my vitals barely spoke English and I couldn't understand her.

The phlebotomist taking my blood barely spoke English, but I could understand her slightly better.

No one will call to follow up with any results.

It's weird how things used to just work well in America.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612605)

just you wait

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49612619)

Smart doctors at this point either need a serious niche specialty, to actually perform procedures as part of their work, or (sadly) get into content / branded products.

There are some decent sized YouTube channels with doctors who clearly use their MD to build sizable "infotainment" channels. This will continue to be a trend across many formerly-specialty fields going forward.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49613063)

But I think the bigger underlying issue that makes things feel "surreal" overall is "Information Collapse."

Maybe this isn't the best term, but what I mean is that information not only has instantaneous reach, but also near-total organization. Nothing is loose and free (outside of XO), it's all taxonimized by whatever platform it exists on regardless of the format (text, video, etc.)

This is (obviously) exacerbated by AI and the fact that seemingly 99% of people are using LLMs for all of their professional online communication. So everyone sounds the same and has the same cadence.

So then you find yourself jumping from AI-written emails to Zoom meetings (AI assistant enabled!) wherein everything is being recorded (and further taxonimized.) And you suddenly think to yourself: "wait...if everything can be communicated instantaneously AND categorized in real time...why do we need to communicate at all? What am I even doing here? What is anyone doing? Is it all just theater?"

It seems that people knowingly or unknowingly play this forward in their minds and it has a strange effect. You couple this with the fact that the economy is entirely driven by the need to keep the debt bubble going (and not true underlying supply and demand factors), and suddenly everything just feels completely and totally fake.

On a final note, as labor has become increasingly performative, it has been given paramount importance. "You must go to the office again!" (to use LLMs to summarize data and write emails that we then talk about on Zoom for no reason?) This causes severe dissonance and odd behavior, IMO.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49613051)

The other surreal thing is that we went from not having LLMs to every single person in the working world talking about AI nonstop / pretending to be experts on it and centering all of the global economy around Big Datacenters.

We went from COVID -> Ukraine -> AI as the thing to throw tons and tons of money at. I have poasted this before, but we would do well to let the bubble deflate. Even if it would be brutal in the short-term.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49613073)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49614258)

"embrace the penguin"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49614416)

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=penguin%20mountain%20wallpaper&hl=en

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825571&forum_id=2:#49618160)