This post is saying nearly the same thing I attempted to discuss the other day with my own overly-abstruse bit about subsumption into algorithmic nightmare land.

People are now speaking in a way that results directly from the recent moneyballing of all of human existence. They are speaking, that is, algorithmically rather than subjectively, and at this point it is not only the extremely online who are showing the symptoms of this transformation. They are only the vanguard, but, as with vocal fry and other linguistic phenomena, their tics and habits spread soon enough to the inept and the elderly, to the oblivious normies who continue to proclaim that they “don’t like reading on screens,” or they “prefer an old-fashioned book or newspaper,” as if that were going to stop history from happening.

Historically, we are at an unusual moment that only occurs once every few centuries. There’s no possible path back to the past without massive death and dislocations, but the future also can’t be and won’t be more of the same. We are trapped — or rather, have caught ourselves — in a snare where struggling and thrashing will only make the line grow tighter. Something will have to be given up, to be lost, to keep moving forward. What will it be?

The above is the massive societal-level cogitation occurring now and though most people aren’t aware it’s being contemplated, that doesn’t matter. It still is.