“Have you ever thought about how we’re living in a society designed to give us anything we want, but we’re essentially the same people who lived during tribal times? We’re catering to the same base needs like warmth and sex and social gratification, but we’re doing so through unnatural means. If you think about it, the scrolling mechanism on a phone is a bit like strolling through a forest. We still come across unknown things. But now the first judgment that comes to our mind is immediately reinforced. We can say “I like it,” and we’ll be given more of the same. Or we can say ‘I don’t like it,’ and the thing will go away forever. That single mechanism ascribes permanence to our most basic instincts. We’re never forced to ask: ‘Why do I like it?’ Or ‘Should I like it?’ We’re living in a world that always adapts to us, so we never have to adapt to the world. I wonder how that affects us. I also wonder why we like squirrels but hate rats. Because they’re both rodents.”
