David Pennington
@dtpennington
I write stuff. I’d like to write more stuff. Currently: reclaiming my brain.
David Pennington
dtpennington.com
"Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one's garden."
- Voltaire
- Voltaire
South Africa, MLB Leaderboards, and Return of the Pandas
. As author Leah Price put it in her book How to Do Things with Nooks in Victorian Britain: “Once a sign of economic power, reading is now the province of those whose time lacks market value.”
Georgina Elliott • Why don’t straight men read novels?
Friction-maxxing is not simply a matter of reducing your screen time, or whatever. It’s the process of building up tolerance for “inconvenience” (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) — and then reaching even toward enjoyment.... See more
Archive snapshot page (archive.ph) — Unknown page
Tech companies want you to think that life is generally difficult and inconvenient. It’s not. But without this idea, they don’t really have a reason to exist. In some cases, their mere presence IS the reason life is more difficult than it needs to be.
I personally think it makes people less attractive, authentic and worth connecting to. Anything that strips us of our imperfections is missing the point. The AI images, music and video are another. Of note, I actually think the meme uses are fine (it’s entertainment, not art, and that’s something else).
Adam Singer • The rise of AI nihilism
Most of modern life is designed to get you out of your deepest self and into your head, where you are more vulnerable to anxiety (the grease between the wheels of technocratic capitalism).
Catherine Shannon • On cultivating intuition
The average American has fewer than three friends, fewer than three people they would consider friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's something like 15 friends or something.
The implication is that Meta will close that friendship gap with AI companions. Zuckerberg clarified they won't replace relationships... See more
kyla scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World Is Friction
It’s not just that he wants us to have more friends, he wants our new friends to be his AI creations. Gross.
Do we need to practice being human again?