ceci ce n'est pas un substack (a blog)

This is the weblog of cocofolio. Here you will find assorted musings and a signup link for the analog blog.

ceci ce n'est pas un substack (a blog)

PARTY LIKE IT'S 1999
Gen X wanted to party so they invented social media. Millennials wanted to soothe their anxiety with efficiency so they invented AI. What will Gen Z invent?

ceci ce n'est pas un substack

BRICK AND MORTAR
AI is digesting the secret forums and back alleys of the internet and vomiting them up into a strip mall of barf.
The best places (online, offline) remain the corners that AI can neither eat nor barf. You will know these places because they smell lusciously of flowers.back

ceci ce n'est pas un substack

AGAINST HACKS
Don't optimize your diet or hack your sleep. Just rest.
Instead of becoming more efficient, slow down.Stop trying to move fast and break things. If something breaks, fix it, or move slowly on.The whir of constant motion blocks out the voice of God.back

ceci ce n'est pas un substack

MANCAMP
Circa 2018 I started a project called ManCamp. The idea was to ship sun-deprived libertarians and Silicon Valley bros to someplace like Montana and teach them to gut a fish, fell a tree, fix a fence.
The project was altruistic (huge asymmetry of skills and money) and capitalistic (why not charge the bros $20k apiece, snap some chainsaw wielding photos for their San Francisco dating profiles, and give back to local lumberjack instructor economy). For extra oomph, I considered replacing lumberjacks with female IDF veterans*The project never came to fruition for several reasons: I felt bad about further polluting places like Montana with the new-Bro riche. I am lazy, and the idea felt more like a fun joke than an actual business. Circa 2018 the debate around masculinity was so boring and serious that I felt no one could take ManCamp as a joke, much less a real idea.In the last decade the masculinity debate has only gotten more boring, serious, and even vicious. While the progressive left has started to cop to the absurdity of slapping the "toxic" label on anything that's manly, the far right refuses to pry the baby tooth of "being a man" from the MAGA maw. Meanwhile, the bros of Silicon Valley have staged a clown show of manliness --deadlifting, rocket launches, preening manifestos-- while remaining on the inside weak, pallid, cerebral, annoying.* since 2018 two strains of actual ManCamps have arisen, each rivaling the other in cringe. There's the Christian version where men pay lots of money to hang out with other Christian men in the woods (instead of just going hunting or camping with their pals for free), and there's the progressive version where men enrolled by their Sheryl Sandberg-esque girl boss fiancees get together in Joshua Tree to sauna and have "deep dialogue" about how they can be more manly.back

ceci ce n'est pas un substack

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