We Are Living in Beta World

Surrounded by technology which is much more annoying than convenient.

If you look at the national zeitgeist, you’ll often be informed that the present day is the best time to be alive in the history of humanity, due to our advanced medical care, vaccines, and relative lack of violent conflicts.

Stephen Pinker is a big proponent of this idea. I say national zeitgeist because I don’t see this idea going over too well in Gaza or with the Uyghur community in China, nor do I expect espousing the virtues of vaccines to be appreciated by the community of arrogantly retarded Americans from Malibu to deep MAGA country.

It’s true, we live longer and are less likely to be murdered or die of infectious disease than ever before, but we have to factor in quality of life, and the fact that we’re living in a Betaworld where technology companies have seized control of American life to run product tests and work out the bugs so that they can ensnare future generations.

Hence you need an App to do laundry, get a plane ticket, enter a basketball game or a concert, cash a check, order a pizza, and soon to open your fridge or adjust your thermostat. I recently had to download an app so that my recently acquired blood-pressure monitor would work. Yes, I have high blood pressure. It’s probably due to the Betaworld. Let’s say I was, I don’t know, a very old person without an iPhone containing blood diamonds, I wouldn’t be able to take my blood pressure. Yet, we live in amazing times.

That’s not progress. That’s being stuck in an unfortunate time in history, Betaworld, a transitionary period after the second millennium when society was forced to use technology that rarely worked properly. People will laugh about it hundreds of years from now, a trembling snicker which will cause a wire to poke through their temple.

I recently went to close out my online sports gambling account because I’d made some sizable gains and wished to keep the money rather than see it dwindle to nothing.

Since sports gambling is illegal in my state, I deposit money into my gambling account through Bitcoin, which I then convert to cash and deposit into my regular bank. To buy and sell Bitcoin you need what’s called a Wallet, so I went to login to my Wallet, and it said I needed to update my password. Why? I do not know. Too much time had elapsed without there being an inconvenience. So I did change the password. Then it said my password couldn’t be one of my old passwords. So I thought of a password I would definitely forget, and entered that. Then I forgot it when I was re-directed to login and enter it again, because I thought the process of changing the password would automatically log me in with the new password, hence I didn’t write it down after my first nine password ideas had been rejected and I was just throwing shit at the wall. Then I clicked on a link that said “Forgot Password?” and was informed that an email would be sent to me so I could reset it again. I waited a minute, two minutes, three minutes, ten minutes, and this email never arrived. I checked my Spam folder and it wasn’t there. Then I had to email the company and tell them I was locked out of my account, and they responded, cool, we’ll get back to you in a few weeks!

I then decided, fuck it, I’ll just start a new Wallet with a better company. So I went to Crypto.com and began to set up an account. I entered some information and then was told I’d be emailed a code to enter and verify my account. I received a six-digit code, which I entered into the box on the website and clicked “Submit.” Then I sat there for thirty seconds. “Do not refresh this page,” it said. I hit “Submit” again. Then I sat there for another thirty seconds. Then I refreshed the page.

I felt like one of those old people in Vegas who burn their money on the slot machines, but they don’t realize it’s all gone, so they just keep hitting the button a few more times, not realizing the game is over.

Onto the next, I thought, so I searched for the best crypto Wallets and found MetaMask. I downloaded the MetaMask app and scanned my driver’s license. The app then told me that to verify my identity I would need to activate the camera on my phone and place my head into a box, and I was then instructed to turn my head to the right and left. Then I was told something went wrong and to do it again. After three times of this I decided I’d had enough of this game.

Flustered, I drove to a local spot, Hinano Cafe in Venice Beach, to get some lunch. I parked at a meter on the street and went to pay it. The meter had a little solar panel on the top to charge it, and, like most every meter, a little blue screen which tells you how much to pay and shows your credit card has been accepted. Unfortunately, the screen on this meter was a dull purplish blue. It wasn’t totally dead, it just made reading the screen impossible. Not trusting it to process my credit card (as you’ll still get a parking ticket even if it’s the technology’s fault) I went into my car to get some quarters I have for emergencies, grabbed a handful, and walked back to the meter. I went to insert the quarters and realized that there was nowhere to put them. I got back into my car and peeled out and found another meter.

Then I went into the restaurant and sat down. I hadn’t been here in a while. It’s not like they have a big menu, but in the past it had been printed on the napkin holders. I didn’t really need a menu, but I figured maybe I’d look at one, but there was none to be found. There was a placard with a QR code, which I scanned, and it pulled up a website which was under construction.

“I think I know what I want,” I told the barkeep.

I pulled out and headed East on Venice Blvd, and the car in front of me ran a yellow light. Not in a dangerous way, although he probably should have stopped. A camera attached to the traffic light flashed brightly, startling me briefly. This was a Red Light camera. Due to various issues surrounding the constitutionality of Red Light Cameras, the City Council of Los Angeles voted to stop issuing tickets from them some time ago. Not that the city council cares about the constitution, but too many people were disputing them and they found there were easier ways to tax the poor. Yet the lights are still flashing in Betaworld.

I retreated home and turned on the TV. I have several Apps on my TV, like everyone else. Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, some other ghetto ones. I wanted to watch a show called Detroiters, so I did a google search of where to stream this show and was informed it was on Netflix.

I turned on my TV and was immediately bombarded by right wing propaganda. I have a Samsung TV, and when I bought the TV I was surprised that when I logged out of an App it would always be showing live news coverage. I did a google search to see if I had been enrolled in a service that I didn’t wish to pay for, but no, it’s called Samsung TV, and it’s an ad-supported service that apparently comes with every new TV.

In the brief moments while I was toggling between apps, I was informed by some demonic talking head that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the prime minister of Ukraine (a democratic country) was a dangerous dictator, which is ironic since his country was invaded by an actual dictator.

I searched Netflix for Detroiters and found nothing. I then did a slightly more advanced search and found that Google was wrong, and Detroiters is actually only available on Paramount. I don’t have Paramount. I debated getting a two-week free trial but decided I’d forget to cancel it, and even if I did I’d probably be billed anyway, so I resigned myself to watching police interrogation videos on YouTube.

Apparently, this is the best time to be alive in the history of the world. But it’s not a fully thought-out world. It’s a Beta World. The beta stage is never the best time for anything.

We had Betamax. Then we had VCRs, and DVDs. The DVDs worked pretty well. Then we got Blue Ray, that confused everyone. We settled on streaming.

The 2020s are pure Betamax.