Algorithms, Elections, and New Glasses: Thoughts on a Summer Morning
It’s 8:30 AM on Friday, I woke up an hour ago and had that strawberry oatmeal that I like, i’m drinking my coffee and feeling pretty good and well rested. I am now a morning person, somehow.
With all of this good energy I thought i’d just rip into this keyboard for a little bit with no clue of what i’d like to wring out of it.
I’m getting cliff notes on last nights presidential debate from the memes on Instagram and Rolling Stone magazine blurbs. I could never stomach watching that, I am not who I was in 2016, someone who thinks they have any stake in the game.
I’m gathering that the democrats now realize that ‘ol Joe isn’t a spring chicken anymore, and might not be up to the task of beating the orange devil back. Well, duh. It isn’t like literally everyone with a pair of eyes and ears hasn’t being saying that to them for 4 years. They do what democrats do best, fucking lose.
I’m also gathering that the CNN moderators were completely MIA in terms their journalistic duty. You know what journalists are for? fact checking and the truth, remember that?
Why do you think I almost never talk about elections and standard political discourse? If you knew me in 2016–2020, you’d be shocked that I’m not writing an entire blog about how horrible Trump is (he still is horrible, don’t get me wrong). I don’t care about elections because elections are meaningless at this point. Whoever wins any U.S. election isn’t going to regulate any of the power that people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos have over the populace. No one wants to piss guys like that off, plus these politicians benefit from the data farming, as they do what politicians do and try to stay in power.
Does it feel like the end of democratic free society to you? I often feel like it, but I wonder if it’s just because that’s what the algorithms want me to think, to keep me scrolling on their platforms. It’s beneficial to those in charge that we live in complete fear and despair, I think. It makes us easier to control and extract labor and profits from. It’s the old “if it bleeds, it leads” trip or people slowing down to have a look at a car accident on the highway. We love a train wreck. This is why when I mess up and have something negative to write about on my blog, the posts get twice the readers. I accept it now. Human nature.
Since Instagram is my platform of choice, I’ll write about what goes on there. The actual goal of the Instagram algorithm can be described quite simply: to enhance user engagement. That means people staying longer on the platform and coming back more frequently. It’s sick how much I’m personally on it, but we won’t get into that.
If people are on it more, they see more ads, and Meta gains more revenue. Another benefit to Meta of more user engagement is that more time on its platform means more data can be extracted from its users. This data is a hot commodity, and they sell it for incredible profits. They are also, more recently, training their AI on user data, which puts them at a distinct advantage in the corporate AI arms race. We’re talking real data from millions, likely billions, of real humans over the course of at least a decade (I’ve been on Facebook for 19 years, but I was a college student when it came out, in Boston of all places, so I got on early). When did all of our parents get on and ruin it, 2015. It’s so funny, Boomers ruined Facebook, and then Facebook ruined democracy like, a year later.
we aren't going to to let the fall of Rome, or my net worth of 2.34 ruin a perfectly nice summer Friday, though. Today, i’m going to get an optometrist exam and order some new glasses, I want the clear hipster ones.
All of the freelance jobs I thought I got on Upwork turned out to be fake, and most of the time I spend on indeed is just wading through scams. I’m pretty disheartened, honestly. I thought AI was supposed to make me rich. if anyone you know does anything on AI that's worth a shit, don’t chalk it up to them not doing anything, it’s still work. you still have to know things…
I thought it was going to be like having a .com in 1994, or getting signed to a record label for wearing flannel in 1993, you use AI and you’re in like Flynn, but it turns out there’s work involved. Fuck. That doesn’t mean i’m going to give up, I just have to focus on the best ideas, and close the tabs of the less than great ones.
If things go like I hope they will I’ll have some stickers for those who donate to my Ko-Fi by the end of next week, I just want to make sure the resolution on the images is high enough. For now, you can donate out of the kindness of your heart: ko-fi.com/evr0ck17
