#louisck

In response to Louis C.K. and Sherry Turkle’s thoughts on mobility in the world

I would like to start off by saying how funny it is we take people in their 50s advice on the ideas of how social media and mobile devices matter. These are people who not only traditionally do not have a full understanding of what these types of things offer and the capabilities of what such tools can unleash.

I agree with Louis C.K. in that people should take breaks and not always fill the void with texting or social media. It is good to just feel sad for a while. That may not be nice, but to constantly fill our lives with endless streams of what our friends are doing is not good psychologically or emotionally.

Sherry Turkle, on the other hand, is clearly a fair bit older than Louis. She has a much more scientific approach to mobile devices and social media. This one was honestly hard for me to watch because it fell into the category I hate. The “millennials are bad and everything they do is wrong” category. I am so sick of this. What a boring and overused approach to come at a topic regarding technology. I disagreed with almost all of her leaps of assumption she made. How people need to share things to feel like they happened at all, how I can not be engaged in a conversation while occasionally checking my phone. What many people over the age of 50 seem to fail to realize is the speed of the world. I not only check my phone because I want to, but because I need to. I trade stocks, monitor several AdWords accounts, and run 2 clubs all through my phone. In any one day, I will have over 10 people contact me with decisions that need to be made by me and I am just in college. With the advent of constant connection, people need an immediate response to just about every question. If you are not on top of it, your competitors will be, and I refuse to be left in the dust.

I stopped smoking ten-ish years ago. I quit for health reasons, certainly, which were obvious and basic, and it should be noted I never for one second was unaware of how miserably bad it was for my body. I also quit because my wife was pregnant with our first kid, and because it’s a putrid habit that frequently affects other, innocent people, and for all of the reasons people quit smoking. But maybe the most significant reason I quite was: every time I bought a pack of cigarettes, I felt like a sucker.

Suckerdom, in short, is being made to feel as though you are getting the good end of a bargain, when in reality you’re getting royally screwed. You are told that all you have to do is subscribe to a magazine you don’t want, and you have a chance to win ten million dollars. You pay ten bucks to try to win a stuffed animal at a rigged game in a fair -- and the animal itself cost 50 cents to make. That sort of thing. The first time I ever fully realized I had been a sucker was when I moved to Los Angeles and had to buy a car. I wanted a specific car, in a specific color, and two dealers didn’t have it. I called a third, and they said they had one, and I did the single dumbest thing you can do in that situation. I said, and I quote, “I want that car -- don’t give it to anyone else! I am on my way!” Like a real goddamn rube.

When I showed up, they had put fancy metallic rims on it, which cost like $2000, and they said they couldn’t take them off. I was starting work the next day, and needed a car. I immediately understood the oceanic depths of my suckerdom. And I drove a car with super dumb rims for four years.

Smoking makes you a sucker. You are getting something -- nicotine, which makes you feel super good for eighteen seconds -- and in exchange you give up your freedom, your health, your sociability, and your will, and you transfer money to some of the absolute worst, scummiest, lyingest human beings alive on the planet.

Keep in mind, you can be aware of the fact that you are being played as a sucker, and still be played as a sucker. At no time was I unaware that I was a sucker -- I was just willing to be one in order to keep smoking. Then I got sick of how it made me feel, and I got worried about disease, so I quit, by using (for a long time) nicotine substitutes: patches, gum, lozenges, I used ‘em all. I transferred my suckerdom to a different product, which in some cases was owned by the same companies who used to sell me cigarettes. What a sucker.

Louis CK was the first person I heard who nailed the essential problem with voting for Donald Trump: you’re a sucker. Maybe you believed him when he said he would really care about other people, instead of focusing entirely on his own ego and well-being. He will never do that. Maybe you believed him when he said he wouldn’t personally enrich himself at the expense of the American taxpayer. He is already doing that. A lot. Maybe you just thought that the whole political table needed to be flipped over. That is happening, and it’s terrifying.

Maybe you were angry at Hillary Clinton for using an unsecured email system. Trump is (still) using an off-the-shelf Android phone linked to a gmail account. (So are many others in his administration.) Maybe you thought Mexican illegals were the real problem in 2016 America. They weren’t then, and aren’t now. 

Louis C.K.: Oh My God

This is part of my unedited thoughts series 5/10 I don't think I'm a huge fan of Louis C.K. I'll try to explain why. Most of his gag lines start funny enough but he keeps going and going and going until the joke is dead. Then he flogs it some more. The opening joke line in this movie is an excellent example of this. He talks about this old lady in New York and her and her blind dog. The perspective humor is great - emulating what it is like to be them. Then he talks about them dying and who it would be better to go first. The end of the joke line is the lady shitting on the dead dog's head forever in her toilet. I mean I get that no critic is the authority on what is funny but the silence that followed this joke sent a clear message.

The only other show I've seen by Louis C.K. is Chewed Up. This is much better than that. What perplexes me by these shows is that people find them funny. It may be a contagious thing - like everyone else is laughing so I have to laugh.

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