[ExI] mazlow's heirarchy of needs

[spike]

Well, I discovered that bigshot psychologist Mazlow is completely screwed
up, or at least grossly outdated.  He is that guy who came up with that list
of needs you and I studied in our misspent youths in freshman psychology
101.  He identified the necessities, air, food, shelter and so on, and how
we work on these needs and keep going down the list until we get to the
final need, self-actualization.  Well, clearly he missed something very
important, an information pipe.  Friday my internet connection went down.
Down dooby doo down down,, down dooby doo down down.  

 

That rock star guy never did explain why he thought it necessary to insert
two consecutive commas between the third and the fourth downs.  But he does
it consistently throughout, and I can't even find out his name or listen to
a Youtube of the song.

 

Suddenly I discovered it is really worse than having about thirty IQ points
whacked off, owwwww damn.  And it cuts them off the top, rather than the
bottom.  I would let the bottom 30 go, but these top thirty IQ points are
the smart ones.  No internet, no email, no phone.  (.no lights, no motor
cars, not a single luxury.)  I realized I can do without lights and cars,
because I still have candles and a bicycle and besides my computer screen
emits light, but I cannot do without email or ESPECIALLY the internet!  I
was to help Natasha and Max with a conference this past weekend, knew the
address but I didn't know where the place was, and couldn't find out, so I
had my neighbor google on H+ venue and she printed out the directions, but
somehow it was the directions to Max and Natasha's hotel.  Doh!  So I
somehow managed to find the place using spoken word directions, oy vey!  If
not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Lincoln would be lost.

 

Mazlow was nuts!  Without internet I can't even google to find out if I am
spelling his name right, might be Maslow!  Or Maslo!  Now I need to drive
over to McDonalds and get on their wifi hotspot just to collect and send my
email once a day!  Never mind doing all the info-grazing that I do on a
daily basis, similar to what I have been doing for the past about 15 years,
all of that is suddenly switched off.  I feel so primitive, so unevolved,
like some simian knuckle dragger, swinging from a vine and making comments
such as "graaaarrrrrgh" while devouring bananas and grubs.  I feel like Hal
when Dave Bowman was popping out his memory modules.  I suddenly feel dumber
than a bag of hammers, without form and void, more ignorant than some
primordial slimy eukaryotic lifeform in a precambrian amino-acid rich tide
pool, seeking other primitive single-celled organisms to devour,  wriggling
and oozing about in all its refulgent wretchedness, but having long since
retired its paper dictionary, utterly unable to look up the definition of
such interesting terms as "refulgent."  But uses it anyway.  Without the
internet, I am cut off from all linguistic resources, lacking all tools for
more colorful and picturesque speech.  I feel just.lost. like some kind of.
not-found. guy. who like.doesn't know. where he.like.is.  Or nothing.

 

So now we need to redo Maz(s)low's list.  Air.  Water.  Food.  I honestly
don't know what comes next, it's either internet or shelter, probably
depending on the local climate and weather conditions at the moment, but it
internet is higher than sex.  A Malibu mansion without internet is to me
less comfortable than a sturdy cardboard box with high speed fiber optic,
especially if it is not too snowy.

 

I have half a mind to call him up and tell him the way it is:  Mazlow!  You
are all wet, man!  Fortunately for him, I can't look up his number because
my internet is down, and so is my phone.

 

And that self-actualization bit, forget that!  What is the opposite of
self-actualization?  Self-theoreticalizaton?  Someone-else actualization?
Believe me, I would rather have either or both of those conditions before I
would give up even a few mbps of download bandwidth.  Self-actualization
indeed.  With no internet, an otherwise sane person writes posts like this
one, with utterly NOTHING better to do.  Back in the 70s, when young lovers
had nothing better to do, they would sit around the house, get high and
watch the tube.  Until they decided to cut loose.  They don't do that
anymore.

 

Isn't is astonishing that a mere 20 yrs ago, we didn't really even have the
internet.  What the heck did we do?  Go around not knowing stuff?

 

Those of you who I met this past weekend in SF at the Transhumanist
schmooze, if you are sending me personal notes, be patient please.  I have
not been able to answer much, but I will eventually catch up.  I got on my
neighbor's phone, called my ISP, demanded that they go to whatever backward
and benighted land where they find cable technicians, scramble an F-18, put
that guy on it and get him to my house forthwith, and let not another minute
pass where they leave me off of my information pipe, otherwise I will go and
brutally find an alternate ISP!  And I MEAN BUSINESS, AT&T!

 

They are coming tomorrow, 1300.  Then I'll be back.  In all my refined and
evolved refulgent wretchedness.

 

spike 

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