Let’s be friends.
I might still be a people pleaser but I grew up rather mischievous.
I grew up in a neighborhood where almost every household had two children, a few with more. I knew my elder siblings friends and their friends, I had tens of friends, male and female, but when the females came of age, they stopped hanging out with the males. And eventually everyone sort of drifted apart, different schools, hobbies etc.
The older ones soon started bullying the younger kids. Some remained big brothers and they encouraged me to play basketball and soccer with them. Despite being a quiet person around them — I guess my inferiority complex started young; they would encourage me to talk by teasing me occasionally.
That habit stuck to me and in high school that habit got me into the social circles that mattered to me. The nerds, and the somewhat nerdy, I guess, hmmm…guess my social cliques were quite small. But I got along with them, both males and females. I was not a nerd though, I was just funny.
Break time discussions were fun. Random facts mixed in with some Seth McFarlane-esque humour, poking fun at anything/anyone we could get our attention on. But I knew most of my peers and could chill with them wherever we met — those that wanted to. Even at a young age, you’ll know when someone doesn’t like you because of your skin colour or your social standing.
I used to have a problem with that, but never attempted any sort of connection. I just wanted to have fun, I was a kid — probably still am, for what I’m about to convey.
I have friends from all races, all walks of life, but the only ones I can relate to now are the stoners, though nowadays even the stoners are keeping me at arms length ever since I proclaimed my love for God. I’ve also told them to cut down and nobody likes being judged, I suppose. They’re daily smokers and their personalities have noticeably changed over time.
The stoners are chill. We talk about the present mostly, family, friends, music, but I remember my favourite stoner, one from uni days. He would talk about love and life and what the future could hold. That guy was about my wavelength. A dreamer.
What happened to the nerds? Well, some have moved overseas — my country has nothing to offer them, some have started families — and don’t want past memories being uncovered, some have merged completely with reality — don’t want excess baggage, and plenty more of sort-of-valid justifications. I understand.
I would love to be part of my church community. I never was. Was never in the Sunday school, barely went to church (some Sundays with Nana and Mom, cause dad was a Hindu), and I’m not ready to integrate with them yet. My mind tells me to wait for when I’m less of a hypocrite cause I don’t want to infect them with my sacrilegious thoughts. I still can’t help but shake the feeling that psychedelics are important to “train” your mind, and “recognize” that connection with God, when it finally arrives.
Your social circle, and your patience reduces with time, if my parents’ life is any indication, friends tend to come back over time. Most of them do, some become radical and start showing their unbiased, racially motivated selves. Supremacy of ones own race is everywhere, just so you know. Multiculturalism is so difficult navigate.
Anyway, I’ve been noticing biases for any label you can perceive. Hot Wheel collectors are better than Kaido House collectors, oh, soccer is better than football, oh, males are better than females, oh, my morally ambiguous tri-sexual identity is better than cis-genders, oh, DEI ruined Disney. Some can be true, but the algorithms love feeding us label wars to split us apart. However remember, comparison is the thief of joy.
Sometimes I wonder if the algorithms are designed purposely to polarize us apart from one another. It is not like they are collecting data to somehow fix the ripples it is causing in our social fabric. Though there could be a way right? If only they knew how to structure data.
I’m pretty old school, I’d love it if I could just rock up to anyone and start chatting. But nowadays you have to be extremely vigilant not to say anything to upset anyone, thanks to American media. Remember, I made friends by teasing/poking fun. Everyone now wants to be politically correct, except the drunk people in the clubs. But that is not my scene, so, I have not been able to meet similar wavelengths IRL.
It was fun meeting new people and talking randomly, especially learning about them. I liked the talkative ones because then I wouldn’t have to talk about my boring self. The ones that were unreserved with their thoughts and were a ray of sunshine and love. One of them was a satanist btw. My mission isn’t one of converting, it was one of learning & serving.
I wish I had the kind of cash that would permit me to take some of them out/host them, and continue our relationship, but life gets quite busy as well. Everyone just drifts apart, even through chat, but everyone loves a free meal, RIGHT? The ones we are stuck with, mostly, are our colleagues, and they love to judge you and carry tales to your bosses then act like “omg, I didn’t know it was meant to be a secret”.
People have been discussing a digital national ID (Global ID) and I am a very huge supporter of the idea. The thing is, I don’t trust easily, let alone my corrupt govt. It is a slippery slope into communism, a structure I think is decent, but our freedom would 100% be compromised. It won’t take long for leaders in my country to abuse it and start to label & scrutinize “unfavourable” people efficiently and we’ll just be slaves with the illusion of freedom. Wait…
Governments are already doing it. Chyna is openly practicing it. I’m pretty sure my government has looked at my browsing history and concluded that I’m a joker that enjoys a midnight wank. Little do they know that I was depressed and used it to turn my brain off so I could sleep (I quit buying greens).
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I think it is a great idea to have a Global ID fixed to a person, if implemented correctly. It would help societies in many ways. For one, the amount of scalpers would reduce, fake profiles would disappear, statistics can be more accurate and so on. If we have a Global ID implemented for instance like your google account, where you’ll need to use to log into whatever platform/services you frequent, and have your interactions on it studied, we would be able to understand human behavior quicker.
The biggest downside is if it is targeted and hijacked. Social engineering is a reality now and can be seen through various apps like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Their algorithms are unfavorable to society in general and is slowly eating us away, though it is noticeably better now as compared to few years ago.
There are 8 billion of us today, and growing, and managing us even at a macro level is extremely difficult. The time will come when technology will be able to guide us, walk along each and every one of our personalities to find our “packs” wherever we go, like an AI buddy. Though I also think there should be bare minimum educational requirements for us to function as a society or to vote perhaps. For example studying maths, science, history, music and perhaps something that sparks moral objectivity reasoning like philosophy/ theology.
Just an opinion.
Back to the point, having a system that is able to quantify individual experiences and results would have an everlasting impact to the human experience, or life — the micro level. Of course having the freedom to live it individualistically is an integral part to the human experience. For instance, for countries & states that have their own moral standards that allow alcohol, drug use, sex work, hunting animals, even defecating in public or LGBT related activities should not penalize/ negatively affect someone’s Global ID.
I don’t think judging another culture is fair, especially since most of the foreign cultures have been around for centuries, even millennia's and practice different moral virtues — they have their own religion, and it should be respected. And some of us, in order to be grounded to reality, sometimes feel such activities are eye opening, sometimes once, sometimes after abuse — I’m talking about drugs etc. not goat fucking. However individual rights, when of no harm to many, and allowed by institutions, should not negatively impact a persons Global ID. Just allow the algorithm that quantifies human experience — to record it for reflection/studies.
A Global ID would help borders, job applications, job assignments, job recommendations, and in Chyna, help with the social credit program. I’m not the biggest fan of them, but I like the idea of a good person being “blessed” by the government.
The Global ID should be implemented in a way as to not disturb the current world psychology, though I personally think it should be done by volunteering data. The same way people donate their body to science? Those that can live knowing that this particular Big Brother seeks to understand, or are desperate for a better life (like me!), and would like some direction (like me!) should be top candidates.
All I’m saying is, different personalities have different priorities and instead of forcing everyone through the same God forsaken funnel, it is high time we start to understand the human behavior through data.
I think the world should be borderless, allow for humans to live, travel & work wherever and whenever they want — under “supervision” of the Gobal ID, managed by local governing bodies. The local law, culture and heritage should not be compromised — and should be dictated by the local-majority (votes) of the land. A Global ID could also facilitate and encourage democracy and participation of locals to any particular land for economic purposes and more.
Governments could be audited daily and bills & legislation could be voted on by the general public in perpetuity — change of mind over time for instance. Example, I come from an oil rich nation, that exports most of it, but the wealth generated from it is not being distributed fairly, should another nation deem this immoral, their public could vote to stop purchasing oil from mine UNTIL we fix the issue permanently — or even from the locals.
I think eventually, if the world is run on a new system that promotes overall equality, we would be able to reach an equilibrium of sorts, under a transparently managed Digital ID in futuristic system of sorts, I think there will be fewer conflicts. It should be time for the 8 billion of us to take control of power instead of selfish corrupt leaders that are still living in the past.
True democracy is achieved when all those qualified & informed to vote on a subject, votes. To be qualified & informed should mean, aware of the subject, aware of the benefits & consequences, and the risks involved. It’s a task not many would care for on a daily basis, but would have the power to vote on should the need arise by simply opening an app.
Imagine if Trump and Elon were working together in this new system, whatever fallout they had would not be newsworthy, it would be just another squabble between two random internet personalities. Would there be a need for a leader? Yes. Would the leader be known? Perhaps unnecessary. The leader of the future would be appointed based on merit, and popularity based on his contribution within the system, and his “digits” or pseudonym would be recommended by the system.
Naturally any such name should be recommended based on their performance in life, for life. Achievements, knowledge, contribution to topics, contribution to society (donations, likeability etc.) would be their merit. In a world where everyone is already equal, such power would bring little to no benefit to individual gain. Their task would mainly be to unite and bring direction to the nation in terms of system efficiencies, international relations, suggesting policies, managing military decisions (what if the aliens show up), managing population/talents, resource utilization/management, improving efficiencies, identifying potential setbacks, having open dialogues regularly, and things of that nature.
How would you design such a system? Would you want a leader that was 100% “good” or would you like a more worldly leader, that knows the sins of the world and what it entails? Would you want individuals to be known or anonymous to the public?
An oversimplification, I know, but a future with fewer issues. A Global ID is inevitable, time to start imagining what we can achieve with it.
I would be glad if the system pinpoints me to my people. For now, can we be friends? Perhaps mentor me, through the comments?
This is part of a series under “Project Kuchiku”, a project designed to help Fix the Future through Platform Building.
Please help this imperfect soul try to perfect this project by contributing $1/month here and share this idea of a better future with potential futurists. Arigato =)
