Tag: anger

#oneaday Day 640: I hate 2026

I am tired and frustrated. This is nothing new, of course, but I am feeling it particularly keenly today. I can't go into the specifics for reasons that are probably obvious, but as an attempt to vent at least a little bit of the fury festering inside my spleen, I am going to vaguepost my way through this.

I learned today that something I had been looking forward to happening — which would be a good thing for me, and particularly for my mental health — might not be happening, through no fault of my own, and through no fault of the person who was organising this Thing. Instead, the blame can be placed squarely (albeit slightly indirectly, removed by a degree of, like, one or two) at the feet of the perpetual garbage fire that is the tech industry in the mid 2020s — specifically, the chip shortages caused by all the AI crap.

Every so often I see an AI booster wanking on about how much more "productive" AI has made them, and I do stop to question if I've got things right. And the answer is inevitably "yes"; every time I ask this question I find myself feeling more and more resolute in my absolute, complete and utter distaste for AI and what it is doing to the tech industry — and, more broadly, what it is doing to anyone who wants to do anything that isn't AI-related in the tech space.

It's just the latest in a long line of examples of people and organisations with a lot of money and influence taking everything that other people might need, and making (supposed) use of it for something that no-one actually wants — and which causes knock-on effects on multiple steps down the "ladder". The really galling thing about this all is that it's arguably not even organisations with a lot of real money; the seemingly daily billion-dollar deals that are being bandied around are all being done with money that doesn't actually exist, that has no intention of existing, and which will never exist as anything other than a means of making the worldwide economy collapse completely.

I can go to the shop these days and get a few snacky bits and it'll be £50 or more. I shudder to think what the current Happenings are doing to petrol prices. And, of course, it's getting near-impossible to buy anything even vaguely related to computer memory or storage for what one might call a "reasonable" price. Not all of these are directly and specifically related to AI, of course, but they do all relate to how the economy is utterly fucked as a result of everything that has been happening for the last few years.

And of course it's selfish for me to speak up about this stuff because it's something in my life that is being specifically affected by it — but regular readers will know that I have been pretty staunchly opposed to All This Bullshit long before the still-vagueposted news that I had today.

I'm just so tired. When I was young, I thought there was a point you'd get to in your adult life where everything was just sort of sorted and you could get on with living and enjoying your life. I feel like my parents had that. (They might disagree. But it's the impression I got.) But no-one living through this horrible, horrible time in existence is getting any degree of peace, because everyone is being affected by the absolute worst pieces of shit in the world to varying degrees.

I'm tired of it. So very tired. And I wish there was an easy way to make it go away.

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1324: Fury

I hate anger in all its forms — whether it's directed at me, coming from me or going on around me.

I'm not entirely sure where this feeling comes from — perhaps there's some sort of deep-seated trauma from some event in my past that I'm repressing — but it means I've always felt enormously uncomfortable whenever there's any sort of anger present near me, whether "near" means physically close to me or simply within my frame of awareness thanks to the Internet.

I remember getting extremely upset any time my parents would have an argument when I was little. However much I was assured that it was a natural part of any relationship, it still always filled me with anxiety. I felt that same feeling of anxiety whenever I got angry at school — usually the result of being bullied — and fearing that I'd lose control. And I feel the same thing today whenever there's anger around me — or coming from me. I get uncomfortable, restless — even physically shaky at times if I'm the one expressing anger — and I hate it.

Consequently, I find it increasingly difficult to deal with the seemingly-constant fury that comes from certain quarters of the Internet. If it's not one thing, it's another — there's always something out there pissing someone off, and they always want to talk about it at great length, usually with some sort of public shaming involved. And I just can't deal with it, frankly.

The natural response is, of course, to simply switch off, walk away or unfollow these people altogether but that brings with it a whole host of modern etiquette questions that we simply didn't used to have to worry about. If I unfollow, for example, a Twitter user who is mostly a decent person but who occasionally descends into mouth-frothing zealotry any time certain topics come up — to what I consider an unreasonable degree, regardless of how valid their points are — what will they think of me? What do I say if I ask them why I unfollowed them, assuming they notice? Am I honest about it? Or do I make up some lie about that probably fictional Twitter bug that makes it "randomly unfollow" people every so often? (Oh shit, did I let the cat out of the bag? Sorry.)

I am overthinking this issue, I'm sure; if people make me uncomfortable, I should just take myself out of that situation and prevent myself from getting drawn into something that would make me even more uncomfortable. The consequences I worry about might not even happen at all; if they do, I just have to deal with them. The fact I'm unable to participate in some discussions as a result is probably a good thing in the long term — there are plenty of other things out there that I can engage with, so I should focus my attention on those rather than things that make me anxious or uncomfortable.

This self-indulgent stream of consciousness brought to you by Internet Rage. Now I'm off to go and play Corpse Party in bed. Good night.