A funny joke

About pseudo-interactional digital systems where every click is recorded and fed back into the system to be converted into thousands of a cent so that the system can refine itself and encourage further pseudo-interaction.

I made a joke once about AI systems being developed so that ad placements could be refined to toxic near-lethality. Creation of an Other in order to sell ad space. That was the joke until I read about a company doing that. Then it stopped being funny.

See, the Howling Pit doesn't want interaction. It wants the appearance of interaction. The appearance of seeming. The appearance of mattering. Then you can keep contributing.

The truth of it is that a thing like Twitter only wants more Twitter. Don't get me wrong. I've made plenty of friends there, but stepping out beyond that circle rapidly degrades into intolerability. It howls. It is without gravity. We have a President who understands this innately, in a way that most will not allow themselves to. He can broadcast and his army of thoughtless adherents can re-broadcast, confirming their own beliefs and attempting to bludgeon others. But it is not for debate.

The President has no interest in answering his critics there. He has no interest in engaging with his adherents, either. He wishes only to broadcast. Same with the shit-stirrers who are riding his wave. They don't want debate. They want to impose their will on others (and will happily yell "freedom of speech" when the truth of it is that is a lie.)

The joke is that Facebook will never stop turning its users into the primary product. So the mistakes of the past will only be repeated. It's baked-in. The drive to get humans to monetize themselves in return for free content is what drives an appalling portion of what we're calling "social" media. I know. Big discovery. Galaxy brain.

The joke is that the forest of mirrors is real. But when its complete, will it require a subject to be reflected in it, or will it be content to merely reflect itself.