The Human Touch.

I noticed something a few moments ago as I was having a cheese omelet on a stale onion roll for lunch. (Since there are virtually no bakeries left in amerikkka, just about all of the bread you can buy is either injected full of chemical preservatives or stale.) I noticed the plastic pepper mill on the table was proudly festooned with a logo that proclaimed “NON GMO.”

Much of South East Asia was developed and exploited by Europeans because of spices like pepper. In the 16th and 17th centuries, if you had a share in a ship loaded with peppercorns worth $1, that investment could return as much as $4000. The same held true for cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, saffron, cardamom and of course, frankincense and myrrh. Not only did these spices flavor food, they helped preserve it. Also many people believed they cured syphilis and her concomitant venereal friends. Always a plus—and better than being treated, I’ve been told—than with a tincture of mercury.

You can read more about this sort of thing in a book called “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg.” Basically, Manhattan was traded for a Spice Island and considered a steal. "The tiny island of Run is an insignificant speck in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago--remote, tranquil, and now largely ignored. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, Run's harvest of nutmeg turned it into the most lucrative of the Spice Islands, precipitating a fierce and bloody battle between the all-powerful Dutch East India Company and a small band of schmata-wearing British adventurers led by the intrepid Nathaniel Courthope. The outcome of the fighting was one of the most spectacular deals in history: Britain ceded Run to Holland, but in return was given another small island, Manhattan.”

But none of that is what is dopey post is about.

This post is about the state of artificial recklessness that has taken over the world.

500 years after pepper was more valuable by weight than gold, we now have to say NON GMO. We have to assert that this natural spice wasn’t sullied by science or chemistry. That pepper has always been NON GMO isn't enough for us. Today science pisses in everyone’s pool. We have to label unsullied natural products rather than assuming they’d be left unsullied.

Without thinking too much about it, I’d imagine this ilk of labeling will become more and more present in the not so distant future. 

I could imagine a website with a starburst like this:

Or a college football team with something like this on their logo-strewn uniforms paid for by alumni, tax-payer supported football and Nike.

Perhaps women of dubious virtue will be emblazoned with badging like this. Though this will probably earn me some scorn.

The point in all this is simple.

Algorithms are now the default.

Artificial comes naturally to us.

We expect them to do everything.

Even though we’re unhappy with about 97% of what they do, we can’t opt out. From misleading AI generated YouTube descriptions, to features that turn on that you can’t turn off, to help desks that no longer provide help, this is the age of “succubus ex machina.” 

Devil out of machine.

Humans will only enter the picture as in my pepper-mill above. When machines haven’t screwed things up.

Not too long from today, a person might run for political office proclaiming “I read a book once.” That will repel more voters than it attracts.

I noticed the other day that every time you get an email or some sort of notification that something like terms and conditions or some level of service has changed, what you had been getting and were comfortable with has gotten worse.

That’s where we are.

We’ve improved our _________, so that lines are longer, help is more impossible to get, and actual attention is more and more missing.

Improvement means worsening.

Especially in blogs.

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BTW, their trust and safety team is a bunch of ones, but mostly zeroes. As long as the ad you’re irked by is pro-tech, it doesn’t matter that it’s nazi-adjacent, child-trafficking abutting, democracy-undo-ing-leaning, or just plain so full of mouse-type and data-thievery that it seems Torquemada was the creative director. If it speeds billionaires to trillions, it’s ok.