End users
Cognitive Ecology: The Human
We are nodes in the infrastructure of consumption.
So what do we consume?
And who consumes us?
Our digital platforms train us to be end users, perpetual consumers of products.
Our attention and creativity are channeled into advertising and shopping funnels by the digital slot machine.
One life, one big wallet.
Pay in.
Pay out.
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No matter how much automation is introduced on the market, we will never lose our one true job in the techno-capitalist utopia: being an end user.
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We are end users of the planet.
We are end users of technology.
Earth as a platform.
Technology as a platform.
An endless scrolling feed of products, services, and entertainment.
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We are physical and digital nodes in someone else’s infrastructure.
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You are what you can buy.
You are your bank account.
You are your worth.
You are a lonely wallet on the internet.
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At the end spectrum of a human civilization that wants to be as remote as possible from its biology, lies manufacturing and consumerism: a devouring anxiety of wanting to fill the void of an untethered existence with things made from manipulated matter and biology.
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How we live, what we believe and how we imagine the future are shaped by ideologies designed by others.
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Digital jobs, products, and platforms as an illusion of life, of experiencing the world.
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Our existence is a reel on an endless scrolling feed, a blur of human experiences parsed as free content on the internet.
Our lives, consumed by the digital slot machine.
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The world as we know it is a reflection of the mental bubbles in which we live.
Explore the notebook of meditations here: Intro to Cognitive Ecology.
Claudia Befu
I appreciate how this reflection invites us to question not only what we consume, but what quietly shapes us in return. The image of becoming “nodes” in someone else’s infrastructure stayed with me long after reading. Thank you for this thoughtful meditation.
Love this series, Claudia. Full of thoughtful insights like this: “our one true job in the techno-capitalist utopia: being an end user”. I just listened to a great podcast conversation between Charlie Warzel of the Atlantic and Cory Doctorow (he coined “enshittification”) about AI and our relationship to technology. You might enjoy it. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/galaxy-brain/id1378618386?i=1000773360520