17505 - Don’t let the robots win

Days Left On Earth: 17505

Social media is run by artificial intelligence or algorithms. These computer programs decide what content you see. 

And if you play along like a good human, the robots will show your post to others.

When someone likes your post, you become like one of pavlovas dogs salivating at the thought of a reward, which encourages you to do it again. 

And again.

What happens next is devastating to humans.

The robot's objective is to steal a human's time. The longer we watch, the better. The longer people stay on our posts, the more we are rewarded by views and likes 

These little dopamine biscuits train us, like good dogs, to give the algorithms what they want. 

And because we humans are so wonderfully adaptable, we learn how to game the system. 

So we get great at creating cardboard content that hooks people in but has no nutritional value.

More time on my post, more little rewards.

Here is the reflection.

Right now millions of humans and using up their precious time to create crap cardboard content to steal other humans time!

Pretty scary isn’t it?

Time is all we have and it's being wasted creating more content to take it away.

And so much of what we consume is total dross. 

It adds no value. 

But it steals our time. Time to create the dross and time to consume it.

I was totally guilty of falling into this trap.

On the verge of dedicating hours every day to create stuff to please the robots. I thankfully woke up to the matrix.

And I have this journal to thank. In these moments of reflection, I often see the wood for the trees.

Yes, I will continue to share, as I love it, and I will get caught in the machine at times, but I have vowed to only share things that hopefully add some value.

This is why I love doing LIVEs and now this podcast.

Hopefully, this is a minute or two well-invested.

And the LIVE’s hopefully provide some extra motivation.

The big rub is this - reflect on your relationship with your tech. Is your behaviour being moulded by a machine?

Is this serving you?

Is it making you happier, more human?

If not, maybe it’s time for a change.