(Credit: Phillip Faraone/Getty/TikTok)
For thousands of years, humans sought to subjugate their enemies by inflicting pain, misery and terror. But as our understanding of psychology has developed, it has become easier to evoke other emotions as a method of control. As such, even pleasure is now a weapon; a way to incapacitate an enemy as surely as does pain. And the first pleasure weapon of mass destruction is arguably TikTok.
While there has been much suspicion that the CCP uses TikTok for influence operations, such as by disseminating Chinese propaganda, the app can be weaponised in even more dangerous ways. Its “For You” algorithm leverages machine learning to track users’ attention, and it employs this knowledge to show them, unprompted, whatever content is most likely to hold their attention. This makes using it a far more passive and addictive experience than other social media platforms, which gives it the potential to inflict long-term harm on young Westerners by keeping them distracted, shortening their attention spans, and, ultimately, atrophying their brains.
The app’s ability to cause mass “TikTok brain” in young Westerners should prompt consideration of its use as a new kind of civilisational weapon. Such a threat could be temporarily averted by simply banning the app, as the US is close to doing, but this is ultimately an issue that can’t be legislated away because TikTok is only a symptom of a much deeper ailment.
The first thing that should raise suspicions is that the CCP forbids Chinese kids from using TikTok — instead, they use Douyin. As American tech ethicist Tristan Harris has pointed out, Douyin is a “spinach” version of the app filled with science experiments and educational videos instead of twerkers and toilet-lickers. TikTok has imposed screen-time limits for younger users (to prevent it from being banned), but Douyin has been doing so since 2019. Further, unlike TikTok, the app is only accessible to kids for 40 minutes per day, and it cannot be accessed between 10pm and 6am. Has the CCP enforced such rules to protect its people from what it intends to inflict on the West? When one examines the philosophical doctrines behind the rules, it becomes clear that the CCP doesn’t just believe that apps like TikTok make people stupid, but that they destroy civilisations.
China has been suspicious of Western liberal capitalism since the 19th century when the country’s initial openness allowed the Western powers to flood China with opium, which accelerated the fall of the Qing Dynasty and led to the “Century of Humiliation”. To this day, many in China believe Western liberalism leads to decadence, but one man has done more than anyone to turn this thesis into policy.
Despite not being well known outside China, Wang Huning has been China’s top ideological theorist for three decades, authoring many of Xi Jinping’s policies. Among the Chinese, he is widely known as “guoshi”, or “teacher of the nation”.
Although Wang refuses to do press or even speak with foreigners, his books reveal something of his worldview. His 1991 America Against America, based on his travels a few years prior, has since become a key CCP text for understanding the US. The premise is simple: the conflict between America’s economic system and its value system have made the country fundamentally unstable, destined for commodification, nihilism, and decadence. And, as Wang morbidly diagnoses, the country will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
According to Wang, America is directed mostly by blind market forces; the country obeys not a single command but a cacophony of demands that lead it everywhere and nowhere. It constantly produces wondrous new technologies, but these have no guiding purpose other than their own proliferation. The result is that all technological advancement leads the US toward more and more commodification, which eventually consumes “human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power and law”, and devours meaning and purpose. Every new microchip, TV, and automobile only distracts and sedates Americans further. As Wang wrote: “it is not the people who master the technology, but the technology that masters the people.”
To prevent China’s own technological advancement from leading it down the same perilous path, Wang proposed an extreme solution: neo-authoritarianism. In his 1988 essay, “The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture”, Wang wrote that the only way a nation can avoid the US’s problems is by instilling “core values” — a national consensus of beliefs and principles rooted in the traditions of the past and directed toward a clear goal in the future. This idea has been central to President Xi’s governance strategy, which has emphasised the “core socialist values” of civility, patriotism, and integrity.
So how has the push for these socialist core values affected the CCP’s approach to social media?
The creator of TikTok and CEO of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming, originally wanted the content on TikTok and Douyin to be determined purely by popularity. As such, Douyin started off much like TikTok is now, with the content dominated by teenagers singing and dancing. But in April 2018, the CCP began action against Zhang. Its media watchdog ordered the removal of some of ByteDance’s apps from Chinese app stores, citing their platforming of “improper” content. Zhang then grovellingly apologised for content “that was incommensurate with socialist core values”. Shortly after, ByteDance announced a recruiting drive for thousands of content moderators, with job adverts specifying a preference for CCP members with “strong political sensitivity”.
The CCP’s influence over ByteDance has only grown since then. The party allegedly has a “golden share” in ByteDance’s Beijing entity, and one of its officials sits on the company’s three-person board. The CCP’s intrusion into ByteDance’s operations is part of a broader governmental strategy called the “Profound Transformation”, which seeks to clear space for core socialist values by ridding China of “decadent” online content. In August 2021, Chinese state media called for an end to TikTok-style “tittytainment” for fear that “our young people will lose their strong and masculine vibes and we will collapse”. In the wake of that statement, there have been crackdowns on “sissy-men” fashions, “digital drugs” such as online gaming, and “toxic idol worship”. Consequently, many online influencers have been forcibly deprived of their influence, with some having their entire presence erased from the Chinese web.
For Xi and the CCP, eliminating “decadent” TikTok-style content from China is a matter of survival, because such content is considered a herald of nihilism, a regression of humans back to beasts, a symptom of the West’s terminal illness that must be prevented from metastasising to China. And yet, while cracking down on this content domestically, China has continued to allow its export internationally as part of Xi’s “digital Silk Road”. TikTok is known to censor content that displeases Beijing, such as mentions of Falun Gong or Tiananmen Square, but otherwise it has free rein to show Westerners what it wants; “tittytainment” and “sissy men” are everywhere on the app. So why the hypocritical disparity in rules? Is the digital Silk Road intended as poetic justice for the original, whereby the Western powers preached Christian values while trafficking chemical TikTok — opium — into China?
Since Wang and Xi believe the West is too decadent to survive, they may have opted to take the Taoist path of wu wei — sitting back and letting the West’s appetites take it where they will. But there’s another more sinister and effective approach that they might be adopting — the “accelerationism” of an amphetamine-fueled British philosopher.
At first glance, Nick Land could hardly be more different from Wang Huning. Wang rose to prominence by being dour, discreet, and composed, while Land ranted about cyborg apocalypses. In the late Nineties, he apparently binged on drugs and scrawled occult diagrams on the walls of his house, once owned by the libertine occultist Aleister Crowley. At nearby Warwick University, he held bizarre lectures, with one infamous “lesson” consisting of Land lying on the floor, croaking into a mic, while frenetic jungle music pulsed in the background.
Land and Wang were not just polar opposites in personality; they also operated at opposite ends of the political spectrum. While Wang became the CCP’s top ideological theorist, Land became the top theorist, along with Curtis Yarvin, of the influential network of hard-Right bloggers, known as NRx, or neo-reaction.
And yet, despite their opposite natures, Land and Wang would develop almost identical visions of liberal capitalism as an all-commodifying, all-devouring force, driven by the insatiable hunger of blind market forces, and destined to finally eat Western civilisation itself. Land viewed Western liberal capitalism as a kind of AI that’s reached singularity; in other words, an AI that’s grown beyond the control of humans and is now unstoppably accelerating toward inhuman ends. As Land feverishly wrote in his 1995 essay “Meltdown”:
“The story goes like this: Earth is captured by a technocapital singularity as renaissance rationalitization and oceanic navigation lock into commoditization take-off. Logistically accelerating techno-economic interactivity crumbles social order in auto-sophisticating machine runaway.”
To simplify Land’s overwrought drug-fuelled prose, Western capitalism can be compared to a “paperclip maximiser”, a hypothetical AI programmed by a paperclip business to produce as many paperclips as possible, which leads it to begin recycling everything on earth into paperclips (commodities). When the programmers panic and try to switch it off, the AI turns them into paperclips, since being switched off would stop it from fulfilling its goal of creating as many paperclips as possible. Thus, the blind application of short-term goals leads to long-term ruin.
Land believed that, since the runaway AI we call liberal capitalism commodifies everything, including even criticisms of it (which are necessarily published for profit), it cannot be opposed. Every attack on it becomes part of it. Thus, if one wishes to change it, the only way is to accelerate it along its trajectory. As Land stated in a later, more sober writing style:
“The point of an analysis of capitalism, or of nihilism, is to do more of it. The process is not to be critiqued. The process is the critique, feeding back into itself, as it escalates. The only way forward is through, which means further in.”
This view, that the current system must be accelerated to be transformed, has since become known as “accelerationism”. For Land, acceleration is not just a destructive force but also a creative one; all democracies accelerate toward ruin, but an undemocratic system — run by elites unfettered by the concerns of the masses — could accelerate a country to prosperity.
Land’s own life followed the same course he envisioned for the liberal West; following years of high productivity, he fell into nihilism and the decadence of rampant drug use, which drove him to a nervous breakdown. Upon recovering in 2002, he embraced anti-democratic ideals, moved to Shanghai, and began writing for Chinese state media outlets like China Daily and the Shanghai Star.
A few years after Land moved to China, talk of accelerationism began to emerge on the Chinese web, where it’s become known by its Chinese name, jiasuzhuyi. The term has caught on among Chinese democracy advocates, many of whom view the CCP as the runaway AI, hurtling toward greater tyranny; they even refer to Xi as “Accelerator-in-Chief”. Domestically, Chinese democracy activists try to accelerate the CCP’s authoritarianism ad absurdum; one tactic is to swamp official tip-off lines with reports of minor or made-up infractions, hoping to break the Party by forcing it to enact all of its own petty rules.
The CCP in turn views US President Donald Trump as the “Accelerator-in-Chief,” or, more accurately, “Chuan Jianguo” (literally “Build China Trump”) because he was perceived as helping China by accelerating the West’s decline. The CCP is also known to have engaged in jiasuzhuyi more directly; for instance, during the 2020 US race riots, China used Western social media platforms to douse accelerant over US racial tensions.
But the use of TikTok as an accelerant is a whole new scale of accelerationism, one much closer to Land’s original, apocalyptic vision. Liberal capitalism is about making people work in order to obtain pleasurable things, and for decades it’s been moving toward shortening the delay between desire and gratification because that’s what consumers want.
Over the past century the market has taken us toward ever shorter-form entertainment, from cinema in the early Nineties, to TV mid-century, to minutes-long YouTube videos, and finally to seconds-long TikTok clips. With TikTok the delay between desire and gratification is almost instant; there’s no longer any patience or effort needed to obtain the reward, so our mental faculties are liable to fall into disuse and disrepair.
And this is why TikTok is such a devastating geopolitical weapon. Slowly but steadily it could turn the West’s youth — its future — into perpetually distracted dopamine junkies ill-equipped to maintain the civilisation built by their ancestors. We seem to be halfway there already: not only has there been grey matter shrinkage in smartphone-addicted individuals, but, since 1970 the Western average IQ seems to have steadily fallen — which could in part be due to technology making us spend ever more time in a passive, vegetative state. Distractive media seems to be affecting not just kids’ abilities but also their aspirations; in a survey asking American and Chinese children what job they most wanted, the top answer among Chinese kids was “astronaut”, while for American kids it was “influencer”.
The resulting loss of brainpower in key fields could, years from now, begin to harm the West economically. And if it did it would help discredit the very notion of Western liberalism itself, since there is no greater counterargument to a system than to see it destroy itself. And so the CCP would benefit doubly from this outcome: ruin the West and refute it; two birds with one stone (or as they say in China, one arrow, two eagles).
So, the CCP has both the means and the motive to help the West defeat itself, and part of this could conceivably involve the use of TikTok to accelerate liberal capitalism’s demise by closing the gap between desire and gratification.
Admittedly we have no hard evidence of the CCP’s intentions — but ultimately intentions are irrelevant here. Accelerationism can’t alter an outcome, only hasten it. And TikTok, whether or not it’s actively intended as a weapon, is only moving the West further along the course it’s long been headed: toward more effortless pleasure, and resulting cognitive decline.
The problem, therefore, is not China, but us. America Against America. If TikTok is not a murder weapon, then it’s a suicide weapon. China has given the West the means to kill itself, but the death wish is wholly the West’s. After all, TikTok dominated our culture as a result of free market forces — the very thing we live by. Land and Wang are correct that the West being controlled by everyone means it’s controlled by no one, and without brakes or a steering wheel we’re at the market’s mercy.
Of course, democracies do have some regulatory power, as evidenced by moves taken in the US and India. But although banning TikTok may stop the theft of our data, it won’t stop the theft of our attention. Just look at how users already began to flock to other short-form video sites such as Red Note. And how TikTok has inspired YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and X’s For You algorithm. Effortless dopamine hits are what consumers want, and capitalism always tries to give consumers what they want. The market is a greater accelerator than China could ever hope to be.
So what’s the solution?
Land and Wang may be right about the illness, but they’re wrong about the cure. It’s true that we in the West have little left of the traditions that once tied us together, and in their absence little unites us except our animal hungers. But the belief that meaning and purpose can be imposed on all of us by a Great Leader is a fatal fantasy that has littered history with failed experiments.
Sure, democracies are vulnerable because there’s no one controlling their advancement, but autocracies are vulnerable precisely for the opposite reason: they’re controlled by people, which is to say, by woefully myopic apes. China is still suffering from the disastrous one-child policy that has led to China’s current population crisis. For all our problems, we would be unwise to exchange the soft tyranny of dopamine for the hard tyranny of despots.
That leaves only one solution: the democratic one. In a democracy, responsibility is also democratised, so parents must look out for their own kids. There’s a market for this, too: various brands of parental controls can be set on devices to limit kids’ access (though many of these, including TikTok’s own controls, can be easily bypassed).
But ultimately these are short-term measures. In the long-term the only way to prevent digital dementia is to raise awareness of the neurological ruin wrought by apps such as TikTok, exposing their ugliness so they fall out of fashion like cigarettes. If the weakness of liberalism is its openness, then this is also its strength; word can travel far in democracies.
Whether or not the CCP intended it as such, TikTok is a time bomb that could wreck a whole generation years from now. We can’t wait until its effects are apparent before acting, for then it will be too late. The clock is ticking. Tik Tok…
***
A version of this article was first published on The Prism.
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SubscribeThe PRC controls all its media. Hardly surprising they’d control digital content. Meantime, they want to sell stuff abroad, and TikTok sells. No sinister conspiracy here. Goodness knows a western government that banned kids from spending all day watching crap on their phones would have much support from parents who lack the wit or resolve to do so.
But Tiktok as some revenge opium to ruin Western Civilisation? C’mon.
The damage that has been done in that respect has been from adults in thrall to policies that inflate the cost of energy and hamper the industries that we were competitive in, such as automobiles. Our civilisation is damaged by people in positions of power and influence in the media and in education who hate their own civilisation so much they feel the need to teach children and young people that it is contemptible, and owes everyone else groveling apologies (and of course, ahem, some money)
Damage from introducing without filter or restraint cultures that are incompatible, and vast numbers of people for whom there is no housing.
Damage from having to bend, break or obsfuscate actual facts and truths in order to make the above seem like sensible or responsible politics or economics.
TikTok? Least of our problems. And the kids’ll grow out of it anyway.
Have you worked in schools recently? Anything to do with education?
If so I think you would see that the article is bang on the money.
“since 1970 the Western average IQ seems to have steadily fallen — which could in part be due to technology making us spend ever more time in a passive, vegetative state” This is fact not hyperbole.
It is also known that children and young people now have much shorter attention spans but instead of this being addressed in schools it is being catered for. That is something they will not necessarily grown out of. Of course it is not only TikTok that is responsible but it is something that needs to be taken very seriously indeed.
Is it a geopolitical weapon? I would say that the arguments in the article make a strong case and substantiate the suspicions of many. After all, broadcast media has been used by our own governments to shape public perceptions and attitudes for decades.
I thought the average IQ had increased – the Flynn effect. Also if it has been falling steadily since 1970 – rather than suddenly with smartphones – that suggests something else might be at work.
IQ scores started falling in the seventies because of “Charlie’s Angles” and “The A-team”.
Indeed, Charlie’s Angles were not acute.
Since you ask, yes, I’ve just finished 5 years as the principal of a successful private school and have a total of 20 years in school management (all private sector) prior to which I was of course a teacher.
It is the lack of reading, both of novels and of the full texts directly related to the educational material (ie kids using ‘Dummies guide to..’ or various online services that give you ‘what you need to know’ without you having to read the whole thing) that is the greatest single problem these days. I’m not sure whether Western IQ is falling or not – I’ve spent my career in Asia so have no real anecdotal evidence or hunches to opine about western kids. The ones that came on exchanges were typically behind their Asian counterparts on Maths and Science, but that’s not TikTok’s fault. Nor China’s.
Neither are falling scores in physical assessments – grip strength, how far they can throw a ball, jumps etc., which COVID didn’t help, but which preceded that.
The simple truth is that kids these days are confronted with a suite of digital diversions, a huge of them originating far closer to home than China, and these temptations mean they read fewer books, and play outdoors less. Kids were beating up hookers on Grand Theft Auto instead of reading Shakespeare long before TikTok came along. I fail to see how watching moronic short videos is qualitatively worse.
I don’t believe incidentally that games, or TikTok, are harmful per se. It’s the opportunity cost of so much time spent in a chair looking at a screen. TikTok isn’t some dastardly-foreigners-corrupting-our-youth scheme, it’s another app, in a world full of them.
Thank you for your reply. I agree with much of it.
There is no managed way out of the dopamine economy. Wang and Land are correct that the only way out is through, to accelerate the collapse and build back from out of ruins. Who cares if China becomes the pre-eminent world power for a while? they too will face their own civilizational crisis in time. All we should be concerned about is putting an end to the abomination that Western culture has become and that means being willing to torch the rotten edifice and reconstruct from the ground up. All these weak minded people who talk about “turning the ship around” or saving Western culture as it is are fooling themselves. They are dealing with forces far beyond their control. The only power left to collective Western man is the power of the negative, the power to push a thing that is already falling, to crush a thing that is already crawling. Once the horizon is clear the work of reconstruction – a hard and painful work of generations – can begin. The task now is to find like minded souls willing to undertake this wintery work.
Good grief. Maybe just ban TikTok and similar things rather than condemn generations to abject misery?
Won’t happen, the tech bros are in charge, wait until AI really gets going. Besides the article is full of anti Chinese propaganda, and TikTok is no worse than Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. It’s all the same or similar. Silicon Valley doesn’t like the competition, that’s why they want it banned, or better yet taken over by a tech bro like Elon.
For me, this is the best article I have read on UnHerd for a long time. Recently, we have had more and more opinions on Trump or on Southport – both very important things but things of the moment. Next year there will be other things of the moment and we will be excited about those in the same way.
This article is about the way our life is going. I am old and have grandchildren but I am very aware of technology, apps, ways of communication using my smartphone, etc. I see around me every day children almost glued to their phones, walking along the street staring at phones, asking their phones obvious questions but not retaining the answers, using their phones to add six and twelve, constantly texting about nothing – zero content texts.
I play games with my grandchildren. As we walk along the street and they are concentrating on their phones I ask how they avoid stepping on dog t*rds on the pavement. I tell them about a great app which can detect exactly where they are in the street and show them a picture of everything around them as they walk along – with this app they would be able to see the trees and birds around them, as well as the dog t*rds. They just can’t wait to get this app. Their parents tell me off for doing this but they, the parents, are in competition with their children to find the latest in apps – a way, they think, of staying close to their children.
It is obvious to me that these fads, like TikTok, must reduce intelligence, however it is measured. They take away the ‘need’ to understand things, things that develop experience, that produce common sense, and replace the need with pictures and stupid videos to make things ‘easy’. Who said that “Easy is Best”? I didn’t.
I think it’s very easy to blame the young, and lots of people do it on Unherd, but I don’t see most adults as being much better, or much different. Indeed, it’s a common sight to see a child trying to get mums attention while mum is engrossed in her phone.
Adults don’t simply not guide their children, they don’t set a good example either.
Down the gym and everywhere else you see even middle aged people who cannot tear themselves away from their phones.
I must have been vaccinated
There is even a social expectation that you will always have your phone with you. The idea that you didn’t text back immediately because you were busy doing something else just isn’t acceptable.
You are speaking my language. The ones in the gym make me nuts but I’m trying to ignore them. What in the world could be so important in a person’s life that they must pick up their phone every 30-45 seconds.
Short answer? Themselves!
I do try to get the gym to put on opera instead of the usual (c)rap as part of my cultural enrichment programme. I believe this could cut down on phone use.
I go to the gym regularly and have to ask ‘Have you finished with this please?’ (the equipment) as they spend more minutes sat gormlessly staring at their screens than working out. Almost every piece of equipment every single day.
I sat in McDonalds with a 30 minute cup of tea one day whilst watching a father and son opposite, the father glued to his phone never once looking up. His child aged about 2 or 3 tried on several occasions to get his father’s attention just to be paid a three second lip service then straight back to his phone. The child looked bereft. Shocking and I’d say borderline child abuse.
Back about 1995, I worked for a nut who had come up with the idea of doing an online community to supplant our two printed trade journals. It was a small company and I ran the PCs and server, so when the web — the graphic version of online — first started getting popular, everyone would ask me what site I’d found last night as they were doing every night. I told them I didn’t surf; I had our first child to diaper and help feed and amuse. They said, but you’re the computer guy! I said I’d rather have my daughter throw up down my back while I burped her, or drink a beer and sit on our terrace. Not much has changed since then. Thoreau nailed it when he wrote in “Walden” in 1854: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate… We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.” But Xi & Co. are delusional: history proves emperors and dictators always screw it up worse. Read “How The West Won” by Rodney Stark.
I will read it.
Nihil
Nihil.
Failure to VERIFY for the ninth time!
Have you tried Tintern Abbey?
You should engage your grandchildren in some form of ‘I spy game’. I find ‘they’ are fiercely competitive.
I’ve done so with mine, and they can now tell a Romanesque Church from a Gothic one, a concentric Castle from an enclosure Castle, K6 phone box from a K2 one, a Georgian House from a Victorian one etc, etc.
As I recall you live in mid Wales and are surrounded by interesting stuff. Have you taken them to the Legionary Fortress of Caerleon and told them about Legio II Augusta, how it came from Strasbourg and took part in the Roman Invasion of Britain whilst under command of the man who would later be the Emperor Vespasian. No? Well you should do.
Also get them building ‘models’ out of junk, loo rolls etc. Mine have already completed a Roman Villa, a Roman Fort, a ‘Gothic’ Cistercian Abbey, numerous Castles, the Taj Mahal, a Zeppelin airship, a Sopwith Camel, a Fokker Triplane, HMS Hood, and much else.
Finally get them to learn poetry and how to declaim. Mine are already perfect with Henry V’s speech before Agincourt, John of Gaunt’s speech in Richard II, Sea Fever, Vitaï Lampada, Heraclitus, Ozymandias, “Three cheers for Poo”, “I and Pangur Ban my cat”, and much more.
If that doesn’t keep the little blighters off their phones, nothing will.
You should engage your grandchildren in some form of ‘I spy game’. I find ‘they’ are fiercely competitive.
I’ve done so with mine, and they can now tell a Romanesque Church from a Gothic one, a concentric Castle from an enclosure Castle, K6 phone box from a K2 one, a Georgian House from a Victorian one etc, etc.
As I recall you live in mid Wales and are surrounded by interesting stuff. Have you taken them to the Legionary Fortress of Caerleon and told them about Legio II Augusta, how it came from Strasbourg and took part in the Roman Invasion of Britain whilst under command of the man who would later be the Emperor Vespasian. No? Well you should do.
Also get them building ‘models’ out of junk, loo rolls etc. Mine have already completed a Roman Villa, a Roman Fort, a ‘Gothic’ Cistercian Abbey, numerous Castles, the Taj Mahal, a Zeppelin airship, a Sopwith Camel, a Fokker Triplane, HMS Hood, and much else.
Finally get them to learn poetry and how to declaim. Mine are already perfect with Henry V’s speech before Agincourt, John of Gaunt’s speech in Richard II, Sea Fever, Vitaï Lampada, Heraclitus, Ozymandias, “Three cheers for Poo”, “I and Pangur Ban my cat”, and much more.
If that doesn’t keep the little blighters off their phones, nothing will.
As above.
This shows a great deal more realism on the part of American kids. There will only be a limited need for astronauts in their lifetime. But influencer is becoming a major job category!
And astronauts will have to work for Elon, what a thought
Oh no, immigrant astronauts from china.
Not sure everyone realised mine was a wry comment.
An interesting essay, but what the author describes as the root of the wests weakness is something we would describe as “freedom”. That is, getting what you want without delay, constraint or regret. It is a freedom from which ideas of responsibility, or even seriousness, have been removed. And the last thing anyone wants to hear is that something else would be better for them.
We shouldn’t be giving up genuine freedom, but perhaps it needs a bigger injection of genuine autonomy, responsibility, self directedness and community spirit.
That is, getting what you want without delay, constraint or regret
Fair point; just don’t pretend that it comes without tradeoffs. When something is free to use, the user is the actual product.
Or arguably the employee. Merrily gathering valuable information on themselves, their friends, their likes, dislikes and connections – all for the privilege of using their masters software.
It is an extraordinary thing to watch young people flicking through these endless idiot videos on trains. The cognitive equivalent of masturbating in public.
I was shocked to find that the Substack app started to throw these endless idiot videos at me. I deleted it.
Paradoxically though, other forms of entertainment consumption have gone to the other extreme- endless seasons on Netflix, 2 hour podcasts….
Yeah, Trump must outlaw it. This tool of the CCP has been responsible for the trans child phenomenon and the spread amongst college students of support for Islamic terrorism against Israel.
Obesity epidemic? House prices?
Executive Summary: Communism is Evil.
Gurwinder doesn’t disappoint. After looking at the headline, I was lulled into thinking that this was another ‘social media/cellphones rot our brains’ rant. Thankfully, the piece was full of great reportage and opinion.
Exactly the same for me. I’ve only just got round to reading this, not imagining it’d be so wide-ranging in its scope and intelligence – although tbf, this is the author’s trademark.
It took me a long time to read (not yet ruined by lack of attention-span!) due to delving into some of the links involving accelerationism. The implications are clear, and they’re down to all of us.
I was reminded of a documentary i watched recently (first aired some time ago) featuring Roger Waters and his descriptions of the “underground” movement in London in 1967/68, and how eventually, they all became so drug-addled (not least Syd Barrett) that they either perished or gave up and, to paraphrase, “went to bed to sleep and recover”.
Civilisational survival is at stake; the weapon: technology.
I would love to hear one person here dissent against Trump’s executive order saving TikTok. Okay, fine, I will do it. I voted for Trump, I am happy that he is in office, but I think this decision is complete garbage and it’s one of those obvious ploys to enhance his image to the detriment of our country and its youth.
You can love the guy and be critical of his stupid decisions sometimes.
Great article, thanks!
Could you say why you think that. Genuinely interested to know.
I’ll try.
There’s no good reason for the American President to be seen making any effort to save a Chinese company, unless it’s essential to American thriving. TikTok is not that.
The national security argument is compelling and reasonable and our Supreme Court is an important part of who we are as a nation. Their ruling should stand out of respect, barring any harm to Americans and our interests. Losing TikTok would not ‘harm’ any of us; in reality it would be forgotten in a matter of weeks or months.
Mr. Trump’s pandering to the most brainless members of his fan base is unseemly. Many of the rest of us have high hopes that his time in Office will bring real, lasting change to our nation. This whole story is just a drag on our momentum. A gift to the Dems. And the Chinese Communist Party.
is someone, anyone, being forced to use TikTok at gunpoint? Can the same data and information mining not be said about virtually every other application in use, especially the ones that are free?
Are other social media platforms Chinese owned? I’m not saying ban social media, because of course other apps will replace them. But I don’t like China having access to 200 million Americans data. Could they get it by more nefarious means? Sure. Should we just say okay cool, no problem? Absolutely not. This decision to shut it down was already backed by the supreme court, and objected by very few, but Trump likes his millions of followers, and also likes gaining more followers in upcoming generations. That’s the impetus here, and it’s obvious.
Again, gotta take the good with the bad, but this is bad. There is no reason to not exert more control over who runs our social media platforms. When musk bought X, everyone here cheered, myself included. He got rid of all the government influence and opened the platform up. Now, we have a situation where the content and algorithms are literally controlled by a country that would love to see us destroyed from within, and folks just go nah, we shouldn’t shut it down because Trump said it’s okay. Give me a break.
Is anyone ever forced at gunpoint to begin using heroin?
Its “For You” algorithm leverages machine learning to track users’ attention, and it employs this knowledge to show them, unprompted, whatever content is most likely to hold their attention.
This is the case across the Internet, with virtually EVERY app. It’s as if the author has never been on the web. My wife and I can be talking about anything – a potential vacation, shoes, or a home project – and within minutes, ads for a related product will appear as if the smartphone or tv are listening to us. Also, after Covid, I really don’t want to hear about Chinese propaganda; the West is well-versed in that tactic.
No one is forced to use TikTok. A lot of people make money from it. As to the overall toxicity of social media, Jonathan Haidt and others have written extensively about its corrosive effects on young people who have yet to learn discernment and reasoning skills. Let’s not pretend that everything was perfect before this platform entered the scene.
One last point, about Mr. Wang and the values discussion. China is not America nor is it any European nation. It is a homogeneous culture and that is true irrespective of its governance. Much of Europe used to be the same way. It’s easy to have a values system when people are basically alike, sharing a language, history, customs, traditions, and beliefs. That might actually be the biggest takeaway, right along with the part about tech controlling man rather than the other way around.
So you’re saying diversity is not our strength? Say it ain’t so!
There’s an interesting free speech question here. If a medium facilitates the free exchange of ideas, but brings certain social and psychological costs, are we justified in banning it? Is that an infringement of free speech? What if there are alternative media which provide just as well for free speech, but without the social costs?
Taking it further, should media be attached to an extractive model at all, where the cost is not an upfront monetary price, but a price paid socially and psychologically without awareness?
A most important article
At 71 yes of age and whilst in my 40, s in my professional career
I began to witness many a young rising star in the many Professional
Specialist, s I had to interact with
We’re slowly but surely become totally reliant on IT to function
Often I said to them whether you realise it or not you are slowly but surely
Being ‘ Stupified ‘
5 to 10 yrs on These rising stars had risen to shine brighter
Certainly so in the eyes of their clients and fellow Professionals
All this ending up in a complete divorce from reality and ending up
In a state of virtuality
I can’t be bothered to go any further in detail and give a classic example of how this is the New Norm
But suffice to say Those who Can Do actually Do
Those that can’t Do now only push
Keyboard Keys
Now as for China as portrayed in this article Once again the Author
as all others demonstrate a serious
Lacking of The Basic and Fundamental understanding of China a civilisation 5000 yr old
And what makes understanding of
China virtually impossible for Western Academics to genuinely comprehend China today is that once they have imbued their craniums of Chinese History
Unfortunately that’s insufficient in Order to Comprehend as to How China has reached today far less as to where it’s going
The only possible way to enlighten
Yourself
Is then go immerse yourself in Buddhism,Zen Buddhism and Confuciousism
But only so to grasp the fundamentals no need for fine details
Once you succeed then you reach
A Light Bulb Moment
Once more I shall not go into any detail ( Because those Hard of Thought who Down vote and or either reply stupidly so clearly demonstrating a complete lack of the basics and fundamentals of What China and it’s people’s)
However let’s go back to this article and Clearly show that not only the Author but also the respondents seriously lacking Knowledge of China
China is NOT stupefying it’s young
Quite the reverse
Dare you not reply or argue because I Shall Draw my Sword of Knowledge and Understanding
And swiftly cut you nefarious forked tongue from your stupid wide open mouth
With Reference to Ideology eventually creating havoc
Not so in China does this ever prove fatal to their History, Culture, Beliefs and most importantly Method of Governance
Why the hell do you think they now over 5000 yr old and thriving
Because whether Emperor or President if you Misgovern then if not you then your policies certainly
Ain’t going to survive and be replaced by that goes back to the basics and fundamentals that created the 5000 yr History and swiftly so
Once more I warn all DO NOT REPLY
Now let’s move onto
China and it’s one child policy
Future effects now highly positive
As China as it always does spots the errors of it’s ways and has now enacted policies and now about to enact radical changes to capitalize
Upon The New Era of Information Technology
Example Data for Child births in 2024 released yesterday and a increase of 527, 000 to 2023
How – State benefits in the form of maternity grant’s , Increased maternity leave for mothers and addition of such for fathers
Also woman who seek abortion
Are offered a large fee if they do not abort but give the child to A National adoption agency
All children enter for free excellent nursery and primary education
Where great emphasis is placed upon first and foremost in the creation
Of a New Civilisation that’s environmentally and eco friendly
All to restore the balance between
Nature and Humanity by way of Making China beautiful and join with other Nations to create a beautiful Planet for Humans not only to survive but thrive and gain responsible and moderate prosperity
All I Speak of is quite simply is
Referred to as Proper Governance
Not believe me go immerse yourself in Confucious of whom President Xi is a assiduous studier of , and particularly the 12 th chapter of the Analects
But don’t stop there go to
President Xi and the 5 volumes of
The Governance of China
Do NOT reply
Unless you do so along with firm knowledge of China’s 5000 yr history , Buddhism and Zen Buddhism
Should you reply without such understanding you will only succeed in displaying your Ignorance
Returned has the one whose syntax that of Yoda does follow. The oracle whose self-declared enlightenment a lack of same respect he demands from others shows.
Return to standard English (sort of): Have you ever travelled to the land you so gushingly celebrate? I suspect you are suffering from a severe case of Grass-is-greener Syndrome. which in your case is also the China Syndrome. Can Chinese citizens openly practice a Buddhism that conflicts with CCP dogma? How about Uighurs, Christians, or the Falun Gong? A reply such as mine, questioning the Central Government, wouldn’t be permitted to stand on any Chinese-soil server for more than a few minutes, Why does such a wise and beneficial form of government control need to be enforced with so much information suppression and actual violence? It should “sell itself” a lot better if it’s worth its salt.
There are many valid reasons to question the version of freedom we have in the West, such as consumerism, trivial entertainments, and widespread selfishness. But we can question them to a great degree without losing our freedoms, good or bad. Chinese citizens can’t do much of that questioning from anywhere but a jail cell, re-education camp, or psych ward just before the medication is forced down.
Be not triggered septuagenarian wise one. Consider instead my appeal. Deep down sincere it mostly is. Use the force, Brian!
Ok care to explain how China has lifted 800 million out of poverty
400 million of whom we’re in abject poverty
And it’s estimated by way of the BRI initiative that a further 200 million from participating Nations have.been lifted out of poverty
Maybe your weasel english language using weasel words in weasel documents do any better
Surely you can just hit the reverse gear from the one that looted India of $ 64.000 , 000,000 ,000 In days of The Evil Empire
And the english and French ran sacked a huge area of China
Fragments which China has left
Untouched packed full of wrecked Architecture of significant importance of historical and cultural importance So much so that The UN has declared it a UNESCO world heritage site
Furthermore you lot were not content with one opium war , not two but had too have a attempt.at a third before giving up
To hell with you.and the weasel attempt.to slander China and the Uyghurs
Go check the facts instead to availing yourself of The weasel’s state propaganda BBC
Who undoubtedly follows the playbook of the Nazi propaganda Minister Goebbels
And if you care to study Goebbels then that proves beyond all doubt the ABC (BBC ) are most learned pupils
Or should say ABC
The A being Absurdtistan
And who the Hell is Yoda
Probably another false Disney land creature being created by the Idiots of Western Culture
All so they extract your monies
China In the last 14 years spent Billions on the preservation of Buddhist and islamic architecture All of which is Unique to China
Because China absorbs the History, Culture and beliefs of others solely on the Basis you do not attempt to interfere with the governance of China
As for Christianity China was wise enough to realise it was merely a battering ram for the Imperial Colonialist to plunder and loot
In November 23 after years of trying the Catholic church finally got agreement from China for religious freedom but only after acceptance of the 1st clause of that agreement
Which spells out plainly the consequences should the Catholic Church ever attempt to interfere in the governance of China
You and your kind of weasels
I avoid as much as possible
Because your minds are diseased and wag nefarious
Forked Tongues
Because your weasel language is the Fork.of your tongue
“Ok care to explain how China has lifted 800 million out of poverty”.
Yes, and just to keep it short by starving 50 million to death in ‘The Great Leap Forward’ 1959-1961, for starters .
You certainly avoid real and sincere exchanges across disagreement. You’re insanely rude and self-important and, to some extent, flat-out mentally ill. But you don’t avoid conflict with the people you put in boxes. You keep coming back to rant.
No one in the glow of anything like enlightenment or even their right mind would sputter and rave as you do. You literally played the N a z i card on me. Based on what? Anyone who thinks or pretends that there’s nothing between gushing apology for the CCP and militant Christian nationalism or any other label I don’t deserve is really beyond all reach of good sense or debate.
Your fractured syntax suggests you might actually be a Chinese shill. Don’t they show Star Wars in China? I wouldn’t say it’s a great film but Yoda is well known enough in the West that I’d think even a 71-year-old Irishman (or whatnot) would have heard of the character, Unless he’d been in a schizophrenic fog or institutionalized, or both. But that’s much easier to accept than your servile defense of anything the Chinese government does and has done. Look up the imprisonment and forced “re-education” of the Uyghurs yourself. Get a grip if you can man. Seriously.
You would be on slightly firmer ground if you considered the last two thousand two hundred years and not five thousand years.
At least with the Han we have the final model of Chinese civilisation and one that will be tediously replicated for the next two millennia.
In fact it was a civilisation obsessed with ‘ancestor worship’ and looking backwards. Thus both the Mongols, Manchu and later British* had very little trouble in dominating the place.
Even the much vaunted Mandarin competitive examination system, with all its checks and balances, had the same syllabus, the study of Confucius, from day one until the end…..Brilliant!
So at 71 you obviously think China’s day has come? Dream on sunshine, they haven’t got a chance either in this century or the next.
*With a little help from the French.
I don’t want to suggest the Chinese way, but while in the west our attitude seems to be “I wonder what techno capitalism will deliver up next”, in China the leaders do seem to be more in the drivers seat. They have a plan and a set of values.
We are nominally democratic, but many of the most important things that happen to us seem to be out of our democratic control. As if we’ve just turned on the machine and let it run unattended, with clueless politicians tinkering here and there. The rest of us stand around wondering what it will produce.
Our answer to what the future will bring is “just wait and see”. No one seems to be setting out to build the kind of country we want to have, or even thinking of the future in such terms.
You will be attacked for thinking a bit different now! Do not be swayed!
A thoroughly prescient article.
I installed TikTok after one of my builder mates told me that there were actually some really good DIY tips on it.
After starting on content like that I soon found myself falling down all sorts of entirely different rabbit holes – I deleted it for myself and my son immediately.
I’ve suggested to my wife that she should delete it, but I still see her occasionally gawking at it like a mindless zombie.
30-odd years ago some of the crowd I hung around with graduated from ecstasy and weed to smoking heroin. I tried it a few times and always threw up. The third or fourth time it was bliss, and I finally realised why people got hooked, so never touched it again.
TikTok reminds me of heroin. I think that long term it is just as dangerous.
I assume your wife hasn’t discovered Unherd yet.
Haha! very good, DM.
The notion of true freedom is deeply flawed because it often neglects the essential freedom to think. True freedom extends beyond mere choices; it encompasses the ability to think independently. Our fear of ideologies, such as communism, signals a lack of resilience in our thinking.
Why do we fear it? Is it because we fear being overpowered by it? If so, perhaps there is some truth to it. Why do we think it will take over? Are our own ideas so indefensible?
What we genuinely fear is the influence of ideas that differ from our own. Why are we so easily swayed? Are we truly that susceptible to manipulation? If capitalism is so true and powerful, then why are afraid to see any other ideas?
Either we think better than our adversary in economy arena or we admit we are afraid of their ideas because it is better than ours! and we are in fact mystified to the core!
Make all ideas compete and see the ones that survive! But I bet we do not believe “competition” or “free market thinking” now?
Interesting post. I’m sure you already know this quote ascribed to Kant:
But I’m afraid a lot of people prefer certainty whatever the cost. And people are remarkably tribal. To be honest I think it affects us all: but we can at least try to keep our minds open.
Thanks @David Morley
I didn’t know that quote (thanks for sharing), but I live by it. This idea that we must always be safe and certain feels like a prison of the mind.
I believe in keeping the internet open—letting ideas emerge and take shape as they may. Of course, different scenarios could unfold whether we allow freedom of ideas or not. But I’d rather have everything out in the open so I can compare and contrast for myself, rather than be treated like a child, afraid of the so-called boogeyman—whether Russian or Chinese!
Ps. we are not talking about violence here but ideas!
Freedom to Think
Bang on
But one must realise that nothing can possibly ever exist untill a thought enters your mind
And the result of such thoughts
All further actions are totally dependent upon you
If Bad Stop
If Good continue
But be Mindfull at all times Bad created more Bad
And Good can turn Bad in the blink of a eye
Freedom is derived by way of Education
A word which has its origins in Ancient Greek
That means ” To free ones mind ”
And a closed mind ( That modern Western education creates ) is akin to a Parachute
In that both are utterly useless till they open
The Fountain of Knowledge is infinite , free and overfloweth
Go and drink tis the Key to unlock and open your mind to Universal truths and Wisdom
And that’s the only form of Intelligence that has the Highest value
Just stop and Think you are reaching for ” The Highest Apple ”
Maybe just Maybe in The Garden of Eden that’s why reaching for the Apple was forbidden
It’s absurd to think you are completely in control of everything you think. “We are not transparent to ourselves, far from it” (Peterson). “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite” (Blake). But they are not cleansed “for man has closed himself up, till he sees through narrow chinks in his cavern”. Or perhaps we enter such a confinement according to our very nature. It is not binding for all, but even those who glimpse liberation come up against the truth of this book title by Jack Kornfield: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.
education is derived from Latin and means “training or rearing” while educate means to “bring forth” or lead out”.
Perhaps you should better educate yourself before presuming to school others in such a weird and high handed manner. (And yeah, I’m not immune to some of that either: takes one to know one?). You post largely in paradoxes and proverbs. I wonder what your speech and manner are IRL.
I don’t wish to be unkind Mr Doyle but is English your native tongue?
I only ask because that diatribe is almost unintelligible. Have you perhaps been reading too many Chinese comics?
I always find it hilarious when English speakers ask online commenters if English is their first language—LOLOL! English is a global language, and many people speak more than one. So when someone asks this question, it reveals more about their own intelligence than the original post. All you’re really doing is pointing out that Brian Doyle might speak another language—so what? Focus on the content and context instead of fixating on whether someone is a native speaker. LOLOL and if you do not understand, it was not meant for you!
Are you always so dim?
Isn’t it blatantly obvious that I am trying to ‘wind’ Mr Doyle up?
His grammar and syntax are so appalling that I fear he maybe just a rather poor Chinese Chat-Box. What do you think?
A superb piece. A plague on our young.
A plague on all your house prices.
The diagnosis in this article is basically a correct one. Many on the ‘new Right’ attribute everything they dislike to ‘cultural Marxism’ but they mis-diagnose. Our Western ‘woke’ degeneracy is not Marxism-in-extremis; it is Liberalism-in-extremis…..(as I argue in this essay: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-madness-of-intelligentsias)
Succinctly put. The idea that we live in an advanced, even extreme, capitalist world, dominated by individualism and money: but with a totally left wing dominated culture and society is really bizarre. It would have been especially bizarre to Marx himself.
Think of anything you like: gender, the family, national identity, religion, high culture, morality, marriage, even love – whatever you feel is being lost and whose loss you regret. Then ponder those words from Marx on the corrosive effects of capitalism:
All that is solid melts into air.
Seconded: The quote from Marx—”All that is solid melts into air”—refers to how capitalism constantly disrupts and reshapes society, dissolving stable traditions like family, religion, and national identity. The idea is that capitalism, not left-wing ideology, is the real force behind these cultural shifts, making it ironic to blame the left for the loss of traditional values.
What’s really holding the West back is the unwillingness to confront the possibility that capitalism may no longer work. It’s difficult to admit that something so valuable for so long has turned to dust. But even for individuals, embarrassment or shame can be a path to growth—if acknowledged rather than avoided.
For nations, such a reckoning often comes through revolution. However, in today’s interconnected world, a full-blown revolution seems unnecessary when strong voices can push the conversation forward. This is one reason I support Trump—not because he is the solution, but because he might serve as a catalyst for the real question: Is capitalism still working for us?
I feel this article to be a cascade, much too long, of endlessly repeated clichés.
The reason one is always to be found on one’s phone, is that RL social contact is not even possible anymore!
Join the resistance! Chat to people in public! Amazingly, after a moment of surprise, most people seem to like it.
“the only way out is through, to accelerate the collapse and build back from out of ruins.”
Sadly, that’s what we’ll have to do with the Socialist shower we call our government. Vote Reform whenever you can.
Terrific article, but I would just point out that this is the history of the human race.
We want our lives to be easier, more pleasurable, full of novelty & new sensations, new visions, & to be able to act out our fantasies.
Is this good or bad? Well, it depends. On a very basic level, every improvement to our lives has started off as a fantasy, an idea, something we have imagined. And where has this led us? To a point in history where today’s average citizen has access to luxuries unimaginable to the kings & emperors of old.
The fact that we have articles like this – that we are always questioning, always concerned about the path we are taking, reassures me that we, collectively, are still healthy, still struggling towards something better, something more meaningful. Music is a good example; how much rubbish is out there? Cartloads. But also there is a lot of stimulating, thoughtful, interesting stuff amongst all the pap, & there are an astonishing number of brilliant young classical musicians who ultimately don’t care about anything other than the quality of music they’re playing (I think the situation has actually improved, with the voguish excesses of a few decades ago, mostly sounding like Spike Milligan hoovering his flat, having pretty well disappeared).
In short I believe in democracy, in the essentially innate good sense of The Man On The Clapham Omnibus – given that we need to be eternally vigilant against those like the Chinese philosophers described above, those who would replace democracy with authoritarianism (and there’s plenty of those, of all stripes) by engaging with as many of our fellow citizens as possible, making our case, explaining our arguments, & then accepting the democratic result – rule by which means, as has been said, is imperfect, but better than any other system yet devised.
I seem to have talked myself into optimism! How quare.
Trumpomuskovian CWC-violating voting-FRAUD:
“..new types of chemical weapons, intended to make the rebels docile…”
“..parallel propaganda tactics amplified by neuroactive agents, fostering docility or hostility as needed by the manipulator.”
“In the biggest picture, you should read this book if you want to gain Dr. Mirzayanov’s unique perspective on the extent to which Soviet, and later the RF, leadership were and are politically and operationally dedicated to fighting against democracies and the very notion of democratic processes and institutions through any and all available means.”
““Such high-tech weapons systems will be comparable in effect to nuclear weapons,” Putin said in an essay published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian government’s newspaper of record, “but will be more ‘acceptable’ in terms of political and military ideology.””
“..Mirzayanov was in a position to know the harm being visited upon his fellow citizens.”
https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Unions-Invisible-Weapons-Destruction-ebook/dp/B0D6LVGVSM
https://www.amazon.com/State-Secrets-Insiders-Chronicle-Chemical/dp/1432725661
https://pastebin.com/KP4nmD5Y
Excellent diagnosis.
So much hyperpola! Social media as a whole yes, but to single out one company, screams bias and commissioned piece!
The author explicitly says it is not just Tik Tok: “bannjng TikTok may stop the theft of our data, it won’t stop the theft of our attention. Just look at how users already began to flock to other short-form video sites such as Red Note.” and “neurological ruin wrought by apps”*such as* TikTok”.
The author even says the apps aren’t the root cause: “TikTok, whether or not it’s actively intended as a weapon, is only moving the West further along the course it’s long been headed”.
Sure, Tik Tok is the grabline and the story but that’s because it is in the news. But the article gives a platform to Land and Huning, whose philosophies hypothesise a far more pernicious and dangerous problem. For that alone, it is a great article that isn’t just an attack on Tik Tok.
It’s hard to know if that part of his thesis is true, but it is fair to say that the Chinese leadership does think strategically in a way that we in the west are not really used to. It could be true.
Then think better!
The root cause is bad monetary policies(war war war), If we can be destroyed by ideas, then the onus is on us!
Technology is not going away. Ideas are not stopping so buckle up and think better ideas and policies! Otherwise admit defense gracefully and ask why you failed and strategize!
Well it just happens to be Chinese, the tech bros who supported Trump would like to see the competition eliminated, so they can get more followers on their own platforms and $. Another option is for one the bros to buy TikTok (Elon bro may be interested). Trump owes them a favor (several), so people flock to Instagram, YouTube etc. or a bro owned TikTok. It’s only beginning, watch AI , and deregulation, the influencers will have a field day. Anyone who thinks this is going away, dream on, as the article says acceleration is coming, in so many ways not even imagined yet. Plus stop crapping on your kids, the boomers and xers created this tech world, not them.
Perhaps of all jobs that of influencer will be most easily replaced by AI.
Maybe, or you won’t be able to tell the difference between AI and a real person