Flesh within….Flesh without….

The singularity: the very concept either has people riddled with fear or brimming over with excitement. It deals with the idea that machines, after decades of increased automation, will eventually develop their own sentient consciousness, most people view this as a far away eventuality, and given the definition they’re operating under, I’d be inclined to say they are right.

I, on the other hand, have other thoughts on the matter. With the advent of smart technology (i.e. phones, mobile internet, social media etc) it’s become my belief that we find ourselves perched on the precipice of a kind of “reverse singularity”, and that troubles me deeply. Allow me to explain.

Writing for the internet, specifically in the realms of the workplace, and social media has progressed to the point where most of us no longer write for enjoyment; we write to communicate, socialize, and advertise, and in doing so we’ve dismantled our whole concept of what it is to write aesthetically. Hashtags, and Emojis are the killers in question; we speak in blurbs (which until now had been reserved for the dust covers of books), and in 180 character micro feeds of information.   Our methodology mirrors something closer to that of hieroglyphics, rely more on symbols and niche phrases in an attempt to optimize our time.

For all intents and purposes, we’ve allowed ourselves to become writing machines, spewing out information (no matter how asinine) with a startling amount of efficiency. This, however, comes at the cost of quality, and it threatens the classic, creative writing that until now had always, in the least, maintained itself at the corps of our culture. Essentially, we’ve sold our soul to the devil, and the devil is Dell.

We’ve become entirely too reliant on technology to do our dirty work in the realm of writing. I refuse to use any algorithm in my own writing, at least as long as I can help it. As a species, we’ve grown lazy; primary schools no longer teach students how to write the way they did when I was their age, either physically (i.e. cursive writing) or critically (there are a few staple readings, but critical reading has been all but abandoned). Adoption of these methods has led to a generation of people with an attention span that won’t even allow them to read for more than a few pages at a time.

We need to address these issue; we need to disconnect.   Esoteric skills like creative writing may not mean much to the world, but it’s my belief that the world will continue to be a lesser place as the decline of humanism continues. Down with the singularity.