Tag: Petite Singularity

The Future Is Wetware


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Before I begin, let’s mull something Trump said once. As I remember it, Trump rambled something about how “the Deep State” could “read our minds” via our microwaves or some shit. Is it possible it wasn’t what we thought — his addled brain coming up with bullshit — but something he actually knew about once he became president?

I doubt it, but it makes you think.

I mean, here I am thinking Big Tech can read my mind — just imagine what the NSA or MI6 can do. And it starts to get a little spooky when you think how much of our lives are rigged up to the Internet. The first thing we may have to worry about when the Singularity turns hard isn’t the Terminator, but our fucking government controlling us to an unprecedented level.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand: the future is wetware.

What I mean by this is, if you assume that the technology to read our minds already exists, what if you took it to the next level and figured out a way to use our own wetware as our next Internet. Using a device found in Arthur C. Clarke’s 3001: Final Odyssey, you could totally re-imagine human interaction with the digital realm.

You could send “m-mail” from mind to mind. Watch video in your mind’s eye. Listen to music in your mind. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it might even be possible to use your own mind’s processing power to help things along. That may be pushing it, but it seems something to think about.

The point of all of this is — why the fuck are we talking about Clubhouse — which is nothing more than a re-imagined rural partyline –instead of jawdropping changes in the human experience like the Internet became over about 20 years.

What is wrong with us? Where are our Snowdens of yesterday?

Anyway, seems like about $1 trillion is being left on the table because of the shortsightedness of the nerds of Silicon Valley.

Tik-Tok’s ‘Soft Singularity’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but Tik-Tok (and possibly the Chinese government) is up to something. When you start to seriously consider that Tik-Tok (and as such the Chinese government) can read your mind via your cellphone, you got a problem.

Now, the experiment I suggested people do with Tik-Tok apparently doesn’t work — someone I know via Twitter handed their phone to their boyfriend and what I thought would happen, didn’t happen.

So, this makes one wonder how it is that the “spooky” shit that Tik-Tok is up to can possibly happen.

If you want to imagine still that Tik-Tok is reading our minds, one possibility that they have their digital telepathy somehow “imprint” with your specific mind after a certain point so my experiment doesn’t work. They know your specific brain signals well enough that simply having someone else use the phone doesn’t right away change what you’re pushed.

Now, let me be clear — the only reason why I even propose this bonkers conspiracy is the repeated times that Tik-Tok (and to be fair, other Big Tech companies) have pushed me content (read: ads) that seems to brazenly reference my internal monologue. Tik-Tok is just the absolute brazen at it. When it starts to push videos that reference the abstract of “women who looks like the woman that is often in my mind” then, well, something fucked up is going on.

But I’m prepared to admit defeat. I just don’t have any New York Times-level evidence to support my claim. This is a very rarely viewed Website, so it’s not like anyone cares what I think.

Think Big: Silicon Valley & The Soft Singularity of ‘Digital Telepathy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A long time ago, when dinosaurs still walked the earth, I was in college and obsessed with this thing called the Internet. This was before the World Wide Web. This was back when having an email address was, in itself, something of a future shock.

Flash forward to the present day and, meh, we’ve been in a technological holding pattern for about a decade now. Sure, a lot of apps have been designed, but the basic thing that powers it all hasn’t changed in over a decade: the smartphone.

Now, here’s where things get tricky.

I think Big Tech has figured out a way to read our minds. And, what’s more, they’re getting kind of brazen about it because, I mean, who’s going to believe that our phones are reading our minds? And, let me be clear, I absolutely hate conspiracy theories. I think they’re the last refuge of the intellectually dishonest. So, I’m very reluctant to think what I’m saying I think: that Big Tech can read or minds and they’re using that ability on the DL to sell us ads.

And, really, this would not be that big a deal real terms — at least not now — but for one thing: Tik-Tok. It’s at least possible that the Chinese government, through Tik-Tok is rummaging around in the minds of American’s youth via Tik-Tok. I say this because of all the services I suspect can read our minds, Tik-Tok is the absolute most brazen.

They really push it. I think about something once without telling anyone else and lo and behold, I get a pushed a video or ad about that subject the next time I log on to the service. This is not to say there aren’t plenty of other ways they’re figuring me out. They’re probably listening to me via my phone. They’re probably monitoring every way I use my phone and using algorithms to figure me out. I get all that. THAT makes sense.

It’s when I get pushed something on Tik-Tok that seems to not only reference something from within my internal monologue, but takes it to the next level of referencing, say, the appetence of a lost love that is floating around in my mind all the time. How does an algorithm figure THAT out?

And, if you want to got that route, if “algorithms” have gotten that advanced, then that, in itself, is a serious issue. That’s not an algorithm, that’s AI and that needs to be discussed and, if necessary, regulated.

Or, put another way, I’m beginning to think we’ve already reached a “Soft Singularity.” A combination of oligarchy, greed and fear of the public’s reaction is causing Big Tech to keep this fact away from the average person. But it seems that if they keep fucking leaning into their ability to Black Mirror shit that there will, at some point, come a moment of reckoning.

But I’m a nobody. No one listens to me.

The Implications Of Big Tech Concealing A ‘Soft Singularity’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me qualify what I’m proposing — I’m simply looking at what appears to be happening (Big Tech can read our minds via our phones) and then playing out the implications of such a theory.

I could be totally wrong. It’s very possible. But some of Tik-Tok’s apparent abuses of digital telepathy have made it seem so obvious to me that some sort of Soft Singularity has happened without anyone telling us that I have to talk about it.

Let’s review the evidence as to why I think a Soft Singularity has happened. First, Facebook some time ago patented mind-reading technology. Second, repeatedly over the last year or so, I’ve noticed being pushed ads that are so specific to what I’ve been THINKING about that no possible algorithmic explanation makes any sense.

What’s more, especially with Tik-Tok, there is an abstract nature to some of the things I’ve been pushed that is alarming. If you work on the assumption that my mind is being read by my phone, it’s not like they know the word “GIRL” is at the forefront of my mind, it’s as if they actually are rooting around my mind to the extent that they can push videos of “GIRL WHO LOOKS LIKE ANNIE SHAPIRO.”

The prospect of that going on with millions of Tik-Tok users, not just me, is extremely dark and surreal. It starts to make you think about the moral implications of Big Tech (especially a Big Tech company so close to the Chinese government) knowing that much about a big chunk of the American population.

Not, at this point, let me be absolutely clear — if I’m missing some way that they can simply figure out that I like girls who look like a specific woman that I think about a lot via algorithmic assumptions, then, so be it. I will feel a lot better. But, even then, the algorithms would be so good at their job, that that, in itself, would be cause for alarm.

So, I guess what I’m suggesting is it’s at least possible that technology has advanced a lot further than we think.

Sometimes, They Come Back


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of Monday (at the latest) I’m throwing myself back into the novel I’ve been working on the last few years. Everything is in place — I should be able to write the first draft very, very quickly.

I’ll always be the guy in the circle. Me, 2032

What started as me raging against the Trump Era now has a very different context — it’s going to be a lot more character based, a lot less preachy and…also a warning of what might be to come.

I really just want to forget the Trump Era ever happened. And, yet, given Trump’s apparent interest in the “Patriot Party” concept, I have decided to read up on Hitler. My fear is because of the “megatrends” that caused the rise of Trump in the first place, that he and his movement will come back in a big way far, far sooner than any of us might otherwise believe.

So, in preperation for the rise of honest-to-God-American MAGA-Nazism, I’m going to start to study Hitler, his rise and his use of power once he got it. My fear is that Trump — or a “velvet fist” of, say, President Lara Trump and Vice President Mike Pompeo — may finally turn us into an autocratic managed democracy like Putin’s Russia.

America is currently an autocracy without an autocrat and something pretty huge would have to happen for our democracy not to go the way of the Weimar Republic within no more than 10 years. But, let me make it clear — Trumplandia’s Fourth Reich wouldn’t be expansionistic. It’s not like Trump or Lara Trump would want to take over the world.

It would be an implosion, not an explosion.

The United States would collapse in on itself, maybe even to the point that there was a complete re-imagining of the world order. The United States would leave NATO, pull all its troops out from South Korea, etc and also have some sort of “Final Solution” for the “Liberal Problem.”

Or, to put it another way — there are some fucking dark forces at work on a macro level in the United States.

Weirdly enough, there really hasn’t been much discussion about how Elon Musk is just a few years away from ending the trucking industry as we know it. When 3 million high paying blue collar jobs fashion overnight, there are going to be a shit ton of angry men and women who might embrace neo-Luddism. And that would cause a massive jiggling of our political economy.

The Patriot Party might fuse the far Right and the far Left into an anti-technology party while the corporate elements of the Democrat and Republican parties might fuse together in response.

Anyway.

The point is — Trumplandia ain’t dead yet. Sometimes, they come back.

‘Strange Days’ of Digital Telepathy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The smartphone was the last technology that changed lives for the average person in a big way. I propose that if what I believe to be true, is true, that Big Tech can read our minds in some way, then a “soft Singularity” may already be here.

There is technology described in Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001: The Final Odyssey” and the movie “Strange Days” which could probably be implemented in a primitive fashion far, far, sooner than you realize — digital telepathy. Imagine instead of having a cellphone or MX goggles, you could interact directly with your mind.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what I’m suggesting for my own reasons, but in general, there’s one way you could do all of this without accidently giving yourself a lobotomy during the development process. You’re smart, you can figure it out. It would be a lot less intrusive than a Neural Link, that’s for sure. Jesus.

But the point is, all this talk of MX (VR / AR) misses the point. What if the “AR” was a different type of augmented reality. You could record memories recorded via your own eyes — no goggles involved — then zap those same memories to other people wirelessly? But if you hooked MX up to digital telepathy, it sure does make a lot more sense on the adoption front as well. You could watch movies natively within your own mind’s wetwear. Listen to music in your mind, the list goes on.

If you believe — like I do — that Big Tech can read your mind RIGHT NOW, then it makes a lot of sense that the solution to the MX social adaption problem will be solved in a rather unexpected fashion.

I’m not suggesting this will happen anytime soon, but I am suggesting we’re asking some wrong questions about What’s Next. It could be that by 2030 that a big chunk of our economy — and the way we live on a practical basis — will be controlled via digital telepathy.

Read ‘3001: The Final Odyssey’ For Inspiration For A $1 Trillion Industry


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If I was Elon Musk, I would flip through Arthur C. Clarke’s “3001: The Final Odyssey” for some inspiration.

As I recall, the book has a very specific plot point that could change the world rather rapidly, given existing technology.

I’m Telling You, Folks, Big Tech Can Read Our Minds


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of things have happened recently that lead me to believe Big Tech can read our minds via our electronic devices — specifically our cellphones. The most conspicuous abuser of this technology is Tik-Tok.

Now, let me be very specific — I’m talking about instances where my For You Page on Tik-Tok presents me information fits a very specific metric: information that no one but me knows. So, we can dismiss any instances where I’ve spoken to someone about something, or texted, or messaged, or posted about some bit of personal information. I’m talking about a very specific type of information.

So, I’ve written before about Tik-Tok presenting me with information about women who have a very specific phenotype. So specific, in fact, as to be down to that of an individual woman. It’s beyond spooky. The most recent instance of this happening is with something gross — ear gunk.

I’ve been having an excess of ear wax recently and, until now, absolutely no one knew this about me. But, lo and behold, Tik-Tok was serving me ads about how to reduce ear wax. I’m well aware that such niche ads are everywhere these days and correlation is not causation.

But it is, if nothing else….spooky.

One day, when MAGA becomes technology-hating Patriot Party– it’s possible it’s mind-reading technology that they will really get worked up about.

Advice To The ‘Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, — eat shit you fucking fascist shithead cocksuckers.

Now that that’s out of the way, I would suggest to would-be Patriot Party founders to have some vision and think outside the box. Put your stick where the puck is going to be, not where it is now.

So, in that sense, don’t see the Patriot Party as the MAGA party, see it as the neo-Luddite party. Remember, Elon Musk could very well destroy the trucking industry virtually overnight with self-driving semis. That’s three million people out of work right there.

As such, if you’re going to be thinking up some sort of National Socialist American Workers Party ideology, I would suggest you attack technology. Or, specifically, worker-replacing technology. This is something that would give you broad appeal in both the far Right AND far Left. If you played your cards right, you could totally upend the entire American political system in fairly short order.

But I would also note that Trump seems primed to flame out politically in a rather dramatic fashion. You might want to look for a new leader who can articulate this anti-technology agenda in a smooth, toothy fashion. Trumpism without Trump.

I don’t wish you good luck. But it will be interest to see what the future of the fucking fascist Patriot Party will be.

It’s The Abstract Aspect Of Big Tech’s Use Of Digital Telepathy That Tipped Me Off


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You know why I know Big Tech is using Digital Telepathy on us without our knowledge or consent — they know abstract things about me.

That’s the tip off.

A lot of the spooky things I see on my For You Page on Tik-Tok can easily be explained by them somehow having access to everything on my phone. Ok, I get it. They could maybe be listening to me via my phone. Or reading any text I input into my phone.

But that doesn’t explain the more abstract things I’m seeing on my For You Page. Or the videos about things I’ve briefly thought about without telling anyone about it.

It reminds me of how my YouTube account suddenly started showing me videos about lockboxes, WW2 and The End Of The World. I was at a loss as to how this was possible until I remembered that my phone was in my car between my dad and myself.

It definitely seems as though whatever Digital Telepathy Google has was picking up what was on my DAD’s MIND, not mine. (My dad is elderly.) I will give you a way to test my theory — let someone else use your phone to use your Tik-Tok account for, say 20 minutes.

Then take your phone back and see what your For You Page’s recommendations are.