I'm far from the only IT worker who has come to hate IT, I think in my queer circles at least it's more the norm than the exception. and I mean how could it not be. have you seen IT?? as computers grew more powerful they have also become so hostile, manipulative, and above all: boring. from the point of view of a hobbyist who likes to tinker, or just someone who wants a computer for enjoyment, there's no doubt in my mind: it isn't just nostalgia, IT in the early 2000s was much more joy-sparking. like, no question.

but I've become much more of a luddite than my computer-hostile friends I think. I don't just long for the days when you could repair a VGA card by replacing components yourself, I long for the complete absence of computers whatsoever. of most electronics, I think. do you know how "AI" keeps being shoved everywhere as an unasked-for solution that isn't really a solution but it's just extra complication to no real benefit? I've come to think that this is the IT industry writ large.

like I remember my friends who developed an open source system to run Linux with 4 monitors and keyboards on a single PC, back when PCs were expensive, so that public school students could have computer labs. unlike "AI" this was actually meaningful work, and at a capitalist level it certainly benefited those working class students, increasing their chance of ascension. I myself came to middle class basically because my father got a computer for the family at great effort, and I was allowed to tinker with it all night until my gender dysphoria was blunted.

but if you ask me if we are *better off* shoving computers everywhere. dunno. it feels like car culture, to me. *are* students better off with computers? lately I've been doing a lot of handwriting and paper reading and it seems to heal in me the focus, the control I thought I had lost... once I was in a camp without Internet and I was reading book after book, serially, just like teenage me—current me go years unable to commit to a book to the end, that was undone overnight merely by physical distance between me and computers... are these things worth the cost. is the cost even clear.

in São Paulo it takes more time to go from one neighbourhood to the other on cars than it did on horses. but you can't talk about it because if you ask the question, "are we actually better off with cars", someone will say what about disabled people dying of heart attack in a rainy day while chased by the mafia, you fascist. in the same way it's easy to come up with a million post hoc excuses for computer culture. but it's hard to find good enough excuses when I participated on this, I still do, I'm part of an industry whose goal is to look at the world and figure out: "how could we add a computer here". that's why I have so much money, that's why I get to provide for 4 people besides me. and isn't this the same as selling cars, isn't it blood money. are we really better off with computer culture. I don't know that my daughter lives better as a digital artist than she did when she was a physical media exclusive. I don't know if having all the bands of the world ripped off on Spotify makes me better off than when I travelled to Curitiba's Japantown to scavenge pirated enka CDs. I don't know if I like the convenience of Google Maps(tm) telling me directions to any commercial establishment at a whim, compared to getting lost and ask people for directions. I used to think I was "introvert", but decades later I have precious memories of cool or interestingly off-putting people asking me for directions. I have memories of random Japanese salarymen walking with me entire neighbourhoods to bring me to the station because they felt so proud their town was being seen and wanted to talk about it, and all I did was to say, ano, marumaru-eki e ikitain desu ga... I don't have any cherished memories of Google Maps.

my veganism lately looks at anything with electronics in it and tells me: Coltan mines. 9-9-6. ship fuel. tell me how is this different than milk cows. and I struggle with the same type of dissonance I had, splitting my brain in two trying to come up with a justification to keep consuming milk, when I understood what the production of milk entails. I look at the little tablet I'm typing this on, who has held me in place about an hour longer than I intended—everyday occurrence, for you too right—and I think: coltan. lithium. 9-9-6. 40 degrees...

I carry this thing with me like a curse. "what if we just didn't" is a thought that won't let go. every day, every day I weight under the gaze of the archaic torso of Apollo, da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht...

* https://rilke.de/gedichte/archaischer_torso_apollos.htm