on technology, magic, religion [[Cadmus of Miletus]] https://rosano.hmm.garden/01fmkad2j6gtxtx0hhedse2s3k - on dating apps https://aaronzlewis.com/blog/2019/07/25/metaphors-we-believe-by/ - metaphors we believe by I have a good friend who recently started dating a new guy, actually a friend of a friend but they met on Tinder. Got me thinking about the way our lives are shaped by algorithms. I don't know how the Tinder algorithm works at all, but if Tinder didn't exist, woudl they have met, eventually? Would they have found the happiness with each other that they currently have? In [Metaphors we believe by](https://aaronzlewis.com/blog/2019/07/25/metaphors-we-believe-by/), Aaron Z. Lewis discusses the modern pantheon. I am particularly interested in the Human Colossus - the god of collective human knowledge - the hyperconnected superorganism of humanity - enabled and empowered by our communications infrastructure. And what we communicate, the reach of those communciations, who it is communicated to, how it's communicated, the way we communicate those things - defined by software. I am also very interested in Yggdrasil - the god of spooky entaglement - the intricate entangled network of roots that makes up the tree of humans and human actions and outcomes. How one teeny action in your localized area of the world can butterfly effect into something large globally. Look at memes. How does our technology amplify those actions? "Technologists now make structural decisions that impact the lives of billions of people all over the world." How does our media amplify? Someone makes a chair in one part of the world and it gets sent here, still only one person is going to use that chair. Maybe it's a chair at a theater and hundredsd or thousands of people eventually use it, but it's a fucking chair. Only one person can sit in it at a time, and it's not making anyone think or change their behavior. But apps can be used by hundreds of millions of people all at the same time. They can communicate. It gives them new ideas, changes their behavior. Same with media. Media can be watched by hundres of millions of people all at the same time. The narratives give them new ideas, change their behavior. ---- Created: February 28, 2021 Last Modified: February 24, 2022