When we suffer, do we make it worse by thinking about it? This question sits at the heart of how we understand the very nature of human pain–and points toward ancient wisdom we’ve forgotten in our modern rush to analyze, optimize, and solve every difficulty we encounter.
What happens when a society begins to see itself as a machine? Adam Curtis’s documentary trilogy All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace explores this question through the rise of cybernetic thinking in politics, ecology, and genetics, suggesting that mechanical metaphors have constrained human possibility even as they’ve promised liberation. While Curtis effectively demonstrates how mechanical thinking has shaped modern institutions, his rigid human/machine distinction obscures more nuanced ways of understanding our relationship with technology.
These questions feel urgent today as artificial intelligence reshapes work, relationships, and governance. Silicon Valley executives promote “accelerationist” visions of technological progress while critics warn against reducing humans to data points. Curtis’s documentary, though made in 2011, offers crucial insights for navigating these contemporary debates.
Yet Curtis’s critique, while illuminating, relies on a problematic assumption: that humans and machines represent fundamentally different categories. This binary thinking may be just as limiting as the mechanical metaphors Curtis critiques.
Earlier this year, I spent the month of Ramadan reading the Qurʾan alongside academic essays about Islam in order to better understand the religious faith. What I found surprised me. Rather than have it figured out, we–as Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem says–“have to admit collectively that we do not know some very basic things about the Qurʾan–things so basic that the knowledge of them is usually taken for granted by scholars dealing with other texts.”
“Sorcery and sanctity,” said Ambrose, “these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.”
What separates a saint from a sorcerer? Both seek transcendence, both encounter forces beyond ordinary experience; yet, one path leads to wisdom, the other to destruction. Arthur Machen’s “The White People” tells the story of an adolescent girl in 19th century England who is initiated by her nurse into an anachronistic, Pagan world. Although she is raised in a Victorian Christian household, she taps into the same power that once energized the Greek cults of Dionysius and worship of Pan.
In spite of the intense imagery that Machen provides, the most compelling aspect of the story is his depiction of evil. In Machen’s view, “murder, theft, adultery, and so forth” are not evil acts: one who partakes in them is “simply a wild beast that we have to get rid of to save our own necks from his knife.” Instead, that which is truly evil exists on another plane entirely.
Naomi Kritzer’s short story “Better Living Through Algorithms” is a humanistic subversion of common dystopian tropes in speculative fiction, establishing it as a prime example of “hopepunk,” a subgenre of speculative fiction that champions community, kindness, and active compassion in the face of overwhelming odds. This essay argues that Kritzer uses the narrative of a deceptively modest productivity app to challenge the pervasive cynicism surrounding modern technology. Unlike stories such as Ken Liu’s “The Perfect Match,” where technology erodes personal agency, Kritzer’s AI is developed with the sole purpose of making people happier. The app encourages human connection and personal growth, ultimately empowering its users to lead more fulfilling lives.
I have always been good at recognizing kindred spirits, but terrible at the patient work of building shared history. When I have a built-in system to see friends each day, there is little challenge: I go to work, see them, and sense of regularity is built into my everyday life. However, when the system is not already in place–it could be that I changed jobs, moved to a new place, or am using my free time in a different way–it becomes much more difficult to do so. As a result, I have struggled heavily with isolation.
Forgetting shapes human experience in vital ways. In the 21st century, many of us go about our lives in ways that will ensure that we will be remembered: we produce content on social media, we make scientific discoveries that carry our names, and we construct transnational business empires. However, there is also a tremendous weight to leaving a legacy: we attempt to harm the least amount of people according to our own limited moral codes. We also have little choice in how others record our accomplishments and undertakings.
We can lighten the burden of our existence by recognizing that we, too, will one day be erased from memory. Time will erase our successes, and it will wipe out our errors, mistakes, and missteps too. A close examination of ancient societies and peoples can be a source of healing.
The path to mastery is not a steady climb but a series of dramatic leaps separated by long, flat stretches that test our resolve. David Foster Wallace understood this pattern intimately, developing a framework he called plateaux: periods of apparent stagnation that actually prepare us for transformation. This concept, woven throughout Infinite Jest, is more than metaphor. By thinking through plateaux, we can better navigate the inevitable frustrations of growth, whether in creative pursuits, professional development, or personal challenges.
Do you ever feel like you are not in charge of your own destiny? Don’t you think that the choices you make are not your choices at all, but rather decisions foisted upon you as if by fate?
It’s precisely this phenomenon that led me to launch this blog, D-INTEGRATION, after two previous attempts fizzled out. In July 2024, I purchased hosting space and a domain name and began to write. I wrote as if I needed it to survive. I wrote multiple blog posts over the course of three months, and I engaged with China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, Tunisia’s International Festival of Symphonic Music of El Jem, and the strangeness of Drift Phonk music being used in drone footage during the Ukraine War. I also shared a few very short stories (really, more like flash fiction) that I had written.
But then, the momentum vanished.
