2024 07 03

Apartment building in Chicago, Illinois. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

One thing that worries Intellectual Clayton more than perhaps anything else is the demographics among western nations. People just aren’t having kids anymore. While Environmentalist Clayton isn’t so worried about a decline in population, the concern is that such a dramatic shift in population trends will have drastic repercussions we can’t fully understand. An exponential decline in numbers leading to a majority of old people within just a few generations will put strains on society that might not be possible to withstand. Perhaps the prime example of this new and developing trend is the country of South Korea.

The video below from a favorite geopolitics channel Caspian Report is both a good summary of the problem and an enlightening look into how one country is (so far unsuccessfully) attempting to deal with it, going so far as to construct an entire new capital city.

-Clayton

2024 03 04

Apartment complex I often photograph as I walk this stretch. Chicago, Illinois. January, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

As a way to get myself to watch less youtube videos, I’m initiating a rule that if I watch a video I find worthwhile, I need to write about it on the ole daily photo blog.

As I was getting my morning coffee, they asked how I was. You know, the rhetorical “how are you?" only I bit and mentioned my head was all jumbled up with a mess of thoughts because I spent too much time “reading about AI yesterday.”

“Oh, what were you reading?” he asked back, genuinely interested in my peril.

“Heh. Well, I guess I wasn’t actually reading but watching youtube videos,” I replied, ashamed of myself.

This, however, was not met with scorn from the young barista but an acknowledgment that youtube and reading are essentially the same thing. He then asked which channels, which I again had no idea how to reply because when you’re just doom hopping on youtube you’re not really paying close attention to the people behind the content.

“Well, she writes about economics but this one wasn’t really about that—” I rambled, attempting to salvage my dignity in this moment.

“—Kyla?” he asked confidently.

Holy shit. Indeed it was a Kyla Scanlon video Why We Don’t Trust Each Other Anymore I’d watched which kicked off my spiral into AI doomerism (more on this video later—again, them’s the rules!). It’s remarkable to me how much youtube has become a main vehicle of communication in our world both for mindless time-suck gibberish and highbrow philosophical economics theory.

…

But this post isn’t about all that, it’s about how this Van Neistat video (linked below), which I watched (in the background) while trying (and failing) to get photo editing done, really struck a nerve. I feel I’m guilty of abandoning projects or simply not even beginning them largely because I too often have an issue giving myself a deadline or admitting a project is good enough to call it a wrap. This video was helpful in examining this mindset and I like how Van approaches his art even though it’s far too rigid for me to be able to implement myself — says the guy with a daily photo blog. Okay, well, at least I’m making an attempt to implement some rules around here.

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can achieve excellence.”

— Vince Lombardi

Anyway, back to the photo editing. Enjoy the video.

-Clayton