Life for anyone but the very rich — the physical experience of learning, living and dying — is increasingly mediated by screens.
Not only are screens themselves cheap to make, but they also make things cheaper. Any place that can fit a screen in (classrooms, hospitals, airports, restaurants) can cut costs. And any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper. The texture of life, the tactile experience, is becoming smooth glass.
The rich do not live like this. The rich have grown afraid of screens. They want their children to play with blocks, and tech-free private schools are booming. Humans are more expensive, and rich people are willing and able to pay for them. Conspicuous human interaction — living without a phone for a day, quitting social networks and not answering email — has become a status symbol.
All of this has led to a curious new reality: Human contact is becoming a luxury good.
Woke up this morning, my website was gone.
Well, that’s the worst blues song ever.
Nonetheless, it’s true – I woke up to a barrage if emails from the host of TheWorldThatsComing.com telling me that my account had been suspended, suspended and then suspended again due to a high level of attacks from malicious IPs overnight.
Right now, it’s still down as they try to work out what can be done, and ask me if I know why it’s under such attack. Beyond the “Well, I work on the Internet so maybe karma?” nature of things, I couldn’t answer that. Instead, I hope there’s an answer out there and contemplate just moving to Tumblr full time, instead.
Anyway: Sorry to anyone/everyone who might have tried to go to the site. Normal service may be resumed at some point…?