Should I Get An Alexa For The House?

Personally, no. What can come in, can go out. 

I've been in a friend's house and out of the blue Alexa said "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that", randomly without any prompting. 

There's always a price to pay. You gain convenience, but you will pay for it with your control. Control in the sense of your home being a place free from external influences steering your decisions. 

Whatever you say within Alexa's earshot will be used to improve the strike rate of the subsequent offerings you get from "Her". The more you use Alexa, the more likely you are to agree with her suggestions, her choices, her decisions.

 And as she, or the core algorithms governing the options you get presented with become more sophisticated, and Alexa's physical interface becomes more tangible and present in and around your home, the more comfortable you'll feel allowing Alexa to make decisions on your behalf in other areas of your life because in general her judgements consistently prove to be time and cost effective.

Eventually you'll reach a point where you no longer feel confident making any decisions solely by yourself before running it past Alexa first. 

For me, the one constant in man's relationship with technology is that, what man experiences as his increasing power in the world through wielding smarter technologies as a means to carry out HIS wishes to help him enact HIS agenda, are actually just some momentary flashes of systemic giddiness as humans continue along the unconsious path towards the goal of making themselves redundant through total externalisation of their entire skill set, everything can they do, into super servers owned by a handful of people on Earth. 

But I don't think anything I tell you mate will alter things in the slightest! You're gonna get one or an equivalent because they're really handy to have in a big house when you have 3 teenage (or soon to be) kids.

You say there comes a time when choosing the non-technological over the technological becomes liberating...Personally I think that time has long past. Like Neo, when he went to see the Oracle for the first time, we're not here to make a choice, we're here to understand the choice l we've already made. 

The only thing there is  now are the 50 shades of Yes to choose from. There is no 'No' to technology now. There's no stopping a current of this magnitude unless it stops itself because technology is the evolution of man, that includes the technologies of his self. 

So those who see themselves as equals, as part of the ongoing evolution of life and intelligence, part of technology's undolding destiny - will become androids or whatever the term may be for a machine governed by a human essence. And those who allow technology to govern them become drones.

Trump thinks he is The One

Trump I feel has forgotten, or rather, mistaken himself for being the man who rebuilds The Matrix as he sees fit - the system controller, whose utterances and impulses reshape the world immediately in the direction of the vision he has in mind.

The One, with the privilege to write and rewrite humanity's source code at will from a place of absolute safety and protection, an act of daring / narcissism / megalomania many people are simply in awe of because of its sheer audacity, while others whose interests his actions benefit hope to continue.

At the same time such recklessness steadily awakens those previously silent and apathetic. Trump is compelling them into action. Unlike any other politician I've seen at least, Trump obliges us to make a critical decision. We either choose to walk with him or will have to fight against him.

In the process of dividing us into antagonising camps who, at present, wouldn't dream of attempting to build bridges to in order to reach each other, and right now cannot even conceive of a way to achieve this that would be genuine and unforced - the fact that this process is occurring is precisely why huge blankets of apathy are being lifted and swept away, as the stark reality about what Trump reaching his promised land before he dies will mean for the rest of us finally sinks in, switching on those with a conscience into taking on an additional purpose in their lives they've perhaps been reluctant to accept, but know is worth fighting for - because inaction, paralysis, procrastination and self-denial at a certain stage of a threat's advancement all become acts tantamount to suicide.

But he is, like we all are, just a temporary cog in the great mechanism of evolution taking place on a tiny speck of matter against the backdrop of the cosmos. There is always a system outside of the one in which we are in governing us, responsible for maintaining the favourable conditions that allow us to be the way we are. Trump at this point I feel has forgotten about this fact, and is entrenched in a deep deep denial or perhaps simply couldn't give less of a fuck; happy to enjoy his twilight years like a teenage rebel intent on seeing just how crazy a ride he can make his legacy read after he's expired.

At the back of his mind he must know that no matter how many people bow down to him, willing to carry out every wish and abide by every command that he gives, showering him with the unconditional validation he needs in order to breath, and informing him with sincerity the fact that he is more popular and has higher ratings than God ever had - behind this functioning facade will be the knowledge that the universe could at any moment crush him in an instant, and no amount of executive orders signed off can change that fact. A response is on its way, and he is catalysing his way towards it.

What the Garden of Eden story means to me now

I used to take it as a lesson in why you shouldn't disobey God because he will fuck your shit up for eternity if you do, but now I see it being about temptation (vice), and how resisting real temptation i.e. something you know is morally not good for you but gives you pleasure (made even more intense if you know you can get away with it), resisting the urge and impulse to gorge ourselves on that kind of seduction will keep us in a place of godliness i.e acting in perfect harmony with oneself. But with humans being humans, I'm tempted to claim that Adam felt life in the Garden of Eden was boring as fuck and fancied something different for his mind to get stuck into instead of lying around all day, being satisfied in every way. Adam was the first human to live a fully automated, luxurious lifestyle, who wanted for nothing and had an Alexa called God. Adam was an unwitting Neo who accidentally created the Real through his curiosity.

But anyway, I think that most people can begin the ascension to godliness through the resistance of their vices because the act of being able to say no to something your body is screaming yes for is a demonstration of supreme self-control, self-determination, it's morally nutritious etc, and these building blocks lead to heightened confidence, greater awareness of how one can realise one's potential...

Maybe that sounds like a no-brainer of a decision to make but I think most people are like anti-Icaruses, in that they become scared when they find themselves flying so high. They get vertigo. They're reluctant to soar above others for fear of making themselves targets, or they are afraid of being overwhelmed by the feelings of joy and exhilaration that resonate them from experiencing such a magnificent view.