From 25f8e31fd3cd06e610660da34fa13231756f36ca Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Danila Fedorin Date: Fri, 22 May 2026 22:48:12 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Finish draft Signed-off-by: Danila Fedorin --- content/writing/pynchon/index.md | 143 +++++++++++++++++------------ content/writing/pynchon/style.scss | 16 +++- 2 files changed, 98 insertions(+), 61 deletions(-) diff --git a/content/writing/pynchon/index.md b/content/writing/pynchon/index.md index 2c0b844..e922e87 100644 --- a/content/writing/pynchon/index.md +++ b/content/writing/pynchon/index.md @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ --- -title: "Surveillance Capitalism is not the Whole Picture" +title: "Everything's Touch" date: 2026-05-14T18:01:27-07:00 draft: true custom_css: @@ -8,65 +8,61 @@ custom_css: {{< halfpage >}} -## Surveillance Capitalism is not the Whole Picture +## Everything's Touch -A couple of years ago, man walked into a university teaching lab. +"Do you guys have any deuterium water?", he said to a baffled lab manager. +"You know, heavy water?" -"Do you guys have any deuterium water?", he said. +"No... We don't have that...". She didn't recognize him as a student. -"Huh?", responded the lab manager, off guard. She had never seen the man before; -he wasn't part of the chemistry lab. +"Do you know where I can get some?", continued his barrage of questions, +"What's a good chemical company? How do I go about ordering heavy water from them?" -"You know, heavy water." +What could this guy possibly have to do with heavy water? Why is he so determined? +When he finally turned and left empty-handed, she breathed a sigh of relief. -"We don't have that." It was an unusual request. - -"Do you know where I can get some?", he continued, "What's a good chemical -company? How do I go about ordering heavy water from them?" - -The lab manager was uncomfortable. What could this man possibly have to do -with heavy water? He seemed determined to acquire some. After some back and -forth, the man left empty-handed. - -That day, another man arrived and made the same request: he wanted heavy water. +Until, that is, another man arrived and made the same request: he wanted heavy water. Again, the lab manager refused him. For the rest of the day, she had a knot in her stomach. Having failed once, in order to remain under the radar, had some shadowy cabal switched representatives, and tried again to attain their goal? -Uneasy still the lab manager had dinner, opening YouTube on her phone to pass +Uneasy still the lab manager had dinner, opening YouTube™ on her phone to pass the time. On the front page, a video was waiting for her: "the ice cube is too heavy!". When frozen, you see, heavy water sinks instead of floating. -There was no plot. The students, having both seen this video, had independently -decided to replicate the trick. - -To me, this coincidence is more intriguing than some human conspiracy. +There was no plot. Two men, having both seen this video, had independently +decided to replicate the trick. On the same day, believing it was their +free will, they visited the same lab and spoke to the same lab manager. +They felt the touch. --- -{{< /halfpage >}} -{{< halfpage >}} - > Roland too became conscious of the wind, as his mortality had never allowed him. > Discovered it so. ...so joyful, that the arrow must veer into it. > > -- Thomas Pynchon, *Gravity's Rainbow* -Today, we live amidst an invisible ocean. It's not "real" in the strict sense; +Today, we live amidst an invisible ocean, but not in a physical sense; its tides don't pull us out to sea or push us towards the shore; no warm undercurrents alternate with cool water as we bob in the waves. Standing on a hiking trail and looking out at the path ahead, the world might look exactly as it had forty years ago. However, the ocean is -there, mediated by electromagnetism instead of fluid. Looking up at the sky, -nowadays we are reminded of this by the numerous hurtling dots, delivering +there, mediated by + +{{< /halfpage >}} +{{< halfpage >}} + +electromagnetism instead of fluid. Looking up at the sky, +nowadays we are reminded of this by the numerous hurtling dots delivering the internet to practically every corner of the planet. -Reminded are we of its existence, too, when we hear it speak. During -the heavy water incident, the voice of the visitors was no longer _just_ -their own, their actions not _entirely_ their will. Is an idea truly -one's own if it was redundantly planted in the minds of all who, during -the latest wave of recommendations, happened to be on YouTube? +Reminded are we of its existence, too, when we hear it speak; when people talk +about Geese and Velvet Underground; when friends repeat nearly verbatim the +top post on /r/bald; when men show up to a teaching lab and ask for deuterium. +Sometimes, these ideas are deliberately planted. Sometimes, they are analogous +to your classic trends™. Sometimes, they just appear. An enormous behemoth +stirs deep beneath the waves, and we sway with the current. --- @@ -76,35 +72,46 @@ the latest wave of recommendations, happened to be on YouTube? > > -- Thomas Pynchon, *Gravity's Rainbow* -I've recently read _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_ by Shoshana Zuboff. -In it, Zuboff powerfully reframes the actions of tech giants like Google -from the perspective of _behavioral surplus_: information gathered from -human action that can be used to build +In _The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_, Shoshana Zuboff +powerfully reframes the actions of tech giants like Google +from the perspective of _behavioral surplus_. Google +and Meta's gluttony for traffic patterns, written sentiment, satellite data, +identified faces seen by smart glasses, all of it is the endless hunger of an +influence-machine. Zuboff decries the "priests of the shadow texts", +Skinnerian manipulators bent on seizing human agency for utopian or, +more likely, capitalistic ends. + +I don't think that's the whole picture. + +The surveillance-manipulation machine, running at incredible scale and +nudging us every moment we search or share or scroll, is ultimately +unconcerned with truth. Truth is secondary to human behavior. While it +reaches and connects a double-digit percentage of the world's population, +the machine lacks any constraint or fundamental purpose beyond engagement. +It's driven by unfathomably large probabilistic models entangled through +several orders of interactions with other models. + +This enormous amalgamation, joined nowadays by (probably) well-intentioned +and only-moderately-grounded-in-reality AI™ agents™, is armed with state-of-the-art +tools and unprecedented influence. With "engagement" its only loose target, +it ceaselessly perturbs our daily thoughts like Maxwell's demon. Whole +cliques of people revisit old shows, "discover" a new band, and try Science™. {{< /halfpage >}} - {{< halfpage >}} - a model of people, predict what they -do and what might sway them. Viewed through this lens, many actions taken -by Google and Meta fall into place. Traffic patterns, written sentiment, -satellite data, always-on facial recognition in smart glasses, are all -sources of data to be integrated and applied. The economic value -of being able to understand and manipulate people is immense; immense too -is the magnitude of influence this grants to governments. The result is -a centralized, opaque and ever-expanding surveillance-industrial complex. -I've also recently finished _Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon. Among -the numerous subjects and themes of the book is an intricate and densely +--- + +Among _Gravity's Rainbow_'s +numerous subjects and themes is an intricate and densely connected network of markets, influences, and hidden agendas that overlays -the political conflicts of World War 2. The Rocket was given life not by -any one country, but by a international amalgamation of individuals, -organizations, businesses, and subsidiaries. There were economic misdeeds; -dealers replaced cocaine with powdered milk, Phoebus intentionally limited -the lifetimes of lightbulbs, Lazlo Jamf experimented on infant Slothrop -with a mystery Imipolex G. All of this, though, the whole system, took -on the life of its own: it was the Rocket-state, and it acted in -ways that were inscrutable, mysterious, and yet behind which, in moments -of panic or paranoia, one could begin to see intent. +the political conflicts of World War 2. Individuals pursued their own economic +gains; dealers replaced cocaine with powdered milk; Phoebus intentionally limited +the lifetimes of lightbulbs; a man dressed like a Rocket smuggled hash past +an international gathering on behalf of one Sour Bummer. All of this, though, the whole system, took +on the life of its own: it was the Rocket-state. It acted in ways that were +inscrutable, mysterious, and yet behind which, in moments of panic or paranoia, +one could suspect intent. The Rocket-state, as Pynchon described it, may or may not have existed. It certainly does not exist today. However, beyond Zuboff's cycle of @@ -112,6 +119,26 @@ dispossession, beyond the powerful surveillance state exposed by Snowden, today lies the Attention-state. It is the entity stirring occasionally under the surface of the internet's ocean. -post-truth allows room / degrees of freedom for odd behavior +I think this is the missing piece. Yes, Google and Meta are selling your +Gmail inbox's contents to the highest bidder. Yes, the US government is +in on this. Yeah, Meta's Ray-Bans™ are going to be cataloguing every face +you encounter on the street, and yeah, the age verification laws are probably +going to be used to further associate your identity with the rest of +your data point-cloud. But these are just glimpses of the larger system. +Those "priests of the shadow texts" are like GR's Freemasons: they perform +the rituals, but the magic is elsewhere. + +This is the closest we've ever been to a truly "unified consciousness". +We've built ourselves a noosphere, but it's not what we thought it would +be. It's not _just_ the "world at our fingertips". +It's not entirely a reflection of human minds. There is an impurity, +an additional active force that decides which whispers are carried across +the ocean and which shouts succumb to the inverse-square law. + +There it sits, this impurity, mixed in with most human knowledge, with the +immediate awareness of nearly every event as it occurs in most of the developed +world. It coats our facts like film, and when an acquaintance hands you +his packaged opinion, it remains in his handprints, and your heart sinks +like deuterium ice. {{< /halfpage >}} diff --git a/content/writing/pynchon/style.scss b/content/writing/pynchon/style.scss index a30dc9b..22b84f1 100644 --- a/content/writing/pynchon/style.scss +++ b/content/writing/pynchon/style.scss @@ -1,20 +1,30 @@ @import "variables.scss"; -html { +body { + text-align: left; + background-color: white; + color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; - font-size: 11pt; + font-size: 12pt; + line-height: 14pt; } nav, h1, .warning { display: none; } +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { + color: black; + font-family: "Times New Roman" +} + h2 { font-size: 18pt; } h2 { display: none; + margin-bottom: 0.2in; } .halfpage { @@ -24,7 +34,7 @@ h2 { box-sizing: border-box; border: $standard-border; flex-shrink: 0; - margin: 0.5in; + margin: 0.25in; h2 { display: block;