Uncured

 

How do they do that?

What?

Make me believe this is interesting.

It is indeed interesting.

How?

You didn’t know it, and now you do.

But that’s my point. Did I want to know it? It’s not like I was searching for it.

The thought you were.

They didn’t think I was. They made it appear that way.

Just like anything else. You might wonder how they get to be assertive instead.

Are they assertive?

Are they not?

What if it’s not assertiveness but conditioning, predisposition, more likely?

Anything can be data, and making data a sort of information seems to be their job.

Can we stop it?

Why would you want to stop it?

It makes me feel dumb.

We’re all dumb in a way. That’s how data becomes information.

Information is not truth.

Right. It’s connection; Harari.

But I will forget it soon. What’s the point?

Keep the information flowing.

But it’s not information, it’s data.

We’ll take it as information, and as truth for comfort.

I am not comfortable.

You will be at some point. You just feel a little bit disconnected, but it’ll pass.

What if it won’t pass?

They’ll find a way. You will be subscribed to or approached about something you didn’t ask for, and they will redirect you, just like a misbehaving child in a Pre-K classroom.

But this is not happening everywhere.

It is in its own way. There is this illusion that staying away from social media will reconnect you with whatever you’ve been feeling detached from. The thing is that being disconnected is also part of the data processing. I would call it curation.

I think that’s what we all do in social media: help them curate.

And we do it for free, for that satisfactory feeling that now you know something you didn’t before. Then you’ll share it and help them with the data curation. Then you’ll forget it, and it’ll start all over again.

How long have we been like this?

Time is relative. Your past is held by your memories; the ones you can recall because they were attached to a feeling. But you will start to forget a lot of it eventually. Let’s say they could be replaced by data. Some sort of blockchain technology on humans.

So, we are tokens now?

Only that your value, what you think you're worth, might still be subjective.

You mean, it’s not data that can be processed.

It’s not curated, it would say.

How close are they to it?

Time is relative.

How far can we delay the inevitable?

The future is uncertain. We still don’t know the certainty of the inevitable.

But we are capable of spotting the inaccurate.

For now, we should enjoy it while we can.

So that’s it?

We can still read books and drink wine. That hasn’t changed in a minute.

And we can still love as well.

See? Where is your discomfort now?

I guess it’s turning into data like everything else.