Tag Archives: instagram

Goodbye Instagram ⃰

Posted on by under Generic Rant

I joined Instagram ten years ago this month, mainly to see pictures of family, promote my writing, and publicize philanthropic efforts I participated in. It was useful and fun.

The world has changed.

Most of my family has dropped out of the IG world, there’s no evidence it has helped sell any of my books, and its parent company, Meta/Facebook†, has become an enabler of the US kakistocracy and the miscreants in charge. I can no longer associate with a company someone accurately described as “a diabolical cult run by emotionally stunted men babies, institutionally enabled sexual harassers and hypocritical virtue-signalling narcissists” that is “able to swing elections, target body-shamed teens with beauty products and monetise millions of humans’ hitherto private data.”

I quit.

What effect will my quitting have on these deviants? None. So what’s the point? I’ll sleep better knowing I’m no longer supporting such malevolence. It’s the same reason you won’t find me at Walmart or any of the increasingly prevalent local casinos. I try my best not to support sociopathic behavior anywhere.

I’ll miss a lot of stuff I followed on IG:

The thing is, I can get at most of this stuff online in other ways, as evidenced by the links above. Besides, I survived the first 60 years of my life without IG. I should be able to get by the rest of the way without it. And I’ll have a lot more time, what with not getting sucked into the bottomless void of idiotic videos and photos of life hacks (often life-threatening hacks), people doing stupid things (I do enough on my own), ads for crap I couldn’t imagine ever wanting in a thousand lifetimes (items chosen specifically for me by specious AI algorithms), staged “candid” scenes (presumably made by shameless exhibitionists), AI-fabricated nonsense posing as reality (thus perverting our vision of actual reality), maudlin recollections of the way things used to be (but never truly were), and on and on and on (and on, ad nauseam). It seems as if it never ends. In a sense, it never does. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that kind of time.

Enough. Goodbye and good riddance to it all.

⃰ After a long deliberation about taking this step, I was inspired to finally make the leap by an article by one of my heroes, musician, writer, and all-around Renaissance man, Charlie Peacock. You can read it here.

† We have a Facebook account, but we rarely use it. Nevertheless, that’s going, too.

Artificial Intelligence or Genuine Ignorance?

Posted on by under blog snax, Generic Rant
[A genuine Blog Snax© post!]

We’ve been told all along that AI will be controlling our lives eventually. It will drive our cars, determine our medical care, identify us by our appearance, as well as our purchases and preferences.

Unless there are incredible leaps in the technology, the future is bleak, based on my observation of the current use of AI.

Example: On Instagram, one of the few social media platforms I subscribe to, I’m inundated with cat and dog videos. I have less than zero interest in cat and dog videos. They annoy me no end. I’ve never watched one, much less lingered on one, which would supposedly trigger the “swamp this guy with cat and dog videos!” trigger. I don’t buy or search for cat or dog related products. So why does Instagram insist on showing me these videos?

There are countless clothing ads and recipes yet I’m the last person anyone would call a clothes horse (99% of my clothes were free and have dates on them going back to the 80’s) or a foodie (my idea of a gourmet meal is a burger and fries from a now defunct establishment).

Hair styling, knitting, jewelry, colleges, souped up cars and trucks, and so much more that are wasted on me. Why? AI.

Then there’s Amazon. I’ve vented on this before. (Buried somewhere deep in this post.) When you buy something, they always give you helpful ideas about what to buy next. First, if you’re letting Amazon decide what you need, punch in, folks. You’re losing it. Second, they always recommend I buy another of what I just bought. Coffee maker, refrigerator, cell phone cover? Who couldn’t use another one of those, just in case?

That’s AI for you. Someday, that will be the technology that will guide the surgeon’s scalpel (if there’s a surgeon at all) during your open heart surgery. And driving that bus heading toward me on the highway.

Maybe they’ll show cat videos at my funeral.