I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

by Jason Pargin

“Instead of just saying what you’d prefer, you off-load the choice to someone or something else. Instead of ‘I don’t want to hang out with you,’ it’s ‘I have work that night’ or ‘I’m not feeling well.’ Nothing is ever expressed as your own needs and wants, so you never have to defend your choices or own the consequences later.

“I bet you do that a lot, too. Catastrophize. Everything outside your comfort zone is a worst-case scenario waiting to happen.

He felt a weight roll off him, the exquisite relief of canceled plans that extroverts will never know.

Look at how well they’ve trained us! Constant sharing, constant tracking, everything offered up for scrutiny. See, that’s the one thing the system can’t tolerate today: privacy. In private, dangerous ideas happen, unique individuals are formed, cool secret boxes are moved. They can’t have that, can they?!?”

Nobody has people skills, because they stay home all the time, so they’re scared to do anything but stay at home because they’re afraid of being weird in public or getting caught on camera and mocked by millions of strangers. It’s an isolation vortex.”

Real friendships, real bonds are based on being genuine and vulnerable and flawed around each other, but we’re constantly told that’s dangerous. Ask yourself, who benefits from that? Who wants a society where there are no strong bonds between individuals?

This is America, taking a road trip without a gun is like putting a sign on the rear windshield that says, FREE CAR WITH DOCILE POTENTIAL SEX SLAVE AT THE WHEEL.”

So, just to be clear, you’re nervous without your phone because you’re afraid that if you’re not mentally on-call every waking moment of the day, you may miss, what? The president ordering you to go broker peace in the Middle East? Think about the load of anxiety you’ve taken on there, and for what practical purpose?

That’s what’s unique about humans. We see a mountain range in our way and we’re like, ‘Absolutely not.’” “We’re like termites, only if termites could blow up the planet.”