Stapling together a few loose odds and ends here… I enjoyed this article about “atoms or bits” on The Point Mag, but in particular this line jumped out at me for the current context:
If the digital world really is overtaking our physical world, we must be willing to revisit how the physical world is governed.
This all reminds me somehow of the term anthropocene, which M-W has a short & handy definition for:
the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age…
Following on earlier discussions about the so-called “reality-based community” of GWB era, also from that era is Stephen Colbert’s coinage of truthiness (which accords very well with hyperreality):
It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that’s not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It’s certainty. People love the President [George W. Bush] because he’s certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don’t seem to exist. It’s the fact that he’s certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?
There’s something in all this for me about… the rise of human activity overtaking something something…
I’ll continue to drill down on what I mean by that something something now that I captured these three things in one place to vibrate together.
Tim B.
“mixed reality”
https://globalnews.ca/news/9557931/plastic-rocks-brazil-trindade-island/
> “Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island, located 1,140 kilometres from the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, which researchers say is evidence of humans’ growing influence over the earth’s geological cycles.”