Archive for the ‘Excess and Algorithms’ Category

💸 Bread, Circuses, and Billionaires 🍞

Posted: August 8, 2025 in Excess and Algorithms
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How manufactured distraction masks elite power grabs

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” — Steve Biko

We’re not fighting each other.

We’re being told we are.

While billionaires rig markets, write laws, and extract more than ever before, we’re fed a diet of distraction: who wore what, who said what, who to cancel, who to worship.
Culture wars and celebrity scandals dominate the headlines. Political rage becomes entertainment. Reality is replaced with performance.

Meanwhile, real decisions get made in rooms we’re not in.

Distraction is strategy.

Bread and circuses is policy.

The phrase comes from ancient Rome. Give the people food and entertainment, and they’ll ignore the empire crumbling around them.
Today’s version isn’t lions and gladiators. It’s 24/7 news cycles, viral beef, televised outrage, algorithmic dopamine, and the myth that “both sides” are the problem.

But both sides serve the same class.
The one you’re not in.

“The purpose of the modern media is to make the public passive and distracted, not informed and engaged.” – Glenn Greenwald

Who benefits from distraction?

Follow the money.

Culture wars don’t threaten capital.
They serve it.
If we’re busy hating each other, we’re not organizing. If we’re bickering about bathrooms, we’re not taxing billionaires. If we’re glued to gossip, we’re not watching the war profiteers, the surveillance state, or the bought politicians signing our futures away.

Distraction is not a side effect. It’s the point.

Manufactured chaos is cover.

Power prefers shadows.

The more noise, the less clarity.
The more conflict, the less unity.
The more fear, the more control.

Every celebrity trial, every TikTok feud, every political theater act keeps us from looking up. Keeps us consuming, not questioning. Arguing, not organizing.

“The press is not a watchdog. It’s a tool used by the powerful to manage public opinion.” – Matt Taibbi

We don’t need more sides.

We need more sight.

Start with the question: Who does this serve?
When the story goes viral, when the talking heads scream, when the rage is addictive—ask it again:
Who benefits from our attention being here?
Because the real theft isn’t always money.
Sometimes, it’s focus.

“You are being made to focus on the sideshow, while the tent burns down.” – Edward Snowden

anarchyjc.com // Truth over tribalism.
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📈 The Productivity Scam 📉

Posted: July 19, 2025 in Excess and Algorithms
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How Hustle Culture Masks Wage Stagnation and Serves the System That Exploits Us

“If you just work harder, you’ll make it.”
That’s the lie. That’s the scam.

We’ve been sold a fantasy of upward mobility that depends not on policy, fairness, or collective progress, but on our willingness to self-destruct in the name of ambition. Hustle culture tells us that success is just a matter of willpower. Wake up earlier. Grind longer. Outwork everyone. Sleep less. Want it more.

Meanwhile, corporations rake in record profits. Wages flatline. Healthcare, housing, and higher education become luxury items. But you? You’re still thinking it’s your fault.

Let’s pull back the curtain.

Hustle Culture Is Corporate Propaganda

Productivity influencers. 5AM club bros. “No days off” as a flex.

This isn’t just personal ambition — it’s been industrialized. We’re encouraged to track every breath, stack habits, bullet-journal our burnout, and turn our identities into brands. This isn’t motivation. It’s manipulation.

By reframing overwork as a virtue, the system turns our exhaustion into a badge of honor. You’re not supposed to question why you have to hustle this hard just to survive. You’re just supposed to optimize better.

Productivity Went Up — Wages Did Not

Since 1979, worker productivity in the U.S. has risen by more than 60%. But hourly wages? Up only about 17%. Where did the gains go? Straight into the hands of shareholders, executives, and the asset-owning class.

You’ve probably felt it. Working longer hours just to keep up. Side hustles becoming lifelines. And still, rent rises faster than your paycheck. It’s not laziness. It’s a rigged game.

📊 From 1979 to 2020, U.S. productivity grew 61.8% while hourly pay rose just 17.5%. — Economic Policy Institute

Hustle culture isn’t closing the gap. It’s hiding it.

Burnout Isn’t a Personal Failure

Internalized capitalism teaches us to equate self-worth with output. When we feel overwhelmed, we don’t blame the system — we blame ourselves.

But the exhaustion isn’t a bug. It’s the feature.

We’ve been taught that if we feel burned out, we just need better time management. A better planner. A better morning routine. We keep trying to fix the machine — when the problem is that we’re not machines at all.

“You are not lazy, unmotivated, or stuck. After years of living in survival mode, you are exhausted. There is a difference.” — Nedra Glover Tawwab

The Scam Serves Power

There’s a reason hustle culture has been monetized and weaponized by the very systems profiting off your labor.

Big Tech sells you productivity tools. Influencers push affiliate codes for morning journals and nootropics. Employers glorify “passion” to justify unpaid overtime. Gig apps track your every second. Even rest has been turned into another thing to optimize.

The more exhausted you are, the less likely you are to resist. The scam isn’t just psychological — it’s strategic.

Opting Out Is the First Step

Quiet quitting. Labor strikes. The rise of “lazy girl jobs.” These are signals of something deeper — a refusal to keep feeding a system that only takes.

We don’t need to hustle harder. We need to stop normalizing a world where burnout is inevitable, and survival is treated like success.

Stop optimizing. Start organizing.
The system is broken — not you.

anarchyroll presents

Anarchy Journal Constitutional
☯ Wisdom is Resistance | ∞ Truth Over Tribalism

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The productivity scam is working. We hustle, they profit. This isn’t about success. It’s about survival. Visual essay by @anarchyroll ☯️ Wisdom is Resistance 🗞 anarchyjc.com #burnout #hustleculture #productivityscam #visualessay #anarchyroll

♬ Apocalypse – Alex From Space

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🧾 Subscription Serfdom

Posted: July 9, 2025 in Excess and Algorithms
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Rent the world, own nothing: how the economy of access replaced ownership—and why that’s not freedom, it’s feudalism in a hoodie.

We Don’t Own Our Music.

We don’t own our movies.
We don’t even own our cars.

What used to be ours to keep is now ours to rent—on a recurring, never-ending loop. The world has been restructured around access, not ownership. But access without control isn’t freedom.

It’s a digital landlord economy.
And we’re living on rented ground.

The Convenience Con

The pitch was irresistible: subscribe and simplify.

From Netflix to Microsoft, Spotify to Adobe—subscription models promised us seamless access to everything. No bulky boxes. No up-front costs. Just “click and go.”

But convenience was the bait.
Dependence was the hook.

Now we can’t cancel half our apps without playing hide-and-seek in the settings menu. Our tools and files vanish the second a payment fails. Even our refrigerators and vehicles may stop functioning if we miss the latest software toll.

This was never about helping us.
It was about controlling us.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

From Tools to Tethers

We remember when we could buy software once and use it for years.
We remember when a car’s features were hardware, not paywalled.
We remember when a song download meant we owned it.

But now:

  • Microsoft Office is a subscription.
  • Tesla’s seat warmers require a monthly payment.
  • E-books on our Kindle can be deleted remotely.

We’ve moved from products to platforms to prisons.
And the doors lock automatically when the rent is late.

“The war on general-purpose computing is a war on ownership.” — Cory Doctorow, author & digital rights activist

The Algorithmic Lease

This system doesn’t just live on our bank statements.
It feeds on our behavior.

We’re managed by code. Trained by design. Nudged by algorithms that know exactly when to tempt us, prod us, or penalize us.

  • Free trials renew without notice.
  • Cancel buttons are buried in UI mazes.
  • “Are you sure you want to cancel?” guilt-trips pop up like clockwork.

We’re not being served—we’re being optimized.
For extraction. For retention. For profit.

“Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.” — Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

The New Feudalism

“You will own nothing and be happy.”

A phrase once dismissed as dystopian is now just business strategy.

Let’s look around:

  • Homes are rentals.
  • Cars are leased.
  • Content is licensed.
  • Tools are cloud-locked.
  • Even tractors are DRM’d to block our right to repair.

This is corporate enclosure 2.0.
But instead of kings and lords, we’ve got CEOs and cloud platforms.

We’re not customers anymore. We’re subscription serfs—locked into infinite payment cycles just to function in daily life.

Photo by ready made on Pexels.com

We Still Have Choices

This isn’t anti-tech. It’s pro-agency.

We can seek out companies that still let us buy once and own forever. We can use open-source tools that aren’t tied to profit motives. We can refuse to mistake convenience for autonomy.

Every time we choose ownership, even in small ways, we push back against a system designed to make us permanent renters.

Because ownership still matters.
And freedom doesn’t auto-renew.

🗞 anarchyroll presents

Excess and Algorithms
Wisdom is resistance. Truth over tribalism.

🎬 This article was reimagined as a visual essay — watch the reel below.

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Subscription Serfdom We used to own what we paid for. Now we lease our lives—locked into endless subscriptions, optimized by algorithmic landlords. 🗞 Full article at anarchyjc.com ☯️ Truth over tribalism ♾️ Wisdom is resistance. #DigitalFeudalism #SubscriptionEconomy #ExcessAndAlgorithms #anarchyroll #subscribe #economy #economics

♬ start the action – patrickzaun

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📲 Addicted by Design: How Algorithms Exploit the Human Mind 🧠

Posted: June 27, 2025 in Excess and Algorithms
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Inside the calculated architecture of algorithmic addiction—and why the systems keeping us hooked aren’t accidental, they’re engineered for profit.

Photo by Gabriel Freytez on Pexels.com

This Isn’t a Bug. It’s the Business Model.

Addiction isn’t a side effect. It’s the product.

The algorithms driving our feeds, for‑you pages, and autoplay queues weren’t built to serve us. They were built to own us—to capture attention, distort behavior, and extract time. The longer we stay, the more they win. And they’ve gotten very good at winning.

“Big Tech firms… have developed more and more sophisticated AI models… more successful at their goal of ensuring addiction to their platforms.” — Michelle Nie, “Algorithmic Addiction by Design” (2025)

This isn’t content delivery. It’s behavioral engineering at scale. And it’s working exactly as intended.

Hook the Brain, Hijack the Future

Let’s call it what it is: neurological warfare for profit.

Infinite scrolls keep us locked in motion. Likes and shares drip dopamine through variable rewards. Personalized algorithms feed us just enough novelty, rage, or validation to keep the lever pulling. And the lever never runs out.

“Persuasive design is deliberately baked into digital services… to create habitual behaviours.” — 5Rights Foundation, “Disrupted Childhood” (2024)

We are not customers. We are inputs in a profit‑generating loop, optimized not for our benefit, but for our addiction.

What It’s Doing to Us (Especially Them)

The damage isn’t theoretical. It’s measurable. Especially among kids and teens—those still forming identities, boundaries, and brains.

An algorithm doesn’t care if a 13‑year‑old spirals. It cares about engagement metrics.

“TikTok algorithms fed adolescents tens of thousands of weight‑loss videos… vulnerable accounts were served twelve times more self‑harm and suicide videos.”
— American Journal of Law & Medicine, 2023

The platforms know. The companies know. And still they choose to push what hooks hardest.

It’s exploitation. But because it’s dressed in UX and recommender systems, it slides by as innovation.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Legal Fiction vs. Corporate Reality

Law hasn’t caught up—but it’s beginning to stir.

Some EU voices are framing this as a consumer protection crisis, not just a mental health one.

“Hyper‑engaging dark patterns… reduce users’ autonomy and may have additional detrimental health effects.”
— Fabrizio Esposito, “Addictive Design as an Unfair Commercial Practice” (2024)

The SAFE for Kids Act in New York aims to curb algorithmic targeting of minors. Europe is considering stricter design ethics laws. But Big Tech lobbyists work overtime to water down reform—and delay the inevitable.

Addiction is profitable. That’s why it persists.

Resist the Feed

This isn’t personalization. It’s manipulation.
And the only way out is resistance—personal, political, cultural.

Start small. Microtasks become momentum:

  • Turn off autoplay.
  • Disable nonessential notifications.
  • Use browser extensions to block algorithmic feeds.
  • Delete one app for a week. Watch what happens.

These aren’t solutions. They’re trim tabs—small shifts that change the system from below.

Then go bigger:

  • Push for dark‑pattern bans.
  • Support platform‑transparency laws.
  • Demand algorithmic opt‑outs.

Your time, your attention, your mental state—they’re not raw materials to be mined.

They’re yours. Take them back.

anarchyjc.com | Excess & Algorithms

Wisdom is Resistance

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🎯 ALGORITHM ADDICTION We scroll, swipe, and tap — and the algorithm learns. This <1-minute visual essay explores how tech hijacks attention and reshapes identity. #DigitalAddiction #TikTokAwareness #AlgorithmAddiction #MentalClarity #SelfAwareness

♬ Mystic – Perfect, so dystopian

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Wealth #Inequality Means #Democracy is a Farce

Posted: February 13, 2024 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Excess and Algorithms
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A government of the people, by the people, for the people in a world where cash rules everything around me.

We’re getting closer to the traditional national gaslighting of people to vote for the lesser of two evils. Gaslighting and voter shaming being the only options left of a corporate captured media and government.

Keep the facade going, there’s motions to go through. There’s time slots to fill, content to create, and appearances to make.

If people can barely survive after a decade which saw both political parties have control of government at one point or another, what is the point of voting? Unless voting third party. That’s where the gaslighting and voter shaming come into play. I wonder what Jill Stein will be blamed for this election season.

What a better life? GET A JOB! So then what do I need to participate in the farce of the decaying corpse of democracy for? Don’t super delegates pick who runs in the general election anyway? Doesn’t the electoral college mean that only a few swing states decide the presidential election anyway?

If voting was so important why isn’t it a national holiday? Like it is in other countries…

Vote local? Well that’s where I can see one vote having some value. Probably why we never hear about local elections. Hard to make us hate our neighbors over referendums and country treasurer battles.

If the masses are doing worse than they were before, habitually, for generations…what good is government? What is the point of elections?

Political theater, divide and conquer, evoke emotions, distract, tribalism…

How else can the 1% get the 99% to hate each other?

Red hates Blue

Blue hates Red

Elephant hates Donkey

Donkey hates Elephant

Blue Collar hates White Collar

White Collar hates Blue Collar

North hates South

South hates North

Half the country hates the other half

What a shame, what a waste, what a farce…

In America, we don’t have a democracy, we have economic totalitarianism.

One must pay attention, and do just a baseline level of research to find this truth although it becomes more obvious every year. The economic elites find less and less need to hide it. It’s becoming more common to say the quiet part out loud, in the open, on live mics on livestreams.

Keep the masses running the rate race fueled by promises and propaganda. Coerce them to work for a living until they’re burned out, bankrupt, or dead.

Just go along to get along. Gotta make rent, gotta put the groceries on credit. Can’t attend the protest cause I’m out of PTO, can’t take my PTO cause my copay went up again, can’t afford my copay cause groceries got more expensive for the forth year in a row.

What a shame, what a waste, what a farce…

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