Aesthetic Erosion (Cont.)

 

Sometimes I see or read things that are the perfect metaphor for something else. In this case it is climate-change driven coastal erosion and "aesthetic erosion"--the influence of algorithm-driven content on our innate sense of what is interesting and relevant, based on what we always thought was interesting before social media and even the internet.

The subject piece is the DW documentary Wind and Climate Change.

[I think their documentaries are excellent, and choose to watch them–not the glut of DIY documentaries].

Some phrases from the transcript edited to highlight the erosion metaphor.

Climate change is altering wind patterns. Winds will change as temperatures rise.

Social media is altering intentions. Creativity will change as media evolves.

The heat takes a toll on the trees, making them more vulnerable to insects. Once the trunks are infested, they become brittle and more susceptible to storm damage. It’s a vicious cycle.

Social media takes a toll on intentions, making it more vulnerable to expectations. Once intentions are infested, they become more susceptible to conformity. It’s a vicious cycle.

During strong storms, sections of the cliffs simply break off.

Over long periods of social media use, our sense of artistic integrity falls off the cliff.

I think we’ll have to come to terms with relocating houses and people.

I think we’ll have to come to terms with rethinking authenticity and integrity.

It’s becoming evident that living safely on the coast will only be possible if nature is given more leeway. But that means we have to retreat further. I think that's realistic.

It’s becoming evident that authenticity and integrity will only be possible if algorithms and AI are given more leeway. But that means we have to retreat further. I think that's realistic.

Winds will change as temperatures rise, because the Earth doesn’t get warmer simultaneously or uniformly everywhere.

Artistic behavior will change as technology evolves, because it doesn't change simultaneously or uniformly everywhere.

Another example of an erosive force is feature-bloat in software and apps, as well as the "AI Invasion" seizing control over everything at the top-level: We must be using AI, just like we must be making things that get likes and follows, not following our intuition. Over time it insidiously wears us down to the point where you begin to feel disoriented. The world has shifted under your feet.

Erosion also comes in the form of ennui and indifference: You might be excited about a new idea and no one else is. Interpersonal dynamics can quickly extinguish them, but they have to still burn in you. Aesthetic erosion is always trying to put the fire out. It's also a form of gaslighting--sowing doubt that your zeitgeist really has any power. Your vision is still to build that house overlooking the ocean, but the land isn't there or is weakened. So the question becomes, how can you adapt that vision so that it remains alive? Or the more top-level question: Isn't all life (and culture) subjected to erosion/entropy?

***

From the book AI Mirror:

"This is why it is so important for purposes of both safety and transparency that we know when our mirrors are distorting reality. There's a very good reason that the distorting side mirror has a little warning engraved on it, “objects in mirror are closer than they appear. In contrast, AI mirrors today are rarely tested rigorously to find the distortions they produce, and they almost always lack the safety and transparency signposts and guardrails we need. Until we demand these, it will be increasingly difficult to truly know ourselves. And when we can no longer know ourselves, we can no longer govern ourselves. In that moment, we will have surrendered our own agency, our collective human capacity for self-determination. not because we won't have it, but because we will not see it in the mirror."

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1/15/2025:

In 2020, just as the state’s new fire age was really beginning, Davis published “California’s Apocalyptic ‘Second Nature,” in which he contemplated the ecological transformation brought about by the Dome fire, which killed more than a million yucca trees in the Mojave Desert but ultimately counted, that fire season, as a relatively small-scale burn.

Driving through the Mojave in its aftermath put Davis in mind of the aftermath of World War II, when “the ruins of Berlin became a laboratory where natural scientists studied plant succession in the wake of three years of incessant firebombing,” assuming that in short order the familiar vegetation of the region would return. “To their horror this was not the case,” and the revelation that “dead-zone vegetation” rather than “original” flora would now dominate the region “prompted a debate about ‘Nature II,’” Davis wrote, worrying a similar transformation was underway in the American West. “A new, profoundly sinister nature is rapidly emerging from our fire rubble at the expense of landscapes we once considered sacred,” he wrote. “Our imaginations can barely encompass the speed or scale of the catastrophe. Gone California, gone.”

It is because of lines like these that, in times of fire especially, that Davis is remembered as a kind of environmental prophet. But his project was always political more than ecological, and in his last published essay, he emphasized not human vulnerability to catastrophic nature but the few all-powerful hands now driving our ecological, social and political history.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/opinion/los-angeles-fires-pacific-palisades.html