ShopTalk Sunday: Dopes on Dopamine

by

Computers, AI, Power Tools, and the Collapse of Consciousness

ShopTalk columns are generally about power tools.  But this week?  MY power tools: Computers, AI, hopelessly high caffeine levels, and an ability to suck down sugars and their EtOH kin in frankly quite remarkable portions. OK, and it’s about software, too.

But don’t be fooled. This isn’t just about generic, everyday hardware. This is about wetware — what goes on in the minds of humans.  We we’re beginning to notice the broken state of human cognition in a world gone scroll-happy and thought-resistant. What follows is a periodic Ure brain dump.  Think of today as a teardown of modern mind decay, engineered not by conspiracy, but by convenience, dopamine, and the steady dismantling of deep focus.

What I’m going to talk about won’t be popular.  But, I assure you, over time it may be hugely important to ALL of us – which is why it’s on the free part of the web.

Dopes on Dopamine: Why the Future Hates Thinkers

Let’s start with the cold truth: I’ve written more than a dozen books. Some practical (The 100-Year Toaster, How to Live on $10,000 a Year), some speculative (Dimensions Next Door), some on death (Packing to Die) and dreams (Psychocartography), plus others on DIY economics, resilience, and mind training. What do they all have in common?

They sell like lead anvils in zero gravity.

Some history here:  writing (and not as well) more than 20-years ago, people were interested.  The odd interviewer would call “Say, that’s an interesting thing you wrote about…(such and such). Want to come on the show and talk about it?”

Phones don’t ring anymore.  And email? Shotgun marketing pitches to seniors too stubborn to die, mostly.

Meanwhile, TikTok explainer videos about fermented onions and TikTok-cleanses rack up millions of views. WTF. Meanwhile, my books sit on Amazon like artifacts from some lost civilization. That’s not bitterness — that’s diagnosis.  Data tells us things, even if we don’t want to hear it.

That’s how today’s topic popped up. I manned-up and tore into the numbers. I don’t get angry but I do get CURIOUS.  I went looking for answers.

What I found was interesting

The data runs suggested the problem isn’t in my topic selection, even if at times they are old-man sour apples in our crooked modern epoch.  Nope.  It kept coming back to the audience’s cognitive capacity.

TL;DR has become “the new thing.” Shocking to me. I had proposed an ad-supported “skill dispenser” online back in 2004 and if fell on deaf ears.  Turns out the idea was just too early.

Welcome to ADHD World.

Why No One Reads: Deep Work (Or Deep Anything) has been slowly coming into focus in recent weeks. Since I have been using AI for certain things (proof-reading and such) my time has been freed up, a bit.  Time to sit back, do data runs and cogitate on what the numbers whisper.

A long-time reader told me recently, “I like your opinions better than when you use AI.”

I get it. There’s a certain voice to my ranting. But here’s the problem: AI can now write like me.  Or very nearly so. Sometimes, though, even better than me. Sometimes more Georgely than George the breather, or more Anti-Dave than even Dave dared be. This is 2025: A Data Odyssey, seems.

But the deeper issue isn’t whether something was written by human or machine.

It’s that people don’t care to engage with ideas at all, anymore.

In the Age of the Phone, writ large in the Fresh Charged Scrolls, attention has become a non-renewable resource.  Worried about climate?  You’re a sucker if you miss The Attention Wars and under-estimate its supremacy.

Your Attention has been colonized. Subsumed. Replaced by dopamine drip systems that reward novelty over nuance, feeling over framing, and speed over structure.

The Silent Pandemic: ADHD-World and the Cost of Context-Switching

Here it is, straight up: from Ure’s digital workbench, Bubba. A more dangerous epidemic than COVID-19 is already upon us.

It doesn’t spread through breath. It spreads through bandwidth. It reproduces with forwards and Likes.

It’s the neurochemical corrosion of human cognition — what I call ADHD-World. I’m willing to bet that we are seeing a new kind of disease circulating among humans. The new disease class is spread by the most unlikely vector ever: Electrons!

They were never evaluated for impact. When Marconi and Tesla sparked radio, there was no EPA of the mind. No warnings. No longitudinal studies.  Because there’s so much money involved, even regulation was totally corrupted. If you’re a med researcher? Want to write the defining papers on the cumulative impact of 5 and 6G technologies and need a little funding?  Good luck with that.  You’d have a better shot at landing pro-tobacco study money.  Seriously.

That’s how the world operates today, the signal isn’t just electromagnetic. It’s psychological, social, and systemic.

And it’s burning out the attention span of humanity.

Burn-Out Symptomology 

Most people can no longer:

  • Hold a thought for more than 12 seconds.
  • Read a full page without clicking away.
  • Distinguish analysis from emotional reaction.

Humans have evolved into Life as a processor-based interrupt mode, living like RAM with legs.

It’s subtle – but here’s a simple example: People don’t say “good-bye” on the phone, anymore.  There’s a click (that’s it) and the presumption is you’re smart enough to figure out there was an off-ramp and the person you had been talking to?  They took the exit.

This was my final tip-off that a new human disease is spreading.  And we’ll get to that in a sec.  For now, let’s mention the lifeboats.

Who Survives Digital Capsizing?

Only a few.  When the power goes, when the DNS backbone of the web goes down – when all that delish digital money evaporates and people have that Scooby moment (“Rut-roh…”), the End of Life will come slowly.  Maybe the Tower of Babel was not as purely mythical as higher ed has been selling?

  • Only those who opt out.
  • Only the freaks and throwbacks who follow:
    • My work
    • Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”
    • Digital Minimalism
  • The sacred art of turning off notifications and reclaiming signal time

These are the Neurons of Infinity still doing their job. Clinging to strong personal (non-digital) values and identities. But they’re rare. And getting rarer.

That’s OK, everything changes over time.  Is old man Ure worked up over nothing?

Here’s the  “Scares the Shit Out of Us” Part

A bigger fear than Nuclear War?  (Yes, actually. Because that’s “named enemies” country.  What we’re talking about this morning isn’t even on anyone’s radar. It doesn’t have a name – yet.

We need to back up a sec.  Understand that when I “freed up time” to use AI, I was also able to increase the depth of my research.  And this is where it got scary.  No, not the AI.  What it helped to reveal in the data. Let’s walk.

I’ve been working with two trusted MDs on a new model we’ve drafted. It suggests that ADHD isn’t just a neurological pattern — it may be a burn-in condition caused by electronic overstimulation. The paper is on the Peoplenomics side and it’s being submitted to journals.  But the critical part of the concept and the accompanying meta-study?

We believe that constant input, context switching, and data overload may eventually lead to a kind of glycogen starvation reaction manifesting as a symptom-cluster) in the  human brain. You can think, sure. You can hyperfocus, yes. But over time? You burn out.

ADHD is possibly the leading-edge of a human adaptation to habitual electronic over-stimulation. Think of it like “developing a callous” in certain regions of the brain.  The initial work suggests that ADHD may paret of a continuum into later-life degenerative conditions (ALZ/VD). A further paper I’ve begun to pencil out may look for additional data such as the relative-frequency of ADHD in persons who are APOE-4 positive.

What begins to fade – almost a ghostly apparition for now – is a long-term process of adaptation which is initially impacting our human population via degeneration.

A Missing Piece in the ALZ Puzzle

If you’re Aging, you may have heard about the link between ALZ and:

  • Gut biome
  • Oral hygiene
  • Glucose metabolism (Bredesen’s work, et al.)

But what no one’s talking about – and why we want to tip you off to it in advance, so you can be looking for data yourself, is this:

Go back to the data.  Follow Bredesen, et al.  ALZ acts (sort of) like a sugar reaction. Keto has occasionally been successful as an intermediate tactic.

Think back along the trail.  From the Brain to the gut.  From the Gut to the oral hygiene.  What feeds the decay bacteria?  (Gold star if you said “sugars and complex carbs?” Gingivitis variants throwing chemicals down the chow pipe? Poisoning gut biome function on arrival down low? Tangling tau’s shortly thereafter?

Seems to us like there’s a path.  But to cure (not just treat) we need to trace causality.

What causes the complex carb and sugar craving in the first place? (Asks the guy who’s dinner last night was Scotch and pizza…testing a “biome cycling theory…“)

What if Aging, Dementia, and that whole “pre-Death cloud” isn’t strictly diet, stress, or poor impulse control?

What if it’s cognitive overstimulation that increases the brain’s need for rapid fuel (sugar) and stimulant (caffeine) so it can keep up with all the damn tabs open?

The consequence? Chronic inflammation. Glycation. Insulin resistance. And eventually, cognitive crash.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)?  My sense is that it should be taken out of the human food supply like lead paint.  But I’m a non-doc, old biz geek in late life doing retirement research in a digital workshop.

Like 5G and 6G dangers, no one’s going to do much about this potential LONG LINK DISEASE pathology.  Not while everyone’s still mainlining sugar and buzz for context-switching like it’s high flow rate oxygen which is leading to gum disease and modifying gut biome which in turn drives brain burn-out but at least in the data world, things point (extensibly) over yonder.

From Amazon’s Basement to Infinity’s Workshop

So yeah, my books don’t sell. But they weren’t written for clicks or chicks. They were written for the 1 in 1,000 who still want to:

  • Out-think dying for a while longer
  • Think across time
  • Break the trance
  • Build resilient thought systems
  • And walk the long road of inner development (‘cuz we can take that with us…)

If that’s you? Welcome. You’re not a dopamine addict. Or, at least you really can quit “Any time I feel like it.”  Translation: You’re a (still-functional) neuron in the divine network.

You’re not just sucking air to scroll, share and troll for Likes.

“What’s the Plan?”

Damned if I know.  Here’s the deal: I think we can slow-the-roll of Compu-Madness while the long-chain pathology tones up.

  • Keep reading long-form.
  • Keep building tools (mental, physical, and spiritual).
  • Turn off what you can.
  • Take your sugar intake seriously.
  • Get curious about your real self beneath the noise. Hint: the digital you is a facade.

And remember: You are not a sheep. You are a signal processor for cosmic awareness. Consciousness is for tunneling and sensing all the Realities in all the spaces, throughout all the times of the Universe.  There’s enough work product for AI and humans – even working together (which I advocate) – to never explore the whole of Everything.  It’s all just too big and complicated.

Are you still reading?

Congratulations. At least you passed the initial attention test. You ain’t one of them.

Thank you.

(We’ll do the low vision article next week…this seemed more important to feed to the 3 people who still read and think deeply.)

Write when you get rich,

George@ure.net

64 thoughts on “ShopTalk Sunday: Dopes on Dopamine”

  1. “Let’s start with the cold truth: I’ve written more than a dozen books. Some practical (The 100-Year Toaster, How to Live on $10,000 a Year), some speculative (Dimensions Next Door), some on death (Packing to Die) and dreams (Psychocartography), plus others on DIY economics, resilience, and mind training. What do they all have in common?”

    “They sell like lead anvils in zero gravity.”

    G.A. STEWART: Back in the year 2007, I paid approximately $20.00 per year for the Domain Name for this website and that was it. I wrote the code myself and then uploaded my posts directly to the hosting server. It was easy and fun, and this website’s audience grew to over 50,000 people. Major publishers look for those kinds of numbers for book sale potentials, but I have sold less than a thousand books in that same time period, mainly because most people surfing the Internet want their shit for free, and also the real readers are nearly an extinct species.

    https://theageofdesolation.com/2025/05/05/the-ghost-of-josiah/

    • A late reply but I wonder why you feel this way?

      “Supergirl (TV series) now playing on Italian TV.
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supergirl_(TV_series)

      It seems Super woke to me.”

      Can women not love women, men not love men without being burdened by the woke label? So many of you post incessantly about the deep bond and love you have for your partner. Imagine for a moment where this was regarded as outside the norm….you’re quite happy to embrace an imagined world where people have incredible other worldly super powers – but not the power to love, unconditionally?

      What if this world is the anti-reality??

    • Stu, as I further read into you comment…..
      …most people surfing the Internet want their shit for free (and be entertained in their short attention span theatre as thinking and remembering is hard) and also the real (intelligent and curious english language thinkers) readers (have always been a minority and are (now, thanks to ‘information’ overload) nearly an extinct species.

      I prefer to read well printed and bound books over the glowing screen.
      Printed your book, put it in a three ring binder.

      • I too have an almost impossible time reading a book on a screen. A short article I am OK with, a book and my eyes glaze over during the second page.

        I tried to be like Phil and print out your book … but it was WAY too long (too many pages) and would NOT LOAD so I could print it out.

        Personally I think you need to break it apart into at least 3, 4, or even 5 Volumes would be better!!

        If you don’t want to find a publisher who will provide printed copies for a price, they too would probably insist on breaking it down to 400 to max 500 pages per volume, that way at least the buyers of your book could print the various volumes out on their own.

        Who here would have even started to read “Moby Dick” if it was 2000 pages long? …. Yet people have read multiple volumes of the Harry Potter series that add up to many thousands of pages, the difference being that each one is limited to just a few hundred pages.

        5 volumes of your book in a PRINTED format for $35 or even $50 each imo makes more sense for most actual readers than $25 for the whole thing but which then REQUIRES you to read it on a computer. (which I just can NOT physically do)

  2. You are onto something. More please.
    The TV was called the idiot box for good reason, Watch it enough and you’ll become an idiot. Its conditioning ability has been fully monetized, destroying its utility to the viewer. Now days not having one’s eyes and/or ears glued to a mobile idiot box is an anomaly. Even the young grandkids have idiotpads. Constant battle to get them to live life, not just passively watch some synthesized life that they will never have. Almost zero TV and no idiot pads allowed at our home.
    They are OK if used a little, for positive purposes. Like drinking just only in moderation. They are designed to be addictive.

    On private party Colorado River trips it was entertaining watching young ones go thru their wireless access withdrawal. Have to actually interact with fellow humans face to face, have actual conversations. Some were just too far gone. Nowadays too many carry personal sat phones.

    Need to start a go without cell/internet access for a day holiday. Kind of a mental detox.

      • re: “The Shining”, 1970
        feat: pa namiTsu (“Universal Tri-Light”?)

        JC,
        Public White House schedules inform that President Trump carried out his weekend activities at the Trump Bedminster Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ. which is allegedly taxed as farmland thanks to haymaking. (According to the “New Yorker”, the late Mrs. Ivana Trump rests in a specially consecrated private area behind the first tee.) It seems the estate had previously belonged to the late John DeLorean perhaps best remembered as the “Back to the Future” car manufacturer. Apparently Bedminster is named after Bedminster, UK whose post-Roman era moniker of “Beydd” may have meant “to baptize”.

        As chance would have it, the most recent update to the Trump property “Wikipedia” entry was made at 2357 Friday night by an editor from New Zealand with the handle Panamitsu which at a guess might translate as “Universal Tri-Light”. A date template was adjusted to the American practice of m/d/y formatting. Panamitsu’s public title page pays homage to Leonardo daVinci, and he claims to lifelog and digitally quantities his self. He also edits New Zealand earthquake pages.

        Subsequently the USGS recorded a 3.0 earthquake rattling the New York region at 2215 Saturday evening August 2nd centered at Hasbrouck Heights, Bergen County, NJ. The town had adopted that name on August 2, 1894. Previously it had been known as Corona (“Crown”). As an aside, the first presumptive case of coronavirus in New Jersey was traced to Bergen County on March 3, 2020.

        Meanwhile back at Trump Bedminster on Saturday, the President is reported to have won the 2025 Men’s Senior Club Championship tournament. Fore!

  3. George, this post is top shelf, pure gold, one of your best ever!

    I went the car dealership last month for an oil change, waited in the waiting room. There were four or five other people on average, as one would leave, another would arrive.

    I was there for two hours, and during that time period I was the only one not staring into the “abyss” of the cellphone, and they all had the same expressions on their faces… BLANK.

      • Hyper space awaits Us all .

        Whats holding youse back ? Machine Elves ?
        No worries, they just be warning beacons, ignore and find out for Ureself.

        Hear – listen to the program about OG psychonaught – Big Bob Monroe- of Monroe Institute fame – https://youtu.be/xyAbIyYMzDk?si=CbhkSXLhBpwByAiA

        Digital Prison System seems pretty lame in comparison to what BBM is talking about, pretty lame indeed.

        Mr Mojo Risen – Break On Thru -https://youtu.be/KgRcOgtkgLY?si=4UEBN0nqhhHMHVnJ

      • Smartphones (on a public hotspot) make waiting queues entertaining and productive. City folks learn not to emote while web surfing in public places. It draws unwanted attention from poker-faced weasels looking for a reason to screw someone, anyone.

    • Sheep, Antelope and Wildebeasts ..

      Can youse say, “Ease of Herd Management”

      We are not the ONLY ones in Universe who “torture”/mis-treat their Food prior to consumption..

      All part of the “System” to keep Humans “DOMESTICATED”..Dont look up..what ever you do, dont do that.

    • I think this may have started before phones. Remember years ago when subliminal messaging in tv shows and commercials was a thing. I remember reading shows/movies/commercials would intentionally change scenes every few seconds because it would cause psychological stimulation and help keep us tuned in (sorta hypnotized). Back then they were blaming this on why kids couldn’t sit still for story time in school because they had become over stimulated from this technique used on kid’s tv shows and commercials. Interestingly, they also said Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood was the only show that didn’t participate in this kind of manipulation.

    • As you sit in the room with 5 other people maybe some of them were actually making use of thier time. But are you aware that almost every time you are offered a chair you are also subjected to a tv screen? Discounting the audio and video drivel you are subjected to there is the constant electro/magnetic pollution delivered in a certain frequency range.

    • As you sit in the room with 5 other people maybe some of them were actually making use of thier time. But are you aware that almost every time you are offered a chair you are also subjected to a tv screen? Discounting the audio and video drivel you are subjected to there is the constant electro/magnetic pollution delivered in a certain frequency range.

    • Went to Berryville VA W4RKC hamfest this AM and actually talked to some people! One guy same age, we both took DC area correspondence courses and went into electronics circa 1963… Others, about old comm stuff.

  4. An addiction which is being promoted. Gee why, I ask, since most other addiction is looked down upon……makes one think

  5. “You are a signal processor for cosmic awareness”

    Thank you – this was a gem for me.

    Have to agree with your thoughts. Most people are just ‘jacked in’ to the Big Thought and want to be entertained. I also notice the vast blank faces of humanity as I go about my life. They won’t be ready when its no longer available, having missed the time available to them.

    I’ve come to conclusion that its all really a CAFO – confined animal feeding operation. Which generally does not end well for the livestock…

    • Not a single day day passes in Anti-Christian America were we aren’t told that Sodomy is glorious, abortion is progress, deception is smart, fraud is rich, and revision is good.

      The Malicious turned the Sins into Virtues.

      1st Time in History that ineffectiveness of a Medicine is being blamed on those who havent taken it..”selfish bastards”- (M in SF)

      In case all you all didnt realize, the PTB that run this planet remotely, are very MALICIOUS.

  6. “This is about wetware — what goes on in the minds of humans… the broken state of human cognition… modern mind decay… my books sit on Amazon like artifacts from some lost civilization… people don’t care to engage with ideas at all, anymore.”

    People today have been engineered to live in a pervasive and chosen general state of laziness and shallowness that they then self-create into a personalized comfortable custom-made prison that applauds and celebrates their laziness and warms them within their cowardice and refusal to live useless and purposeful and thoughtful lives.

    This degraded state of being becomes a self-perpetrating doom-loop of physical, mental, and spiritual imprisonment. And once the prisoners have learned to love and self-identify with their self-constructed-and-maintained prison of comfort and sloth and lack of inspiration… they soon no longer can conceive of any other way to live. In fact, if they could perceive an elevated state they would fear it and seek to destroy that as too threatening to their perverse and self-defeating lifestyle and way of being.

    That’s what you’re up against.

    Voltaire wrote, “God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

    And today it can be said that God is Witness to an audience that has forgotten how to think. (And then, how to FEEL — authentically).

    • The Doors – Strange Days

      “Unhappy Girl”

      Unhappy girl
      Left all alone
      Playing solitaire
      Playing warden to your soul
      You are locked in a prison
      Of your own devise

      • The Eagles from Already Gone.

        “So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains
        And we never even know we have the key”

        • Exactly..each and every single one of us..are Bound and chained to our position in society.. each has their own concerns.. most hide their issues with a public mask..
          many people see others with their masks.. take the siblings neighborhood.. the position they are in..it has its privileges and benefits..yet they to are stuck in their own section of society facing a set of situations and concerns that others in other positions of the classes wouldn’t ever know how to deal with.. its all appearances.. the mask the worries that each has.. in a lot of ways I am grateful for the things that I have had to deal with..without them I would never have learned the things that I was forced to learn..

  7. Hi, George!
    I agree with JC – this was one of your BEST posts ever! Almost drove me to tears. I was yelling “Yes!” at the computer, LOL. I had a discussion with my late spouse over and over through the years on the observation that we always seemed to be trying to communicate with zombies. Nobody could or wanted to talk about personal theories or concepts regarding anything.
    Recently, I had a song “earworm” going through my head. Joni Mitchell’s
    “Big Yellow Taxi.” Especially the line “Don’t it always seem to go – you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” The next day I went to an out of town restaurant, and their sound system was playing that song. Not sure what the odds of that were. I mentioned that at a gathering with some of my acquaintances a few nites later. I was trying to initiate a conversation about synchronicity. Instead, I got the standard “deer in the headlights” look, followed by someone saying, “Speaking of restaurants, has anyone been to…..?” Whenever Nick or I would try to start a discussion with a potential friend couple on economics, politics, metaphysics, religion, gardening, engineering, etc, etc, we’d get the same blank look, and then the female would say, “Hey, you want to see some pics of the grandkids?” or the male would say, “Did you see the game Saturday? How about them Vols?!” And we would gaze at each other and mentally mutter, “Next!”
    So, as slick Willy would say, “I feel your pain.” Your daily doses of wisdom and those of your many wonderful commenters keep me sane.

    • Whenever Nick or I would try to start a discussion with a potential friend couple on economics, politics, metaphysics, religion, gardening, engineering, etc, etc, we’d get the same blank look, and then the female would say, “Hey, you want to see some pics of the grandkids?” or the male would say, “Did you see the game Saturday? How about them Vols?!”

      I understand.

      I was at a party where there were lot of Americans from a U.S. base, both military and civilian positions. It was during Trump’s first term.

      I asked a woman there what she thought about Trump, her eyes immediately glazed over and she said, “Trump? Oh, he’s an idiot.”

      I replied, “Would you like some more wine?

      I mentioned Stu’s Nostradamus work to a couple of people, one said very matter-of-fact like, “Oh, he’s just another conspiracy theorist.”

      The other said very adamantly, “He’s a nut job!”

      So much for stimulating conversation…

  10. I will die human.

    Not “borgged,” not “enhanced,” not “resequenced” or “extended” or “improved.” I’ll just be plain old inefficient me. Warts and all. I don’t want an A.I. thinking assistant embedded speedy on-line chip, or an implanted 9G cell phone.

    My partner and I HAD to have two of those new Texas Instruments calculators VERY early when they first came out, about 17,000 years ago, with their teensy-tiny fierccly red LED seven segment displays. They were crazy-expensive, hundreds of dollars, but we needed them most urgently. Simply HAD to have them… NOW!!

    We rapidly grow dependent on these sorts of things. The first time I semi-concsciously reached for my calculator when confronted with “6 x 8,” I knew I was in trouble. My daughter can no longer find her way ANYWHERE without her cell and WAZE.

    I’ve mellowed since then. A.I., if embedded and installed in me will reduce some of my God-given me-ness. Mostly, I try to “take the stairs” now-a-days.

    No thanks, for my enhanced brain.

    I’ll go meet Jesus as a linear analog human.

    With a few all-natural exponential and logrhythmic processing facilities…

  11. I went to lunch last week with 3 other women from my woman’s group. Two recently joined and I asked them out to lunch to get to know them better. I came home overstimulated and said that was an ADHD lunch. The conversation just popped from topic to topic, mostly all junk like weather, achy fingers (I rolled my eyes), people I don’t know, complaints about people taking too much free stuff, garage sale finds. Even with asking questions I felt like I didn’t get to know much about them. It was like scrolling on a phone.

    I commented after Christmas that I had a seatmate on my airplane ride back that had read many of the same books I had, and wanted to discuss them. I was so excited. Rarely do I find people who want to think about ideas.

    During covid I needed physical therapy. I was reading Jorden Peterson’s book about 12 steps to a better life. (I forget the actual title.) I talked about his book everytime I went to therapy, or talked about some classics I was reading, to anyone who would listen. I had different therapists, and some found it interesting, but one wrote on my evaluation something about me overtaking conversations.

    I recently typed up 700 or so pages of stuff I had written in my 40s and 50s. My speaking vocabulary was much more complex than it is today. Have you noticed that people use fewer words in their conversations than they used to? I enjoy reading Science Fiction from my youth because the vocabulary is much richer than today’s novels.

    I spend way too much time on my phone, George. Thanks for pointing it out.

  12. “Distinguish analysis from emotional reaction.”

    Most everything is emotion driven. Why did people vote for Trump?

    ‘Jail Hillary’ worked.

    The thought of tossing out illegals/other memes worked but in reality:

    “DOJ is walking back the White House’s goal to arrest 3,000 immigrants per day”

    Just yesterday, “Trump tells Schumer to ‘go to hell'” Ohhh, whhh…

    What does a pedophile look like?

  13. Wow, George!
    Today’s column was one of the very BEST in YEARS. I went so far as to print it to process it for deeper thinking. Point one: the future doesn’t hate thinkers, the present already does. As a “quasi-outlier” in your comment section, I like to state this:
    A massive coordinated effort is underway to distract the population from discovering the truth about our origin, purpose, and ultimate destination.
    AI is an excellent tool of distraction. It leaves thinking to machines, dumbs down the population, and eventually will suck up about 90% of electric power worldwide to push us back to using candlelight, leaving us proud of our smart move.
    If all goes as planned, someone would have to invent “Artificial Stupidity, AS” to maintain the Status Quo.
    My recently published book delves into the subject of consciousness: There is a clean line from the birth of our universe to the development of instinct, then the emergence of the bicameral mind, to the onset of human consciousness about 3,000 years ago, soon to be replaced by an emerging “universal consciousness” that will dissolve all earthly invented illusions. The result will be surpassing AI by a factor of millions.
    My plan was always to educate myself to the best of my ability living and workingin three different countries on two continents, and to travel to about 30 other countries on three continents.
    As you proposed, I am reading long-form.
    I keep building mental, physical, and spiritual tools.
    I turn off all I can.
    I take my sugar intake seriously, aiming for only one pound per week.
    I stay away from (anti-)Social Media as much as I can
    I already discovered 86% of my authentic self. ;-)
    I am utilizing conscious awareness and, increasingly, “universal consciousness” to navigate all spaces throughout the universe’s timeline, which constitutes only half of the total (known as the “Dualverse”). Only those who read my book will begin to grasp this concept.
    How do “they” say? “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, BUT UNDERSTANDING IS THE ELIXIR OF LIFE,” the latter is credited to Mike Dooley, some time ago.
    Thank you again for your excellent, thought-provoking, and captivating column. GWF

      • If you look at what people spend money on, the stuff that continues on generation after generation, most of it has some kind of physical or psychological hook to it. For some, spending OPM (Other Peoples Money) with credit cards and loans fuels an adrenaline fix. Opiate receptors are well document; I have to wonder if there aren’t sugar and deadbeat receptors ?

        • Credit cards..That I believe is why we haven’t hit bottom..easy credit … everyone I know has been making do with the plastic ..

  15. I had a friend that got very depressed regarding some personal issues, and his “drug” of choice was Twinkies. A box of Twinkies everyday. He destroyed himself with sugar. Vicious diabetes and other things…

    Got a toe infection, went in a hospital for surgery on the toe and died on the operating table. He was only 40 years old.

  17. Now my Win11 computers apply updates and reboot when they (anthropomorphization) want too.

    I’ve disabled updates, tweaked the registry, killed the services & dependent services, yet updates persist. My computer behaves more & more like a thin client being managed.

    Sure, what kind of nut wouldn’t want their computer up to date – bad actors are everywhere.

    And another thing! Yahoo has been trying to convince (anthropomorphization) me to let him/her scan my face for added log-in security and convenience. Softening the target or genuine concern for my well being from bad actors?

    Soon YT will become unusable unless we consent to an Internet ID/face scan. Manufactured consent that is. You can feel it in yer cockles.

  18. re: from “Trail of the Ancients Byway”
    feat: to “Capital of the World”

    George,
    Fine! I will endeavor to sit down and finish reading my copy of “Wish I Were Here – Boredom and the Interface”, 2019, by University of Toronto philosophy professor Dr. M. Kingwell. Professor Kingwell “turns to philosophy for a cure to the widespread unease that something is amiss in waking life”.

    The title’s front cover features a 60’s era postcard portraying a (33 room) roadside motel on Route 66 coinciding locally with the path of “Trail of the Ancients Byway” through Gallup, N.M. The postcard reverse featured on the cover overleaf reflects being mailed exactly 41 years following the 1929 Wall Street Crash to a still-extant edifice in Washington, Pa., whose city motto reserves title as “Capital of the World”. The aging grand old home address is now subdivided into a rental triplex a short walk from The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791. Speaking of 1929 and Gallup, astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker was born in the town becoming famous co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 which crashed into Jupiter in 1993.

    Let’s tread lightly over to the studio where DJ George is dusting off the phonograph for a 50th anniversary retrospective of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” album release. Top up the water bottle and hold your calls for an uninterrupted listen to “Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Parts 1-9” seguing into “Welcome to the Machine”.

  19. One of your best, Damned Well Done.
    Although my 28 novels cover a number of non-fantasy genres, none are making much money. Amazon and Facebook ads do generate a sales bump but frequently don’t break even. When I offer a book for free, the orders jump, but other books in the series don’t find many takers.
    Part of the problem is the million+ books a year Amazon adds, and those who only read free books.
    Lucky for me, I never expected to get rich from my writing.

  20. (“books sit on Amazon like artifacts from some lost civilization. That’s not bitterness — that’s diagnosis. Data tells us things, even if we don’t want to hear it.
    That’s how today’s topic popped up. I manned-up and tore into the numbers. I don’t get angry but I do get CURIOUS. I went looking for answers.
    What I found was interesting
    The data runs suggested the problem isn’t in my topic selection, even if at times they are old-man sour apples in our crooked modern epoch. “)

    the same thing with the evening news… use to be mom and dad sat read and discussed the daily news.. or the supper table and how families sat around the dinner table..or mom home with the kids.. it is the business model when the USA outsourced industry for profits..mom had to go to work..leaving the kids to daycare ( if they can afford it) latch key kids was born their adult presence is mainstream media with hundreds of murders rapes bashing and the glorification of criminal acts as entertainment.. the local gangs as the ones the look up to. low wages multiple jobs. my average workweek was a hundred hours a week hell year was 140 plus..the news on the drive at five as they are moving from one job to another.. for the last three months I’ve been doing classes got about five hundred pages of just test questions I have written out..this won’t give me a license but a cert. that will allow me to make 14 dollars an hour and 24 hours a month. the business model that has kids making a quarter mill using the sidewalks as toilets.. the average home at twenty dollars clear an hour.. until it flips and the business model changes..it will only get worse. college unaffordable medical system so badly broken I don’t know if it can be fixed..our priorities moved from the one where everyone was proud of their community to one where they feel so bad they bury themselves in drugs to numb the feelings of despair.
    pink Floyd
    https://youtu.be/_FrOQC-zEog?si=5YG3Qpw3DvIcexJ4

  21. Outstanding column today ( and comments ). Scared me to death….
    I sometimes feel like the spotters in the crow’s nest on the Titanic – death and destruction dead ahead- and there ain’t a damned thing we can do about it.

  22. Meanwhile, TikTok explainer videos about fermented onions and TikTok-cleanses rack up millions of views. WTF

    I joined the ranks of the twits when Elon released Grok. I make about one post per week on X. My posts are similar, but simpler than they are here, with smaller words and easier concepts (one must play to one’s audience. Except for the trolls, the “audience” here is demonstrably more-intelligent and better-able to grok complex concepts than the narcissist twits on X.) Without fail, every time I post, I gain ~4-14 followers. IMO it wouldn’t take long for a dedicated poster who exhibited either intelligent or interesting concepts, and proffered them in a manner that the average clinical imbecile could grasp, to have a sufficient number of followers that they could “go viral” at will. This would apply to TikTok, Instagram, or Whatsapp, and probably niche apps like Snapchat, as well. It is incredibly inane and superfluous, and totally without meaning, and people spend many months of their waking hours, building followers so they can go viral and monetize stupidity.

  23. A long-time reader told me recently, “I like your opinions better than when you use AI…” I get it. There’s a certain voice to my ranting. But here’s the problem: AI can now write like me. Or very nearly so.

    Yeah — no. We prefer your opinion “straight up” rather than diluted or chased by the flat soda of AI because your opinion contains and exhibits YOUR PERSONALITY — something AI cannot duplicate or forge. AI is a tool, not a substitute.

    We come here for many reasons, but we stay here because of George Ure. Don’t ever forget this…

  24. I’ve been working with two trusted MDs on a new model we’ve drafted. It suggests that ADHD isn’t just a neurological pattern — it may be a burn-in condition caused by electronic overstimulation.

    IMO ADD/ADHD has always existed. When we were single-digit schoolkids, a lack of focus was adjusted by a rap across the knuckles with a ruler or pointer. Some kids required several years of “adjustment,” but virtually everyone eventually learned how to focus for as long as our teachers, parents, and bosses required. Before schools were common, life itself “cured” ADHD. (You learned patience and focus, or you died — end of problem and a datapoint for Charles Darwin.) ADD/ADHD became a significant social issue with the advent of the prescription drug culture and the elimination of corporal punishment in the schools.

    • Agreed, Ray – and I I noted in our paper, names like Leonardo com to mind.
      But, what5 hasn’t been present before is the depths of social media depravity, the cravings for me-mwe recognition and the palmtop genius that makes the dopamine hits so much more readily available. Ergo, the concern that the attention disease is working up the gut bioo, to the mouth and to complex carbs and sugar fwrom whence a fantastic loop back will occur….

      • Okay — I can buy that.

        BTW, I find it absolutely amazing, that people aged from 7 to 77 (and then some) can piss away hours, every single day, watching TV shows, vids, Netflix crap I wouldn’t want a stevedore to watch, etc. and then ask a really stupid or arcane question of someone like me, when they have the best and fastest library resource in the history of the known universe, in their hand. I get this every day, and usually from guys & gals in their 30s, 40s, and 50s — people who allegedly “grew up with technology.” I invariable haul out my cellphone (if it’s on me), hit the mic icon, and ask the phone the question, then playback the answer for the dumbass that can’t tear his(her) eyes away from the stupid cat video they’re watching. I often get a blush or sheepish look from the wannabee idiot, but they apparently never learn this fabulous and well-hidden trick for themselves, because we do a “rinse & repeat” about every 2nd or 3rd time I’m around. This rarely happens with my own kids, but is a daily occurrence when I’m amongst their peer groups. I can not get them to understand that electronic devices detract from “the human experience,” and I especially can’t get folks to understand that group intellect always seeks the least common denominator of that group…

  25. (“What if it’s cognitive overstimulation that increases the brain’s need for rapid fuel (sugar) and stimulant (caffeine) so it can keep up with all the damn tabs open?
    The consequence? Chronic inflammation. Glycation. Insulin resistance. And eventually, cognitive crash.
    High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)? “)

    Or is it that while we live In a world increasingly shaped by outsourced industries and profit-driven models, the everyday individual is often reduced to a statistic enslaved dependent —stripped of agency and tethered to social programs designed less for empowerment than for control. Stress and poverty intertwine, driving people to seek comfort in junk food not as nourishment, but as a fleeting refuge from systemic instability . Like echoes from authoritarian playbooks, dependency becomes a tool. first offered as salvation, then weaponized to enforce obedience, as resources are siphoned upward to those who see only numbers, not lives. you dont see people sitting around the dinner table. junk food or comfort food the quick burger between jobs.. the bill collectors at medical systems all willing to destroy what little security you have..mothers in tears as their children are turned away..In the shadow of Philadelphia—the birthplace of American liberty—freedom has become a haunting irony. Streets once echoing with revolutionary ideals now bear witness to a new kind of bondage: young men and women numbed by addiction, their bodies slumped like forgotten statues in a city that promised hope. The opioid crisis, fueled by synthetic fentanyl and economic despair, has turned neighborhoods into open-air morgues, while the dreamers who sought to rise above are shackled by student loans engineered to keep them tethered to a system that profits from their struggle…These debts, disproportionately crushing communities of color, are not just financial burdens—they are instruments of control, designed to suppress upward mobility and reinforce a caste of quiet desperation. In this landscape, the pursuit of education becomes a trap, and the promise of freedom a cruel mirage. Yet even here, amid the ruins, the human spirit flickers—seeking ways to reclaim dignity, truth, and the power to dream beyond the chains…
    Now I seen the other side.. went for ten days and couldn’t believe that life like that actually existed..it was obvious they didn’t have a clue to..for them in that lifestyle it doesn’t exist.instead what they see is people not being oppressed and victimized they see people not wanting to succeed or exist. everyone in their world wants what they have..when in reality just like Adolph wrote so many years ago..the average person only wants to feed their family. not be humiliated and attacked non stop because their child is sick.“worthless eaters” is often attributed to Nazi ideology, where it was used to dehumanize those deemed unproductive or burdensome to the state—particularly the disabled, elderly, and marginalized. While Henry Kissinger himself did not use that exact term in official documents, his 1974 report—National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200)—has drawn criticism for its cold, strategic framing of population control in developing nations..the quiet unraveling of America’s soul, the wealthy have perfected a system that dehumanizes its people not through overt chains, but through the slow erosion of dignity. Families are fractured—mothers pulled from their homelands in search of survival, while children are left to be raised by screens that pulse with the ideology of mainstream media. Prime-time dramas and sensationalized news cycles numb the minds of the most vulnerable, conditioning them to accept violence, apathy, and consumerism as normal. The young, once full of fire and dreams, are shackled by student loans designed to keep them docile—economic servitude masked as opportunity. In cities like Philadelphia, the birthplace of freedom, the streets echo with the silence of forgotten promises, where addiction replaces aspiration and the American dream decays into a corporate hallucination. The elite, perched in their towers, see only data points—not the broken bodies or the fading spirits below.
    https://youtu.be/R_KO90n6KJ4?si=pxeuPxFASf2lUL7v
    now while I was vacationing in never land.. the wonderful land of OZ.. we went to a grocery store.. nice place ..there’s of the workers.. I could see it..I asked my sibling..have you ever thought of just asking how are you..not once I stead I heard comments that suggested no one wanted to know..what was obvious to me was not to them.instead they sit vulnerable to those that only see them as their next fling..

  26. Then there’s what I call the street sharks… or bar sharks..They circle silently, like sharks beneath moonlit waves—ruthless souls who wear charm like a mask, waiting for the moment a young woman or man reaches out, aching for connection, for love, for something real. And in that vulnerable breath, the predator strikes—not with teeth, but with sweet words and false promises, drawing them into a web spun from desire and deceit. Once the thrill is taken or their victim realizes that they never were intending to be their savior, they vanish, leaving behind shattered trust, hollow hearts, and wounds that bleed long after the encounter fades some destroy happy marriages that became routine and rather than seeking communication from their spouse are blurred into believing that they could spice up their life. What the shark called affection was nothing but a lie; what they left behind was devastation destroyed relationships and broken trust. The young soul, once radiant with hope, now carries the weight of betrayal, questioning their worth, their safety, their very humanity worthiness questioned—while the predator moves on, untouched, unrepentant, seeking the next light to extinguish.
    no people for the most part are struggling to survive..

  27. (“TikTok explainer videos about fermented onions and TikTok-cleanses rack up millions of views. “)
    I have never tried that..made like sourkraut..
    the probiotics has to be amazing.. the Amish have great pickled vegetables
    4 cups chopped vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, green beans, cucumbers, etc.) you can add or subtract vegetables.
    3 garlic cloves
    1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
    2 tsp pickling spice or your own blend (mustard seeds, dill, coriander)
    2 tbsp sea salt
    1 quart filtered water
    Layer garlic and vegetables into a clean wide-mouth jar, leaving 1–2 inches of headspace.
    Add spices between layers for flavor.
    Make brine: dissolve salt in water and pour over vegetables until just covered.
    Release air bubbles with a spatula or chopstick.
    Weigh down veggies to keep submerged.
    Cover loosely with a lid or cloth.
    Ferment at room temperature (60–75°F) for 4–7 days. Taste daily after day 4.
    Refrigerate once desired flavor is reached. Keeps for months.

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