Y’all know how I go on and on about how evolution doesn’t have a goal in mind so when we say “we were designed to do such-and-such”, that’s kinda misleading. We’re always on the very edge of evolution, of trying to find a best fit between all kinds of tensions and forces pulling us hither and thither.
So in that “emerged edge” sense, we’re actually perfectly evolved to just stare into our phones all day and die rotting on the vine. Hither, thither, let’s just sit here and wither. That is where the biological, societal, economical, and UX design forces have stranded us.
On top of that, there’s a pretty big risk we’re in a block universe where all past and all future is already settled and our every future decision is made for us. So much for the tensions and forces pulling us; I guess everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody knows that the fight was fixed.
That means it’s easy to think “Oh, if everything is already as good as it can be, just give in and go wúwéi with the flow, I’m good, just let me check my apps and scroll my timelines for all eternity” but hold on! It’s also known that some of the emergent outcomes from our current protocols and interaction patterns are pretty bad! You’re not gonna get any phone reception bars on the cinder!
Conclusion: we’ve got to rise above! But that ain’t easy! Even though I meditated for, uh, almost ten minutes I could still barely see the walls of this gilded cage, with no idea how to muster up the spoons to actually change anything! But please let’s keep trying! We’re gaining some meta-awareness of protocols, affordances, macro economics, ecological dependency webs etc. We can hack our future together at least in the only sense that matters!
So no matter how tempting it is to just coast, we’re still condemned to choose. Let’s keep doing our best♥︎