Touch Grass and Play Frisbee

As I approach the young, or depending on your worldview old, age of 30 I have been wrestling with thoughts of making the world a better place. I have been searching my heart, picking the brain of my fellow man, discussing with my beautiful wife, praying to God to understand what my beliefs and my values are. What are the things worth fighting for in this age of short-form content? What are the things that I want to give my time in this attention-based economy? What would I share with my friends, my family, my wife, my future children, in a concise and digestible manner, that would make an impact? Is it a strong emphasis on digital privacy and hygiene, of which I am a large proponent? Would I spend my breathe talking through selfhosting a private server, as I have written about previously, to those that need help signing into their email? No, that would be wasted breathe. The more I read about the technological progress being made in the decade of the 2020s (and even going back to the start of the 21st century), the more I face struggle with what I believe to be important. I find myself enthralled by the allure of the screens around us. My desire to learn about the ins-and-outs of the software and hardware that powers the world around us continues to grow. Yet, the more I learn of these things, and the more technological advancement we see in the world, the more I believe that we need to shy away from blindly accepting what our Silicon Valley overlords have determined that which we need.

My wife and I have a five year old golden retriever, Chopper. He weighs 50 pounds on a good day. His fur is a burnt orange color, his nose has lost the black pigment over time, his snout has begun to show the wisdom he has gained over time by turning gray, his paws are the tiniest little things in the world. Chopper has no intrinsic value to the economy—yet I believe there is much to be learned from this little animal. As I sit in my office, nestled in the shed in our backyard, I can look outside the windows on my door and see Chopper doing, what I believe he would tell you if he could speak english, is his favorite and sole purpose in his life. He is laying in the grass, patiently awaiting his boy or girl to come outside and play frisbee with him. He does not wake up with the desire to catch up on the news. He doesn’t care what people are posting on social media. He doesn’t care what the score of the Braves game was last night. All he wants to do is spend time with his humans, in nature, playing frisbee. It’s simple, and maybe a little silly, but I truly think there is a lot to be learned from him in this regard.

Recently, my friend and pastor was at my house for our weekly morning coffee and workout. This is a time that we spend challenging each other, both mentally via conversation and physically with our exercises. One conversation we were having began to lean toward talking about current events, as it so often does, and how the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs or “AI”) are affecting humanity. Rarely do our conversations leave us feeling fearful or without resolution, but something was different about this conversation. There was a sense of doom around how quickly the economy has shifted due to Big Tech pushing artificial intelligence in every ad, commercial, software, and even hardware product available. These topics have invaded every conversation in church on a Sunday, at work, amongst friend groups, social media, forums, everywhere. You cannot escape the push to use, and ultimately begin to rely on, AI in today’s technology. During this conversation, my friend told me of a book that was recommended to him by a local employee at his favorite record store, Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth. He told me that all he had read so far was the introduction, but it caused him to take a pause, look at his wife, and say, “I am afraid that once I finish this book I will not be the same person.” I bought it on the spot.

The next morning, the book was sitting on my doorstep, thanks to a human that works for one of these Big Tech companies delivering it, and within half an hour I was done with the first two chapters. I could tell instantly this book was going to be impactful. Throughout the course of the 27 chapters in Against the Machine, Kingsnorth takes a look at the historical timeline of the technological revolution, how the world viewed technology as “Progress”, what we have lost by allowing the Machine (what he calls the ever present technology in our lives) to be ingrained in society, how to revolt, and so much more. In the two weeks I have had this book, there has not been a single hour where I have not been thinking about it. The topics brought up has sparked endless thoughts in my brain, launched theological conversations between my wife and me, caused me to reconsider my relationship with technology, and has impacted my future children’s lives. There are certain chapters that stood out more than others for me, and I would like to take the rest of this blog post to talk through the major points that I feel need to be shared. This is not to discount the rest of the book, it is all worthwhile and I truly believe it may be one of the most impactful books I will ever read.

If you would’ve told me last month that a chapter of a book about fireplaces in the home from a guy in Ireland I have never heard of would drastically alter my way of thinking, I might’ve believed you, but I would at least have been pretty surprised. Kingsnorth makes an argument in chapter 17, aptly titled “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” that the fireplace has more importance than what appears on the surface. The fireplace used to be the center of the home. It is where families and neighbors created culture. It is where stories were shared, where song was sung, where dreams were dreamt. He suggests that removing fireplaces, and replacing them with the new center of the home, the television, leads us closer to “the ultimate ambition of the Machine: the abolition of home.” As we have allowed the Machine more and more into our lives, we have lost focus. We have lost focus on building culture. We have lost the shared stories between family and friends. We have lost “self-sufficiency and agency in the place where all human stories begin: the home.” This is happening all around us. The Machine has taken root so deeply around us that we may not even notice when it becomes who we are. Ironically, sitting around a bonfire recently with a group of friends, the only topic of conversation I can recall was conversation about brain-rot videos those around the fire had seen recently. We are so lost in the “culture” of the Machine that our sacred place, a time of community and sharing stories, is being taken over by conversation about whatever the stupid video of the moment is.

I am a very nostalgic person. I romanticize my childhood, Christmas time, vacations, times where we are able to slow down—like 2020. I have always attributed this love of the past as a longing for simpler times. How could you not want to return to a time of less responsibility? When you are a child and your only task is to learn and have fun. My memories are stuck being viewed through rose-tinted glasses. I have caught myself having this feeling of nostalgia for January of this year, three short months ago. It was not until I read this chapter, a chapter about fireplaces, that I realized the root of my romanticism of the past. All of the memories I long to return to have one thing in common. They were times filled with loved ones—family and friends. It is not just times of peace, it is not just simpler times, it is time well spent. Time growing. Time living and cultivating relationships.

Home is not only a place for family and shared culture though. Home is somewhere we learn valuable life skills. Our parents are our first teachers, the ones who teach us our common sense. The ones who teach us the things that will follow us for the rest of our lives, for better or for worse. It is here, in our homes, that we can become self-sufficient. We can turn ingredients into meals, material into structures, ideas into creations. The more we allow the Machine into our home, the less self-sufficient we become. Our ingredients become microwave meals, our material becomes cheap Chinese plastic products, and our ideas don’t have time to grow—we are too busy scrolling to be creative. Kingsnorth expands on ideas from a 1980 essay from Wendell Berry titled “Family Work.” “What killed the home? Three things, said Berry back then: cars, mass media and public eduction.” Cars allowed us to travel farther than we ever could before, taking us both farther and further away from the home. Mass media has caused us to become consumers—water cooler chat about the recent episode of the popular show at the time or the inundation of commercials about the next best product (or AI!). Public education allows for government provided indoctrination, a place away from the home where children sit all day learning a curriculum their parents did not choose, learning how to become a Good Citizen and serve the Machine.

I have never been more grateful for my parents not having cable television in the house while I was growing up and for being homeschooled. There is so much more to be gained by reading this chapter of Against the Machine and I hope everyone reading this does just that. I cannot believe how affected I feel from a chapter of a book.

In an earlier chapter, Kingsnorth coins a phrase to hopefully simplify what a human culture is. The Four Ps:

1. Past: Where a culture comes from, its history and ancestry.
2. People: Who a culture is. A sense of being “a people”.
3. Place: Where a culture is. Nature in its local and particular manifestation.
4. Prayer: Where a culture is going.  Its religious tradition, which relates it to God or the gods.

While reading this book I have been thinking increasingly on what it means to be a successful family. What are the values that we subscribe to as a family? How do we know that we are achieving our goals? Where do our goals come from? What does it mean to raise a “good” kid? I’ve been discussing this a little with my wife, and there will be many more deep conversations around this topic in the future, but I think the Four Ps are a great start. First we can evaluate the past—what did our parents do right in raising us? What do we wish they did differently? What traditions do we want to carry on? Then we look at the people—what does it mean to be a member of this family? What does it mean to be a reliable community member? What does it mean to be a good parent? Next is place—where are we rooted? Where will our legacy be? Where will our family call home? Finally, prayer—how do we worship God? What does it look like to worship as a family? How can we serve the Lord in our daily lives? These are all great questions that I think everyone should ask and answer as a family.

Unfortunately, Kingsnorth rightly points out the Machine’s desire to replace this human culture with a more modern anti-culture. He calls these the Four Ss:

1. Science: Where we come from. Science can offer us a non-mythic version of this story, and assert a claim as to the true (i.e, measurable) nature of reality.
2. The Self: Who we are. The highest good is to serve the self and ensure its longevity.
3. Sex: What we do. Both the highest means of sacral pleasure and, through public expressions of “sexuality”, an affirmation of individual identity.
4. The Screen: Where we are going. The screen is both our main source of distraction from reality and the interface by which we are directed into the coming post-human reality of the Machine.

We must fight against this anti-culture. All over social media, tv, billboards, everywhere we see today’s global “culture” we hear that we deserve the next big thing, we owe it to ourselves to express our true desires, our purpose in life is to be happy. This is what we are being sold. Everything around us wants this version of the world to succeed. The screens in our house are telling us to buy more. The screens in our pockets are telling us that engagement is the most important thing, that others are constantly living their best lives and while we are at home that we are boring and missing out on what’s out there. The screens are distracting us and making us believe in things that are not true, they’re causing our depression and our brain fog.

We are leaning more and more into a surveillance state. There are nearly 3,000 Flock cameras in a small radius around our town. These cameras are tracking our movements, taking photos of our cars, the damage done to the cars, who is driving, what time you drove past it, creating a map of your commute, and logging all of that into a database that does not require a warrant to get information from. The phone in your pocket is constantly pinging for your location and reporting it back to the servers of whatever Big Tech company you may choose. The companies that are providing you these “free” services are tracking your engagement and selling your data to advertising companies so that you can buy their product and see just how little you actually have—you need more things. The algorithm is pushing you into a political extreme so that you cause a divide in your friends and become more isolated. Jack from elementary school? He’s a fascist now. Suzie from middle school? Total lib now. We must learn to take control over our technology. Technology serves us, we do not serve it.

Whether we like it or not, technology is here. It’s not going away. AI is not going away. We have a future ahead of us and technology is part of it. We have to acknowledge that, ask ourselves what our values are, and then recognize the cost of using that technology. This has been what most of the conversations I have been having with those around has been about. How do we move forward? Recognizing the cost and deciding what is worth it for you to lose is deeply personal. Your TV time at dinner is costing you family time after work. Your half hour of checking in on the news in the morning might be costing you your morning quiet time with God. Your blue light screens all around you are costing you sleep, one of the most valuable times of your day. Your constant AI use is causing your brain to de-skill and shutdown neural pathways it thinks it doesn’t need anymore—yes, this is real.

For me, the cost of being inconvenienced sometimes is worth the tradeoff of my digital privacy, my family’s attention, our security, and so much more. I am not willing to pay the cost of encroaching on the values that my family holds dear. We will continue to use technology, yes, but we will be the masters of the Machine.

How you apply all this in your own life is up to you. I think it is likely one of the most important topics that your family needs to consider moving forward into the world. You must recognize your family’s values, you must cultivate a human culture that can live on through history, you must choose what cost you’re willing to pay. There is hope in the future. There is hope even with geopolitical crises, economic downturn, mass layoffs, AI hysteria. The hope is in the humanity and the people around you. Talk to your family, talk to your neighbor, talk to your friends, and talk to your community. Take a break from the screens. Learn from Chopper—go touch grass and play frisbee.