SUNDAY SCROLL: Fight 'Dopamine Culture' For Your Sanity
Something new to read, watch, look at, listen to and do to #bemorehuman
I normally send this email in the morning but this week I have been overwhelmed by new books, blogs, podcasts and articles about people, art and A.I. some of which I will share below but first…
On Monday I attended a talk by luthier-cum-artist Jens Ritter who has produced a limited collection of stunning, handmade guitars known collectively as the 'Sleeping Beauties' whose jack sockets have been blocked up with a release date lasered on for a hundred years hence. This artistic statement is intended to make us think about the future of music and art - will there be instruments then or will it all be AI generated and, if so, what might we have lost? Will our descendants find these sound machines fascinating or cumbersome? Some meaty discussions followed over food pertaining to my pet theme of #bemorehuman, but if you would like to see the guitars yourself let me know and I’d be happy to host you for a coffee or cocktail at 1880 in Robertson Quay where they are on display.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I interviewed a number of contacts in the H.R. field, ostensibly for a client project, but they inspired me to write my ‘Thursday Thoughts’ about the impact of A.I. on H.R. - is it healthy to have computers judge the talent, experience and performance of humans? I then asked them to fact check it for me and that’s why it’s not coming out until next Thursday (sorry ‘bout that).
In the meantime I had an audition yesterday for a role in a short film and ended up swapping Substack links and obscure electronic music tracks with the producers, which once again demonstrates the value of getting outside and meeting new people. Anyway, wish me luck with the audition and here’s this week’s recommendations to help you #bemorehuman. Nx
Read this…
If I had to point you to just one article I read this week it would be this devastating critique of ‘Dopamine Culture’ by Ted Gioia, which is being enabled by big tech CEOs who have replaced the patrons of the arts to become dealers in distraction.
The tech platforms aren’t like the Medici in Florence, or those other rich patrons of the arts. They don’t want to find the next Michelangelo or Mozart. They want to create a world of junkies—because they will be the dealers.
WE MUST RESIST. I’m not kidding, we are feeding our brains junk food and it is making us depressed, desensitising us to deeper pleasures and, simply, dumbing us down. How do we resist? By reading proper books, listening to complete albums, sitting through whole films without our phones-in-hand, training our brains as we train our bodies to be healthy and strong. That’s part of the purpose of this blog/newsletter, to recommend content truly worthy of your time and intelligence, I hope you stick with it.
Watch this…
One of the biggest threats to our cognitive capabilities is an impending wave of low-quality, A.I. generated, mainstream content, which may be just around the corner according to this mini-doc from The Economist, which I will be reacting/responding to next Thursday.
Listen to this…
If you’re feeling the need to quiet your mind I’d like to recommend the latest issue from independent ambient label A Strangely Isolated Place by classically trained cellist, composer and storyteller Lihla (Lih Qun Wong).
Combining a vast instrumental skillset of piano, cello, electronics and spoken word, she crafts intensely immersive aural-hallucinatory worlds of intricately shifting landscapes. Challenge yourself to sit with it in its totality and do nothing else and I promise you will feel the rewards.
And a reminder that if you buy anything from Bandcamp on the last Friday of the month 100% of the proceeds go to the artist not the platform. It’s up to us to support true human artistry in the face of technological mediocrity.
Look at this…
“The Matrix is already here”, says artist Ginger Potter, “but all you gotta do to escape it is just look up.” Turn your sound up and hit the image below for the full impact of his art and follow him for more visual commentary on our connected age.
Do this…
Finally, in the spirit of getting outside and mingling with other Muggles #IRL I took the family all the the way to Cosford Container Park on Saturday night to eat from the food trucks (food containers?), watch the planes come in and listen to live music in the open air without having to fork over $300 - $1,000 per ticket! It only opened a couple months back but was packed with a festival atmosphere so well worth the effort of going (as long as it doesn’t rain).
See you Thursday! N
Neal- So many true things here, especially the bit on tech CEOs being ‘dopamine dealers.’ I despise the ways in which it’s being dealt with without care. And that there’s barely any regulations around it. Great article.