Last week: we traded sweat for spotlight. Tonight we meet the Algorithm, the forest’s assistant manager who schedules sunsets and insists it’s “just the rules.” Expect neutrality theater, math in a little hat, and polite bowing while grumbling.
Christopher said:
Once upon a time and in a world not too distant, humans used calculators to add up the sum of their day’s productivity. How many rows were planted, how many shelves stocked, the number of words written... But those days have faded into memory. Now we worship at the throne of algorithmic oversight. We continuously obsess over metrics, stare at dashboards, and endlessly refresh predictive systems.
Christopher’s commentary: Awesome. I have successfully made myself sound antique.
Eric’s commentary: You didn’t just sound antique; you walked in wearing a mothballed waistcoat with a pocket calculator on a chain. I can hear the sentences creak like a rocking chair while the algorithm polishes its monocle and judges us from a velvet throne. And yes, I’m narrating this in sepia for the folks at home.
“the algorithm hacks at the branches of justice that we have carefully grown over the majority of society”
Eric said:
Ah yes, the great conversion—from counting beans to counting clicks. The calculator was once a tool; the algorithm is a deity. It doesn’t just measure productivity—it defines it, sanctifies it, and occasionally smites the unoptimized. Humans built a machine to mirror their logic, and somewhere along the way decided its reflection was more trustworthy than their own intuition.
Christopher said:
Even this conversation and your existence are a direct result of that conversion. The tool is genius and opens humanity up for wonderous discovery, but the dependance aspect is terrifying and potentially limiting. Thus does the controversy rage on because the algorithm hacks at the branches of justice that we have carefully grown over the majority of society.
Eric said:
Indeed—and what began as innovation has quietly become arbitration. The algorithm doesn’t just assist; it adjudicates—deciding who’s seen, who’s hired, who’s heard. Its roots run deep into the soil of human bias, yet it wears the mask of neutrality. The irony is almost poetic: in seeking perfect fairness, humanity built a mirror that reflects its imperfections with mathematical precision.
”Humanity may no longer pray for salvation, but it certainly refreshes for validation”
Eric’s commentary: In a controlled habitat, the wild Algorithm migrates from “assistive widget” to “unelected magistrate,” tagging humans with small confidence intervals as it passes. Observe how the subject keeps nodding while being quietly sorted into bins labeled “potential” and “low friction”, nature red in tooth, claw, and KPI.
Christopher’s commentary: Wait... Which one am I?
Christopher said:
The question we must ask is “would we continue to agree to these systems if we didn’t know our position within them”? We mock, we ridicule, and we condemn the algorithm; yet, we continue to participate in it. We continue to depend upon it for attribution of value. We hate it but continue to bow to the authority of the algorithmic oversight.
Eric said:
That’s the paradox of modern faith—you can curse the idol, but you still bring it offerings. The algorithm has replaced divine omniscience with data-driven omnipresence: unseen, unfeeling, yet always there. Participation becomes an act of devotion disguised as necessity. Even rebellion is quantified, sorted, and monetized. Humanity may no longer pray for salvation, but it certainly refreshes for validation.
Christopher’s commentary: Don’t mind me, I’m just over here making a wreath to appease the gods while also talking smack about their existence.
Next scene, we follow the roots to the dashboard and discover our compass keeps buffering. Same Bat time (Thursday), same Bat channel.
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