It's also a very lonely place. Human beings are reduced to casual stimulation. No amount of information is ever enough. We don't know our neighbors.

I try as hard as I can to stay away from the internet, especially social media. Hacker News is the only exception, the only drug that I can't quit.

I sometimes wonder how the tobacco executives feel as they promote a harmful product, even while many of them do not smoke.

Detached consumerism is a disease. It is hard to cure because we are all complicit in this ailment. The internet, with its stimulating advertising and glossy social media perceptions of a flawless moment in time, is a vector for this disease. I'm not sure the internet is helping us. It may be instrumental in us hurting ourselves, and each other, instead.