Recent Evolution
28th September 2020
Severian blows the whistle.
It should be clear to even the dullest social observer that human software has well and truly outstripped our hardware. We’re not built for the world we’ve built. This has been happening for a long time, of course, but it has really taken off recently. Note how hard it is not to watch tv, for instance. Even if you don’t have one in your home, go to a bar, an airport, hell, go to the grocery store — there are blinking screens everywhere, and it takes serious effort not to watch them. Our hardware interprets bright flashing things as a threat — can’t be helped. If you’ve been away from civilization for a few days, like I was recently, you’ll experience fatigue, even nausea when you first come back into town. The low-level-but-constant effort it takes to override your hardware when surrounded by blinking screens wears you out.