Jason Calacanis declared “facebook bankruptcy” due to spending too much time dealing with his FB profile and his many requests. He simply can’t keep up with friends in real life, much less their FB lives. He doesn’t care if you think he might like a certain movie/song/(fill in blank here) just because you do. He would rather call you up and make plans or email rather than read about you on FB.

I’ve heard a lot of other people who are mainly over 25 years old express the same sentiment. Its simple to just classify Calacanis’s reaction as a plain old generation gap or say he does’t get it (I think he does), but to me, it’s the root of a phenomenon I’ve been observing for the past few years.

“are we creating a social system to communicate with each other at a distance because the reality of creating and maintaining that social networking face-to-face is, well, scary?” asks Calacanis. It’s not us who are scared Jason, it’s you.

We are developing a new set of social norms. We cannot imagine a world without the internet, the world without a social network, without those intangible 0′s and 1′s streaming between our laptops/phones and those of others, defining every aspect of our lives. We reserve calling for our closest friends and we reserve our time for meeting new friends.

We are technologically altered. We can receive and process thousands of bits of simultaneous data at once. We don’t see FB as burdensome, we see it as augmenting our relationships through the information we share on it. Instead of asking “what did you do with your summer?” I know what you did…I saw the pictures, I studied the people, I read your notes and staus updates, the groups you joined, the apps you added. I will ask you “so, i cant believe you and jill went to the bahamas on chris’s boat this summer!” and I can have this kind of conversation with thousands of people who’s social metadata I process everyday via FB.

Not all of us are aware that this is what we are doing, but we’re all doing it, in unison and creating our own collective consciousness within our network of friends, friends of friends, colleges, and cities.

I actually know this guy in real life.

I think I understand better now why I reject robotism, yet always come back to it for strength. I realize that it is not good or bad to follow robotism, it’s different for each person. I can see now however that people that have self-destructive tendencies can misuse the empowering ideas of robotism and bastardize them so that they become a tool for self-destructive behavior. For me robotism enables my self-destructive behavior and entrenches my weaknesses.

I am still too immature to wield robotism constructively.

1. they will know your calendar and will text/call your friends pmd when you are running late
2. they will know your friends and your friends phones, they will know your likes, dislikes and where you go and what you do…they will make decisions about what is marketed to you
3. they will pick friends and potential dates for you based on pre-screened attributes (think like.com…but for humans).
4. they will be your phone, your keys, your camera, your wallet, your social network, your personal secretary, your memory…

The coming of the pma means the death of the bar. You go to the bar to meet people but how effective is that? You don’t know anything about the person, except what they look like. Online dating is huge…and when pma’s are advanced enough they will be able to tell you who is in the same area you are (bar or not) and how “compatible” they are with you.

The coming of the pma means the death of many things and the birth of many. A few here:

1. bars: see above.
2. record stores: pma’s will chose your music for you based on your listening preferences and using last.fm like technology
3. news papers: they will be your “editor” bringing to you articles which you have already chose subconsciously by what you read.
4. shopping as we know it: take picture of what you wear every day, it will scan it like like.com and recommend things for you at every store…then automatically order it for you to try on.

More to come.

link

FARK: “You’d be unhappy too if you were surrounded by stupid people.”

It was a great experience though, being in Love for about 48 hours was educational. It was powerful and made me think I was invincible. I knew I was crazy from it while I was in Love so I was a bit more rational than the last time.

It really made me realize how insane 2 people are when they are both in love with each other. It’s an insanity that feeds of of itself like a snake eating it’s own tail.