“There’s more calculation going on inside the average person’s laptop than happened in the entire nation in 1950. But back then, we were processing calculations about actual subjects, for purposes that resulted in new ways of seeing and knowing. Every ten seconds a billion machines calculate themselves into infinity. But what is the result? Nothing. Words and images. Figures and opinions.

We are not really calculating anymore; the billions of calculations are about fictions and fantasies, we use them instead of newspaper or pornography. We use them instead of minds. Streams of pixels move around on well-lit displays. But the content? Mostly missing. It’s glitter and gloss, fear and foam.

There is presently more calculation going on than anyone ever imagined was possible, and nearly none of it is accomplishing anything other than generating the need for more calculation. For machines to matter, the purposes for which we employ them have to matter, and most of what we do with them … involves ever-growing involvement with ephemera and vanity.”

— infraheard