Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century

by Chuck Klosterman

Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. It all comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and—if we surrender—we will be overtaken and absorbed.

Just reading this quote and I guess ChatGPT and other AI are like those really fast zombies.

Yet this war is manageable, if not necessarily winnable. As long as we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid.

Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live here. But we can live better.

Now, is this really true? Is any of this really happening? No one knows and no one cares. But this is how the game is played, because the game is insane.

What if the feeling we like to call “nostalgia” is simply the by-product of accidental repetition?

Some people exist only for the benefit of strangers.

But blind faith is the only kind of faith there is. In order for someone’s faith to be meaningful, it has to be blind. Anyone can believe a hard fact that everyone already accepts. That’s easy.

Our slow erosion of authentic consciousness will never stop, and there is nothing we can do about it.