Your Consciousness is Worth More As a Dead Slab of Human Behavior
On the primacy of conformity over innovation.
In a fair, balanced, and unfettered free market, there is a clear competitive and economic incentive toward innovation and authenticity — both in business and personal expression.
However, as social and economic centers of power begin to centralize, it creates an imbalance where greater primacy is placed upon conformity and standardization.
Social institutions, whether by design or inevitable evolution, have all but eliminated nuance and individual complexity. The words you use, the tags you choose, and the things you engage with constitute your identity — like a Nascar vehicle covered in sponsors. You as an individual matter less than the aggregate labels that are perceived from the outside. Few really care what you think about anything in particular, they only listen enough to understand what label to apply to you. That label then determines how they should feel toward you.
To your fellow online citizen, you are not John who grew up in a small town in Nebraska, who loved to build things as a kid, whose parents took the family on summer vacations to the ocean, and who always dreamed of setting up a photography studio. No, You are a democrat, a republican, you are pro-this or…
