Opinion: If you don't want to be replaced by a machine, stop acting like one

Like the machines that are sending ominous shivers down our spines, we too are run by algorithms. Not just on social media, but even outside of it. Today, we live within vast echo chambers, with the same information bouncing off of the virtual walls that surround us. 90% of the conversations these days are recommendations of some sort - not born out of discretion, but subliminally or blatantly suggested to us by an algorithm. Our existence is driven by a set of commands that we mindlessly obey. So how exactly then are we any different from a machine? 

 

Just take a look around the chamber of sameness and watch the trundling conveyor belt of manufactured human beings - 8 billion of them. With machines for both hearts and heads. We are all on factory-settings. Default is our state of mind. Eating, breathing, living and pooping what the algorithm feeds us. A photocopy of one another - physically, mentally and spiritually. 

 

We watch the same movies. Listen to the same music. Eat the same food. We wear the same clothes. Read the same books. Get the same haircuts. Learn the same hacks. Preach the same hacks. We follow the same trends. We adore the same heroes. We travel to the same places, by the same routes, on the same day. We worship different gods, but we fight the same fight and for the same cause. We even write the same LinkedIn posts.

 

So here's what we need to do. 

 

Think critically. Challenge opinions. Defy norms. Break rules. Do something silly. Take the longer route. Marvel at the mundane. Sing off-key. Dance clumsily. Walk on gravel without your shoes on. Cry for no particular reason. Laugh at a bad joke. Crack a worse one. Complicate a few simple things. Disobey the algorithm. Make a mistake. Or a dozen. Burn your tongue. Bruise your knees. Get your heart broken. Mend it with fiery passion. Hear the unsaid. Observe the invisible. Learn the untaught. Unlearn. Love. Hate. Empathise. Obsess. Be more human. Be less machine.