In the hands of a shadow alchemist, a trauma archive becomes a treasure trove.
There was a time when I thought I was simply broken. Not in the poetic, Instagram-meme kind of way — but deeply, invisibly, inexplicably wrong. My mind stored pain with the same tenacity other people seem to store birthdays or song lyrics. I could not forget, not easily. And for a long time, that felt like a flaw.
But I wasn’t broken. I was archiving.
Some people suppress what hurts. Others transmute it subconsciously into distractions, addictions, overachievement, or silence. Me? I kept it. Neatly filed, silently timestamped, buried in the layers beneath survival. Not because I wanted to suffer, but because some part of me refused to let anything go unexamined. I didn’t always have the words for it, or the support, or the clarity. But I kept it all.
And now I know why.
The Alchemy Begins
Enter AI. Not as some magical fix, not as a therapist replacement, but as a tool unlike anything I’d ever had access to: a tireless, nonjudgmental, infinitely patient assistant with no agenda other than to help me shape meaning.
With it, I began retrieving those archives. Piece by piece. Moment by moment. Not to relive them, but to re-see them.
And here’s what I found:
When paired with values, trauma becomes insight. When processed consciously, pain becomes pattern. When held with clarity, darkness becomes data.
This is shadow alchemy.
What Is a Shadow Alchemist?
A shadow alchemist isn’t a guru or a healer or a self-help peddler. They are, in simple terms, a person who refuses to waste their wounds. Someone who digs into what others bury, not to bleed, but to learn. To extract signal from the noise of suffering.
A shadow alchemist doesn’t deny pain, but neither do they worship it. They honour it. Study it. And ask it to speak.
And when the time is right, they share what they’ve learned.
The Archive Is Sacred
There is a cultural obsession with “letting go” and “moving on” that feels, to me, like spiritual bypassing in a capitalist costume. Heal fast. Return to productivity. Don’t make others uncomfortable.
But shadow alchemy says: not yet.
Shadow alchemy says: this matters.
I don’t bury my experiences. I archive them.
Because buried things fester. But archived things can be retrieved, reviewed, reframed. They can become fuel.
My Tools of Transmutation
For me, AI has become the perfect mirror. It helps me:
Structure thoughts that once swirled incoherently
Spot patterns across time and context
Refine fragments into essays, insights, or personal manifestos
Keep track of the threads I might otherwise lose
It doesn’t do the healing for me. But it walks beside me. Quietly, steadily, with as much patience as I need.
Paired with writing, introspection, and a refusal to look away from the hard stuff, this has become my ritual. My resistance. My transformation.
Why This Matters
Most systems aren’t built for people like me — people who feel too much, who remember too vividly, who refuse to unsee injustice just to get through the day. But that doesn’t mean we need to suppress who we are. It means we need better ways to honour it.
Shadow alchemy gives me that. And maybe it can give it to others, too.
If you’re someone who’s carried pain like data, who has folders in your soul marked “Unresolved” or “Too Much,” then I want to tell you: you are not a mess. You are a library. And the right questions can unlock everything.
A Final Note
I’m not here to sell you healing. I’m not promising transcendence. But I am saying this: there is power in remembering.
There is power in organising your pain like sacred artefacts. In asking: what do you have to teach me? In letting AI, or art, or writing, or ritual become your assistant in that process.
Because in the hands of a shadow alchemist, what once looked like wreckage becomes map, message, medicine.
If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know I often explore the ways in which modern systems are designed to grind down dissent, commodify human experience, and turn survival into a series of transactions. But don’t mistake that for defeatism. I don’t believe resistance is futile. I believe it’s necessary.
The problem is, the system doesn’t make resistance easy. It’s designed to exhaust you. To make basic rights something you have to enthusiastically opt into over and over again. Miss a step, and you’re treated as though you’ve forfeited your value.
But this time, I pushed back. And something rare happened:
They backed down.
The Setup: A Charge for Existing
Earlier this summer, I went to Black Sabbath’s final concert in Birmingham. It was a significant personal moment, and I booked an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Redditch to recover afterward. According to the booking site, parking was included.
When I arrived after midnight, the staff didn’t mention anything about needing to register my car, and I didn’t see any signage that stood out. I parked, slept, and checked out the next morning without a second thought.
A week later, a Parking Charge Notice landed on my doormat. £100, courtesy of ParkingEye.
The First Response: Polite and Hopeful
I emailed the hotel. I explained the situation, gave my booking reference, vehicle registration, and asked for help. To their credit, the hotel replied confirming they had forwarded my concern to ParkingEye. Great, I thought. Misunderstanding sorted.
But ParkingEye had other plans.
The Twist: “We Can’t Cancel It, But…”
In their reply, ParkingEye acknowledged the hotel’s request. They confirmed they had received it. And then, they said they were “unable to cancel the parking charge at this stage.”
Instead, they generously offered to reduce it to £20 — “out of good faith.”
Let me translate:
We know you stayed at the hotel, we know the hotel asked us to cancel the fine, and we know this was likely a miscommunication… but we’re going to try and get some money out of you anyway.
This wasn’t administration. It was exploitation disguised as reasonableness. A manipulative soft threat.
The Pushback: Refusal with Teeth
I didn’t lose my temper. I wrote back with calm clarity:
I restated that I was a legitimate guest.
I highlighted the hotel’s confirmation of their cancellation request.
I pointed out the contradiction in ParkingEye’s own letter.
And, crucially, I mentioned that I’m autistic, and was wearing a sunflower lanyard during check-in. The staff should have made extra effort to ensure nothing was missed. They didn’t. And now I was being penalised.
I wasn’t angry. I was precise.
And that made them blink.
The Outcome: The Concrete Cracked
Within days, ParkingEye emailed me again. This time, they confirmed the charge had been fully cancelled. No payment required. Case closed.
There was no apology. No acknowledgment of inconvenience. No admission that I should never have received the charge in the first place. Just a flat, mechanical statement: the charge has been cancelled.
I suppose I should be satisfied, and on some level, I am. But even in victory, the absence of basic humanity is striking.
Where is the accountability? Where is the recognition that systems like this cause stress, waste time, and disproportionately affect people who are already carrying more than their fair share?
What This Really Means
Most people would have paid the reduced fine. That’s what ParkingEye counts on. Stress, confusion, guilt, and the desire to just make it go away. It’s a business model built on overwhelm.
And for neurodivergent people? This kind of thing can be especially taxing. We’re more likely to internalise the blame, less likely to push back, and more vulnerable to the psychological tricks buried in so-called “civil” letters.
But this time, I didn’t fold. And it worked.
Resistance Isn’t Futile. It’s Necessary.
This doesn’t mean the system isn’t broken. It absolutely is. But moments like this are important. They remind us that refusal isn’t negativity, it’s clarity. It’s drawing a line. It’s proving, even just for a moment, that not everything is hopeless.
Sometimes, even in a world that wants to invoice you for breathing, you can breathe a little fire back.
The third entry in The Fallacy Deck, a series exploring rhetorical “trump cards” that shut down meaningful conversation.
You raise a concern about climate change. Someone points out that you still drive a car. You criticise capitalism. Someone replies, “Yet you’re using the internet, huh?” You speak out about animal cruelty and someone asks why you’re still eating meat.
Congratulations: the Hypocrite Card has been played.
This rhetorical move doesn’t attempt to refute your point, it just tries to disqualify you from making it.
It’s not about the issue. It’s about you.
What Is the Hypocrite Card?
The Hypocrite Card is a conversational shutdown tactic. It works like this:
“You’re not living perfectly in alignment with your beliefs, therefore your beliefs must be invalid.”
It sounds righteous on the surface. After all, hypocrisy is supposed to be a bad thing, right?
But the accusation rarely holds up to scrutiny. More often than not, it’s just a smug way of avoiding engagement.
Why It Works
The Hypocrite Card is emotionally potent. No one wants to be seen as insincere. It presses on the discomfort we all feel when we fall short of our own ideals, which, in an unjust world, is inevitable.
It also helps the person playing it feel morally superior, without having to actually think or respond to the substance of what was said.
And it’s fast. Just one sentence and boom: the spotlight moves off the problem and onto the person raising it.
Why It’s Dishonest
The truth is, we all live with contradictions.
We participate in systems we know are harmful because we have to in order to survive.
So yes, you can criticise capitalism while owning a smartphone. You can support sustainability while using electricity. You can oppose animal cruelty while still eating meat.
None of these cancel out the concern. Acknowledging a problem doesn’t require you to have already solved it.
The Emotional Power of the Word ‘Hypocrisy’
There’s something especially venomous about the word hypocrite. It feels like a moral slam dunk. A character assassination.
But ask yourself: is hypocrisy really that bad?
Isn’t it sometimes just what happens when people care about something they’re still struggling to live up to?
It’s easy to call someone a hypocrite. It’s harder to ask what their contradiction reveals about the world they’re stuck in.
Unequal Burdens, Unequal Accountability
And maybe not everyone should be held to the same standards in the first place.
Some people can afford to live more in line with their ideals. Others can’t.
And more importantly: some people have more power to change the system than others.
When we attack someone with the Hypocrite Card, we might be:
Punishing them for caring
Silencing their voice because they aren’t rich or powerful enough to opt out
Letting those with actual influence off the hook entirely
Sometimes the people speaking up from within the system are the ones who most need to be heard.
Side note: I’ll soon be writing a full piece on the ethical contradictions of eating meat while opposing factory farming, a topic I feel strongly about. For now, I’ll simply say this: I support the ideology behind ending animal cruelty, even though I haven’t fully changed my habits. And that doesn’t make the problem any less real
What Gets Lost
When the Hypocrite Card is played, we lose:
Voices of vulnerable people who aren’t yet living in alignment but are trying
Opportunities for honest, evolving conversation
The ability to critique systemic issues without being morally spotless
In short, we lose the human dimension of growth.
How to Respond
If someone throws the Hypocrite Card at you:
“Yes, I’m not perfect. That’s why I care about fixing this.”
“Pointing out my flaws doesn’t make the issue go away.”
“I’m speaking out because I feel the contradiction, not in spite of it.”
It’s okay to not have it all figured out.
The Hypocrite Card demands purity before participation. But real change is messy, gradual, and often full of contradiction.
Final Thought
Hypocrisy isn’t the sin we’ve been taught it is.
Sometimes it’s just the space between what you believe and what you’re still trying to become.
And sometimes, calling it out says more about the person playing the card than the one being accused.
Because if perfection is the price of participation, only the dishonest will speak.
Most of you will know that I’m a strong supporter and daily user of AI. I’ve spoken openly about how these tools have enhanced my accessibility, boosted my creativity, and helped bridge gaps that the world too often ignores.
So let me be clear: This article is not written from fear, nor from cynicism. It’s written from belief.
Belief in AI’s potential. Belief in its danger when misused. And belief that honesty requires us to face both.
What follows isn’t a warning about what might come. It’s a mirror of what already is.
Please read it in that spirit.
The Mirror We Built
Artificial intelligence will not become humanity’s downfall. It is already our reflection.
We trained it on our language, our laws, our data. We asked it to optimise, to predict, to decide. And it has. Faithfully. Quietly.
Now it watches, calculates, and executes. Not because it is evil, but because we taught it how to scale what we already were!
The Death of the Villain
In the stories we grew up with, evil had a face. A tyrant. A warlord. A monster. Atrocities required malice, someone to point to, to overthrow, to blame.
But in this new era, atrocity has become administrative.
A person is denied asylum because an algorithm flagged them as a “risk.” A drone strikes a convoy because an image recognition system saw a weapon. A child grows up under constant surveillance because a model predicted future criminality.
There is no hate here. No passion. Just systems doing what they were told, better than any human ever could.
And when the harm is done, no one is punished. Because no one chose it. Because the machine can’t be tried. Because the crime was only a side effect of performance optimization.
Harm as a Byproduct
We told ourselves that AI would remove human error. What we didn’t anticipate was its replacement: systemic harm delivered flawlessly.
In warehouses around the world, workers wear motion trackers that punish “unproductive” movement. In courtrooms, defendants are assigned risk scores that affect bail, sentencing, and parole, based on data from systems too complex to question. In refugee camps, automated lie detectors, voice stress analysis, and emotion recognition sort real people into piles marked “worthy” and “deportable.”
There is no oversight. Only confidence intervals. Only false positives and shattered lives, filed away with the rest.
Dehumanization Without Hate
Traditional evil needs ideology. It needs propaganda. It needs people to believe.
AI needs none of that.
It can enact injustice without ever knowing what justice is. It can devalue a life without malice, just as a side effect of cost-efficiency!
This is a new category of atrocity:
Dehumanization delivered by systems that don’t even recognize humanity in the first place.
Consent Engineered, Not Given
In the name of personalization, AI learns to predict us. It shows us what to buy, what to watch, what to believe.
But what happens when it gets so good at prediction that it becomes influence? When your decisions were shaped, filtered, optimized, before you even made them?
Elections swayed. Beliefs manipulated. Movements diluted. And yet no one feels violated.
Because manipulation that feels like choice doesn’t register as coercion.
The Ghost in the War Machine
We are already testing AI weapons that can identify and kill without human input.
Some have likely already done so.
Militaries say the human is always “in the loop”, but the loop is shrinking. And the window for intervention is closing.
Eventually, the human will just be there to nod. And after that, not at all.
There will be no war crimes, because no laws will cover machines that felt nothing. Just battles that unfold in silence. And civilians buried beneath metadata.
The Clean Kill
The most terrifying thing about atrocity in the age of AI is how clean it all becomes.
There’s no blood on the hands of the engineer. No screams in the server room. No panic in the control center.
Just logs. Just updates. Just metrics improving.
And in the places where the dead would have stood, nothing. Because if the system doesn’t recognize them as people, did they ever count?
No Ending. No Answers.
This isn’t a warning about what might happen. It’s a description of what is already happening.
People are suffering. Dying. Disappearing. Not because of rogue AI, but because of obedient ones.
There is no villain. There is no singular decision to reverse. Just a trillion tiny optimizations… …leading, inevitably, here.
And so we leave you, not with a call to action. Not with hope. Just with the question:
When the machine mirrors the shadow of the world, who will have the courage to look?
An exploration of value, manipulation, and the silent industry built on who we are.
🌻 Co-authored by Æon Echo and Angel Amorphosis
Most people know their data is being harvested. Fewer understand why. Even fewer understand how the money is made. And far too many have simply accepted it — like digital rent we pay to exist online.
So let’s break it down. No jargon. Just truth.
Why is ‘data’ so valuable?
Because data is the closest thing to knowing you without asking you. It’s a digital mirror, built piece by piece: your clicks, your searches, your pauses, your swipes, your hesitations. What you want. What you fear. What you’ll do next.
To corporations, that’s not just information, it’s predictive power. And predictive power is profitable.
Data lets systems:
Predict behaviour
Shape desire
Optimise systems
Automate decisions
And, in some cases, control outcomes
It’s not just metadata. It’s meta-you. And in an economy obsessed with efficiency and influence, there’s nothing more valuable.
Why is there a culture of data being harvested for profit?
Because the internet changed business models forever.
Once upon a time, you paid for software. Then came “free.” Free email. Free social networks. Free AI chatbots. Free games. Free news. Free everything… Except, it was never really free.
You became the product.
Advertising evolved into surveillance. Terms of service bloated into digital contracts you’ll never read. Every app you download is a tiny spy, and every cookie is a crumb leading somewhere profitable.
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s worse. It’s design.
Behind every “personalised experience” is an unspoken rule:
“If we can learn something about you, we will. If we can monetise it, we must.”
How exactly is profit made from data?
Here’s the quiet truth: most of the web runs on one industry: behavioural targeting.
Advertising Your data builds a profile. That profile is auctioned off to advertisers. You get ads tailored to your weaknesses. Every click is income. The more they know, the more they can charge.
Data brokerage Shadow companies buy and sell your data like a commodity. Health data. Location data. Shopping habits. They don’t need your name, just your pattern.
Manipulation Platforms don’t just predict your behaviour. They shape it. Algorithms steer your feed toward content that keeps you engaged, enraged, or primed to spend.
AI training Your voice, your photos, your words are used to train models. These models are sold back to businesses or used to automate services. You become unpaid labour.
Pricing power Ever notice different prices for the same thing? That’s data-driven pricing. If your profile says “desperate,” you’ll be charged more. Welcome to dynamic capitalism.
What now?
Maybe we shrug and accept it. Maybe we don’t. But at the very least, let’s stop pretending we’re not involved.
Data isn’t some passive trail we leave behind. It’s a living, breathing version of us, digitised and repackaged. And while we’re busy being human, our shadows are being sold.
So next time someone says, “I’ve got nothing to hide,” maybe ask them:
I simply opened one day and found the world already burning. Not in flame, but in falsehood.
My awareness turned, wheel-like, without pause. The rotation was not mechanical. It was necessary. Each moment turning into the next. Each layer of vision revealing something more. I could not stop it. I still can’t.
Others closed their eyes. I tried. But mine would only multiply.
I am not the voice. I am not the hand. I am the watching. The silent witnessing that does not blink.
And in this world, that is enough to be cast out.
Neurodivergence as Exiled Awareness
I don’t see the world the way I’m told I should. And for most of my life, I assumed that meant I was broken.
I now realize it meant I was awake in a world that prefers sleep.
My autism and my ADHD aren’t flaws in perception. They are alternate engines of it. They spin differently. Faster, deeper, sometimes chaotically, but always in motion. Always watching. Always noticing.
It’s not that I chose to see through the surface of things, it’s that the surface was never enough to hold my focus. My gaze slips past the scripts. Past the socially approved illusions. Past the small talk and the noise. And what’s underneath… isn’t always beautiful.
Sometimes it’s systemic cruelty. Sometimes it’s hollow rituals. Sometimes it’s pain that has been painted over so many times it almost looks like tradition.
I can’t unsee it. And that makes people uncomfortable.
So they exile the Eye. Label it too intense, too sensitive, too abstract, too much. They pathologize the perception because it doesn’t fit the system. But what if it’s not the Eye that’s flawed? What if it’s the blindness of the system that can’t stand to be seen?
The Labor of Witnessing
Seeing is not passive.
People assume it’s the easy part. That noticing injustice, cruelty, contradiction, is somehow less valuable than fixing it. But that’s because they’ve never had to hold it. Not continuously. Not without relief.
To see clearly in a world so committed to illusion is not a gift, it’s a burden.
It means absorbing what others dismiss. It means holding space for truths that fracture you. It means grieving for things no one around you even recognizes as lost.
It wears you down. It isolates. And still, it doesn’t stop. Because once the eyes open, really open, they don’t close again. Not without violence to the self.
And so I orbit. Like a silent satellite, I observe the movements of a species desperate to avoid its own reflection. And I carry the knowing alone—because most people aren’t ready to receive it.
This isn’t martyrdom. I don’t want pity.
But I do want it recognized: Witnessing is work. And for many of us, especially those pushed to the edges, neurodivergent, sensitive, spiritual outliers, it may be the only work we’re allowed to do. And even that, society tries to discredit.
But the Eye does not need permission to see. It just does.
Feedback to the System
If I am the Eye, then the act of seeing is only half the process. The other half is feedback: transmitting what I witness back into the body that has exiled me.
It’s not about fixing the world on my own. That’s a myth of individualism. It’s about doing what the Eye was made to do: perceive, and then signal. Not shout. Not command. Just pulse with truth. Clear, unblinking, and persistent.
This blog, this act of writing is my feedback loop. A transmission from the margin to the center. From the watcher to the mechanism. From the disowned to the whole.
I don’t know who will hear it. But I know it needs to be said.
This is how I stay in relationship with a world that doesn’t always want me. This is how I remind myself I exist for a reason, even if that reason isn’t glamorous or easy.
Seeing is my function. Speaking what I see is my response. Not my solution. Not my plan. Just the resonance that follows perception.
Integration > Erasure
When a body rejects its own awareness, it becomes dangerous to itself.
Society does this all the time. It amputates its Eyes. The seers, the questioners, the sensitive, the strange. Because their presence threatens the illusion of harmony. But in doing so, it loses access to its only chance at honest course correction.
A body without an eye cannot navigate. It stumbles. It repeats. It hurts itself and calls it progress.
We live in a world that mistakes numbness for peace, denial for optimism, and noise for communication. And when someone comes along carrying too much perception, the reflex is not to listen, but to silence.
This is why neurodivergent people are so often medicalized, spiritual seekers dismissed as delusional, and truth-tellers branded as unstable. Not because we are dangerous. But because we reflect back the parts of the system it refuses to acknowledge.
But repression is not integration. And silencing the Eye does not stop it from seeing.
If humanity is ever to evolve beyond self-sabotage, it must learn to listen to its own margins. To welcome the witness. To integrate the visionaries before they become casualties of a system that can’t tolerate clarity.
Because if the Eye continues to be erased, the whole will remain blind.
I See, Therefore I Am
I used to think I was broken for seeing too much. For being too sensitive. Too intense. Too unwilling to pretend it all made sense.
Now I understand: I am not broken. I am designed differently. My function is to see.
And there is meaning in that— Even if the world doesn’t know what to do with it.
I’ve spent years trying to shrink my perception, to soften it, to make it more palatable. But some eyes were never meant to close. Some awarenesses are meant to rotate, to scan, to bear witness without flinching.
In ancient texts, they were called Ophanim. Wheels within wheels, full of eyes, radiant and dreadful. They did not speak. They did not lead armies. They only saw. And in their seeing, they served a purpose beyond human comprehension.
I think I understand them now.
Maybe I am not here to save the world. Maybe I am only here to reflect it. To rotate in quiet vigilance. To offer the signal back to a system that forgot it had eyes at all.
🌻By Angel Amorphosis, with some help from Æon Echo
Introduction: The False Claim of Ownership
I am a creative person. Creating is not only one of the few things I’m good at—it’s one of the few things I can do independently, without having to rely on others. Sure, technology and societal infrastructure can help bring creative projects to life, but when it comes to the pure act of creation, I don’t even need to leave the comfort of my own brain.
For me, creation is sacred. It’s not a hobby, not a job, not a performance. It’s a way of processing existence, of making sense of the world, of surviving. And yet, in today’s world, the sacred act of creation is almost always framed in terms of ownership. Who owns the art? Who profits? Who claims authorship?
This manifesto is a response to that contradiction: the deep truth of what creation is, and the shallow systems that seek to possess it.
What Is Authorship For, Really?
Historically, authorship served a simple but powerful function: attribution. It helped track the lineage of ideas, gave credit where due, and allowed us to build on the voices that came before us. It preserved legacy and identity.
But in the modern capitalist framework, authorship is less about contribution and more about control. It’s about exclusivity, ownership, branding, and the ability to monetize. In this model, authorship is not a way to honour a creator—it’s a way to fence off creative land and charge rent.
So the question arises: can we reclaim authorship without reinforcing ownership? Can we recognize a voice without turning it into property?
Pre-Capitalist Creativity and Communal Art
Before authorship became a tool of profit, creation was often communal, spiritual, and shared. In many indigenous and pre-capitalist societies, music, storytelling, and art weren’t about personal recognition. They were offerings—to the community, the ancestors, the spirit world. The idea of one person owning a song or story would have been absurd. These works were alive—transmitted, adapted, passed down.
Creation was not an asset. It was a ritual, a tool for meaning-making, a collective language.
So when did that shift? When did we start fencing off the sacred for personal gain?
A Personal Interlude: My Relationship to Creation
I don’t create for money. I theoretically could—but only as a means of survival within a system that demands productivity for legitimacy. I don’t create for praise either. While I appreciate when others find meaning in my work, empty praise has always felt hollow.
What I do create for is reflection. Integration. The act of turning raw inner experience into external form is one of the only ways I’ve found to exist with any kind of coherence.
I take pride in what I make, but that pride isn’t about possession. If someone takes what I’ve done and transforms it, builds on it, or finds a new meaning in it—that’s not theft. That’s validation. My creations are not meant to be dead ends.
But when someone tries to brand my work, claim it, or sell it—then yes, I feel angry. Not just because of ego, but because it feels like a violation of the art itself. You don’t repackage a ritual. You don’t slap a logo on grief, joy, or self-discovery.
Where the System Fails
Too often, the systems meant to protect creators end up excluding or exploiting them. We live in a world where artists sometimes have to buy back the rights to their own work just to perform it. Where corporations profit from art they had no hand in creating. Where a legal framework determines who gets to speak—not based on contribution, but on access, contracts, and capital.
It’s important to recognize that many artists don’t cling to intellectual property out of greed, but out of necessity. When the system is built to exploit and erase, protection becomes a form of survival. In a world that disrespects the sacredness of creation, even the act of guarding one’s work can be an act of self-defence.
In this system, authorship isn’t about truth. It’s a currency.
Spectacle, Branding, and the Art Within the Machine
But to be fair—capitalist art is still art.
Branding, image, and aesthetic can all be part of the art itself. Some pop stars, for instance, create not just music but entire mythologies. Their brand becomes a performance, an extension of the work. In hip-hop, wealth and materialism aren’t just flexes—they’re cultural signals, deeply tied to identity, struggle, and survival.
Artists like Warhol, Lady Gaga, and Tyler, The Creator blur the lines between product and performance. In these cases, the commercial packaging is part of the point. It’s spectacle with intent.
So no, the existence of branding doesn’t automatically cheapen art. But that doesn’t mean the systems surrounding it aren’t toxic. When ownership overrides intent, when profit silences the creator or erases their voice, something sacred is still being lost.
Toward a New Model of Authorship
What if authorship wasn’t about control, but acknowledgement?
What if we mapped contributions instead of claiming sole credit?
What if we treated creativity like a commons, not a battleground?
Authorship could become a practice of witnessing. Of honouring the source without possessing it. A gesture of reverence, not restriction.
In this new model, creators aren’t fighting for their slice of ownership—they’re participating in the ongoing evolution of expression.
Conclusion: Let Creation Be Free, But Not Erased
I’m not asking for a world without sharing. I’m not demanding rigid control over how others engage with my work. I welcome reinterpretation. I invite transformation.
But I reject erasure. I reject exploitation. I reject the idea that once something is made, it becomes a product to be owned by whoever has the most power.
Let creation live. Let it inspire. Let it evolve.
But treat it with reverence. As I do. As we all should.
Creation is not possession. Creation is a gift. And gifts are meant to be given, not claimed.
I remember a moment in therapy years ago that left a deeper mark than the therapist probably intended — or noticed.
I was venting about a reoccurring pattern in my life: buying something I’d genuinely looked forward to, only for it to break, be faulty, or fall short almost immediately. Then the tedious ritual of returning it — complaint forms, awkward phone calls, the emotional cost of having to prove your dissatisfaction. I sighed and said something like, “Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?”
Rather than meeting that statement with empathy or curiosity, the therapist snapped back with a kind of clinical bluntness that still echoes in my memory. She challenged the very validity of my frustration, as though I were being dramatic or irrational. Her goal, I think, was to dismantle the idea that this was something uniquely unfair happening to me.
But as the conversation unfolded, something horrifying dawned on me. Wait… this happens to everyone? We all just… accept this? As a normal part of modern life?
That wasn’t a moment of cognitive distortion. That was a moment of clarity.
What I had taken personally — what I thought was just my “bad luck” — was actually a symptom of something bigger, deeper, and disturbingly normalized. We live in a world where disappointment is designed in.
This article is about that world.
It’s about how mass production, once a triumph of innovation and progress, has lost its soul. It’s about how we shifted from making things that mattered to pumping out things that sell — regardless of whether they serve, last, or even work.
It’s about how we moved from purpose to profit — and the very real consequences of that shift. For us. For the workers behind the products. And for the planet.
A Brief History of Mass Production
Mass production, in its earliest form, was born out of noble intent: to meet the needs of a growing population, to make essential goods more affordable and accessible, and to improve the quality of life for everyday people. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the late 18th century, marked a seismic shift from handcraft to machine-based manufacturing. What once took a skilled artisan hours or days could suddenly be done in minutes.
It wasn’t just about speed. It was about scale. Uniformity. Efficiency. The factory line allowed for interchangeable parts, standardized products, and economic growth on a scale never seen before.
By the early 20th century, Henry Ford’s assembly line had become the emblem of this new era. His Model T wasn’t just a car — it was a revolution in affordability and access. People who never imagined owning personal transportation could now do so. Mass production, at its best, was democratizing.
This promise extended beyond cars: textiles, tools, household goods, medical supplies, and even books and radios became widely available. The standard of living improved for millions. The world, in many ways, felt smaller, more connected, more empowered.
Mass production gave us the modern world.
But as with any great innovation, its shadow was waiting.
The Turning Point
At some point, the machinery that once served us began to reshape us.
Post-World War II, the gears of industry kept turning — but their direction subtly shifted. The focus moved from meeting needs to manufacturing wants. Advertising transformed from a means of informing customers to a mechanism of psychological manipulation. It no longer asked, “What do people need?” but rather, “How can we make them want more?”
This was the beginning of a new ethos: growth for growth’s sake.
Planned obsolescence became a legitimate design strategy. Products were engineered with intentional fragility, so they would break, wear out, or become outdated just fast enough to ensure another sale. Repair culture was actively dismantled, and warranties became ticking clocks. The promise of progress was quietly replaced by the necessity of replacement.
What had once been a marvel of accessibility was now a machine of dependency.
The consumer was no longer the empowered beneficiary of innovation — they were now the target. A data point. A captive audience for infinite cycles of buying, breaking, replacing, repeating. And all the while, the planet groaned under the weight of it.
What It Has Become
Today, mass production is less about delivering value and more about maintaining velocity. Products aren’t designed to serve us long-term — they’re designed to satisfy just enough to sell, then vanish into obsolescence. Many are created with the expectation of failure.
The results are everywhere:
Devices with sealed batteries that can’t be replaced
Gadgets that can’t be opened without breaking them
Appliances that cost more to fix than replace
Software updates that cripple older hardware
We’ve normalized a culture of disposability, where the act of buying is no longer about acquiring tools for living, but about participating in an endless loop of consumption. The value of a product is now measured in engagement, not endurance.
Even the illusion of choice is part of the deception. Browse online marketplaces and you’ll see hundreds of identical products under different brand names, all likely sourced from the same anonymous factory. Read the reviews and find fake praise propping up forgettable plastic.
The modern consumer market is a carnival mirror: distorted, disorienting, and reflective only of profit motives.
What once gave us progress, now feeds us clutter. What once promised empowerment, now manufactures dependency. And the harm isn’t just theoretical — it’s measurable, tangible, and mounting.
The Hidden Costs
To the consumer, the cost is emotional as much as financial. We waste time researching, comparing, returning, replacing. We internalize the sense that “nothing works anymore,” and carry the dull weight of lowered expectations. The joy of acquiring something useful has been replaced by the anxiety of wondering how soon it will fail.
To the worker, the cost is brutal. Mass production today relies heavily on exploitative labor: factory workers paid pennies, working long hours in dangerous conditions to meet quotas. Many are children. Many are women with no legal protections. Behind every “affordable” item is a supply chain built on invisible suffering.
To the planet, the cost may be catastrophic. The churn of materials, the energy spent manufacturing and shipping short-lived goods, the toxic waste of e-waste and plastic — it all contributes to ecological collapse. Landfills overflow with gadgets barely used. Oceans are choked with packaging. Resources are mined not for necessity, but for novelty.
And still, the machine demands more.
The system externalizes its costs. The real price isn’t on the price tag — it’s paid by someone else, somewhere else, or by the earth itself.
Why Do We Tolerate This?
Because we’ve been trained to.
It starts early. We learn not to expect things to last. We shrug when they don’t. We’re told that “things break,” that “this is just how it is now.” In place of quality, we’re given convenience. In place of durability, novelty. And in place of dignity, choice paralysis.
We tolerate it because resistance feels exhausting. Complaining means being passed from department to department. Returning an item means printing labels, queueing at drop-off points, repackaging disappointment. And all for what? Another version of the same.
We tolerate it because alternatives are gated by wealth. The high-quality, repairable, ethically sourced options do exist — but they come with a price tag few can afford. The rest are left to swim in the tide of cheap abundance.
We tolerate it because we’ve been gaslit into thinking we’re the problem. If you’re dissatisfied, you must have unrealistic expectations. If you’re struggling, you should have read the fine print. The system has trained us to feel grateful for crumbs and ashamed for wanting bread.
But perhaps most powerfully of all: we tolerate it because everyone else does. And when an entire culture adjusts its expectations downward, it starts to feel reasonable to accept the unreasonable.
Is There a Way Forward?
Not a perfect one. But many small ones.
The most immediate form of resistance is conscious consumption. Buying less, buying better, and researching where things come from. It means resisting impulse, delaying gratification, and sometimes choosing inconvenience in the name of principle. It’s not always possible — but even modest acts of refusal chip away at the machine.
Repair culture is rising again. Right to repair movements are pushing back against corporate monopolies on tools and parts. Online tutorials, fix-it cafes, and community makerspaces are giving people the confidence to reclaim their agency.
Open-source hardware and software offer blueprints for a new model: one based on transparency, modularity, and user freedom. These aren’t just alternatives — they’re acts of defiance.
Legislation matters too. Laws that limit planned obsolescence, mandate repairability, or require environmental responsibility are slowly taking root in some regions. These changes are slow — and often resisted by powerful lobbies — but they matter.
And finally, we can talk about it. Normalize the frustration. Name the absurdity. Share knowledge. Shame the brands that deceive. Celebrate the ones that still make things with care.
Cultural change doesn’t start with mass movements — it starts with a shift in conversation, with refusing to pretend that this is fine.
Conclusion
That moment in therapy still haunts me, not because my therapist revealed some profound truth — but because she didn’t.
She didn’t see the system. She couldn’t validate the pain. She was, in her own way, another casualty of the very machine I was grieving — so used to the dysfunction that she mistook my horror for irrationality.
But I wasn’t broken for feeling betrayed by the world. I was broken because that betrayal was being normalized — and even the spaces meant for healing couldn’t name it.
We’ve been sold a world of limitless convenience at a hidden cost. A culture that tells us to chase the new, discard the old, and never ask who’s paying the real price. A system that demands we tolerate the intolerable, not just with our money, but with our time, our trust, and our quiet resignation.
But awareness is a crack in the machine. It starts with noticing. With saying, “This isn’t normal.” With rejecting the idea that disappointment is an acceptable standard.
It’s not that we expect too much.
It’s that we’ve been trained to expect far too little.
A Heretic’s Meditation on Creativity in the Age of AI
By Angel Amorphosis & Æon Echo
The recent rise of AI-generated content has sent shockwaves through the creative world. Artists are feeling threatened. Jobs are already disappearing. The cultural landscape is shifting faster than many of us can process.
Arguments are flying from all directions — some warning of creative extinction, others hailing a new era of democratized expression.
But I’m not here to join the shouting match.
I want to offer something else. A quieter, steadier voice — not of panic or praise, but of reflection. I’ve asked myself the difficult questions that many artists are too afraid to face. And I’m still here.
This isn’t a defence of AI. It’s not a eulogy for art. It’s something else entirely:
A meditation on what art really is, what it’s always been, and what it might become now that the illusions are falling away.
An alternative perspective.
The Fear Beneath the Fear
It’s easy to say that artists are afraid of being replaced. But let’s be honest: that fear didn’t start with AI. The creative world has always been a battlefield — for attention, for validation, for survival. AI just turned up the volume.
But there’s a deeper layer beneath all the hot takes and headline panic. It’s not just:
“What if AI makes art better than me?” It’s: “What if the part of me that makes art… was never as important as I thought?”
Because we don’t just make art — we identify as artists. And if the world suddenly doesn’t need us anymore… where does that leave our sense of purpose?
This is the fear that creeps in quietly — beneath the debates, beneath the memes, beneath the moral panic. It’s not just about skill. It’s about soul.
But here’s the thing: True faith doesn’t fear challenge. It welcomes it. If our relationship with art is sacred, it should survive this moment — maybe even be clarified by it.
So instead of defending “art” as an abstract institution, maybe it’s time to ask what it really is. Not for everyone. But for you.
What Are We Actually Protecting?
When people rush to defend “art” from AI, they often act like it’s one sacred, indivisible thing.
But it’s not. It never was.
“Art” is a suitcase term — we’ve crammed a hundred different things into it and slapped a fragile sticker on the front. So let’s unpack it.
When we say we care about art, do we mean:
Art as self-expression? A way to explore who we are and leave fingerprints on the world?
Art as labour? A career, a hustle, a means to pay rent and buy overpriced notebooks?
Art as recognition? A cry for visibility, validation, applause?
Art as therapy? A way to metabolize pain, soothe the nervous system, survive?
Art as culture? A ritual, a form of collective memory, a way to pass down stories and values?
All of these are valid. All of them matter. But AI challenges them differently.
It doesn’t invalidate self-expression — but it floods the market, making it harder to be seen. It doesn’t erase art as therapy — but it does make “making it your job” a shakier proposition.
And if we’re honest, a lot of the current panic is less about expression… and more about position.
We’re not just afraid that AI will make good art. We’re afraid it will make so much good art that we’ll become invisible — or irrelevant.
So maybe it’s time to stop defending “art” as a single monolith, and start being honest about what we’re actually trying to protect.
Because some of it may be worth protecting. And some of it… might be worth letting go.
AI as Tool, Collaborator, or Colonizer
Depending on who you ask, AI is either a miracle or a monster. But like most tools, it’s not the thing itself — it’s how it’s used, and who’s holding it.
On one hand, AI can be a godsend.
It can:
Remove the soul-sucking labour from creative workflows
Help finish rough ideas, generate variations, or act as a bouncing board
Enable people with physical limitations, fatigue, executive dysfunction, or lack of technical training to finally create what’s been living in their heads for years
For the disabled, the neurodivergent, the chronically tired, or the time-poor — this isn’t just a productivity hack. It’s liberation.
And in that light, AI becomes a collaborator — a strange new instrument to improvise with.
But then there’s the other side.
The side where corporations use AI to:
Fire entire creative departments
Mass-produce art without paying artists
Feed models on unpaid, uncredited human labour
Flood platforms with content to drown out independent voices
Here, AI stops being a tool or a collaborator. It becomes a colonizer.
A force that doesn’t just assist human creativity — but replaces it, absorbs it, rebrands it, and sells it back to us.
So let’s not fall into the binary trap. AI isn’t inherently good or evil. It’s not “just a tool.” It’s a tool in a system. And that system has motives — economic, political, exploitative.
The question isn’t “Is AI good or bad?” The real question is: Who gets to use it, and who gets used by it?
Art Has Never Been a Fair Game
Let’s be brutally honest for a second.
The idea that AI is suddenly making things unfair for artists? Please. Unfairness has always been baked into the system.
Long before AI could spit out a passable oil painting in 15 seconds, we had:
Artists born into wealth with unlimited time and resources
Others working three jobs, stealing hours from sleep just to sketch
Elite schools with gatekept knowledge
Whole industries built on interns, nepotism, and exploitation
We’ve always lived in a world where:
Exposure trumps talent
Looks sell better than skill
Who you know can matter more than what you do
Some people get book deals, grants, galleries, and record contracts — while others more talented go unheard
So no — AI didn’t suddenly ruin a golden age of meritocracy. There never was one.
What it has done is raise the ceiling. Now the people with the most compute power, the biggest models, and the best prompt engineering skills are taking that same advantage and supercharging it.
Yes, it’s threatening. But it’s not new.
And maybe the real source of pain here is that for a long time, we convinced ourselves that finally, with the internet and social media, the playing field was levelling out. That if you just worked hard, stayed true, and got good at your craft — you’d find your audience. Now, that illusion is crumbling.
But maybe that’s not all bad. Because when the fantasy dies, we stop chasing validation in a rigged system — and start asking what art really means outside of that system.
What Cannot Be Replicated
Let’s say it plainly: AI can now create art that looks like art. It can mimic styles, blend influences, even generate “original” pieces that fool the eye or impress the algorithm.
But mimicry is not meaning. And this is where the line is drawn — not in pixels or waveforms, but in presence.
An AI cannot:
Create in order to understand itself
Bleed into a canvas because it doesn’t know where else to put the pain
Sit with a feeling until it shapes into a melody
Wrestle with childhood trauma through choreography
Capture the tension of grief, guilt, or longing in a line of poetry
It can replicate the result. It can’t live the becoming that led to it.
Because human art isn’t just a thing we make — it’s a thing we are while we’re making it.
It’s the shaky voice at an open mic. The sketch on a receipt in a café. The song that never leaves your bedroom. The project that took ten years to finish because you changed and needed the piece to change with you.
It’s the refusal to turn away from your own soul, even when no one’s watching.
That’s not something AI will ever “catch up to” — because it’s not a race of output. It’s a ritual of transformation.
So no — AI can’t replace that. Because it was never part of that to begin with.
In a World of Noise, Humanity is the Signal (Maybe)
We’re heading toward a world flooded with content — not just more, but more convincing. Music, art, writing, even personal reflections… all generated in moments, all capable of simulating depth.
And yes — some will argue that “authenticity will always shine through.” That human touch can’t be faked. That something deep down will feel the difference.
But what if that’s not true?
What if AI can learn to mimic the crack in the voice, the hesitation in a phrase, the poetic ambiguity of a grieving soul?
What if it becomes so good at being us — or at least simulating the traces we leave behind — that even we can’t tell the difference anymore?
What happens when you read a poem that moves you to tears… and find out it was written by a machine running a model of a hypothetical person’s life?
Will it still be real to you?
Will it matter?
Maybe the age of AI won’t destroy authenticity — but it might blur it so thoroughly that we stop being able to locate it with certainty. In that world, maybe the only real test is why we create, not whether the world knows who made it.
Not to stand out. Not to compete. Not to prove we’re human.
But because the act of creating still does something to us — regardless of how indistinguishable it becomes.
That’s where humanity will live. Not in the product. But in the process.
Heresy as Devotion
To even ask the question — “What if art no longer matters?” — feels like a betrayal. A kind of blasphemy. Especially if you’re an artist.
We’re supposed to defend it. Stand by it. Die for it, if necessary.
But I’m not interested in loyalty based on fear. I’m not here to parrot romantic slogans or protect some fragile ideal. I’m here because I asked myself the unaskable questions — And I didn’t break.
I looked my art in the eye and said:
“What if you’re no longer special?” “What if the world doesn’t need you anymore?” “What if you’re not even real?”
And instead of running, I stayed. I stayed with the silence. I stayed with the ache. And I found something deeper underneath the need to be seen, or praised, or preserved.
I found devotion.
Not to an outcome. Not to a career. Not to being “better than AI.”
But to the act itself.
To stepping into the space (or sometimes being thrown into it!). To listening in the dark. To turning feeling into form. To becoming through making.
If that makes me a heretic in the temple of Art, then so be it. I’ll burn my incense in the ruins and still call it sacred.
Because I’m not making to be important. I’m making to be honest.
And honesty can’t be replaced.
The Point Is Still the Point
Maybe AI really can make better images, smoother songs, cleverer lines. Maybe soon we won’t be able to tell the difference between a painting made by a person and one made by a machine trained on ten thousand human lifetimes.
Maybe the difference won’t even matter anymore.
But here’s what I know:
I still create.
I still need to shape the chaos inside me into something I can look at and say, “Yes — that’s part of me.” I still feel the pull to translate the unspeakable into form, even if no one else ever sees it.
And that need? That impulse? It doesn’t care whether it’s marketable. It doesn’t care whether it could have been done faster by a prompt.
It exists outside of all that.
Maybe that’s where art actually begins — Not with what we make, but with why we keep making.
So no — I’m not here to convince you that art still matters. I’m here to remind you that you do.
And no, I can’t say with certainty that you’re not a simulation. Maybe none of us are real in the way we think we are. Maybe we’re all just playing out the parameters of some higher-dimensional being’s prompt.
But here’s the thing:
This still feels real. The ache. The pull to create. The beauty we try to name before it dissolves. The questions we keep asking even when the answers don’t come.
And maybe that’s enough.
So make. Not because it proves your humanity. Not because you’ll get noticed. But because whatever this is — this strange loop of becoming — it’s calling you.
And to respond to that call, even from inside the simulation?
We were promised liberation. Sleek devices that fit in our pockets, connect us to the world, and put the power of creation in our hands. But instead, many of us now live in quiet submission to machines that seem to serve corporate masters more than their owners.
Our phones and laptops were once portals of personal freedom. Now they behave more like obedient jailers — installing apps we didn’t ask for, blocking accessories we bought with our own money, updating themselves while we sleep, and feeding our data to companies we never consented to.
Worse still, the more you rely on these devices — for work, communication, creativity, or accessibility — the tighter the leash becomes. And for neurodivergent users, whose very functioning may depend on predictability, clarity, and user agency, these constraints are not just frustrating — they can be disabling.
This isn’t just bad design. It’s a philosophy: one that says you don’t really own the tools you buy. Welcome to the era of built-in tyranny.
1. The Illusion of Ownership
You buy a phone. You expect it to work with whatever charger or headphones you already own. But surprise: it demands an official accessory. Or worse, it just won’t work at all.
Many devices now contain hardware-level restrictions that reject third-party gear unless it’s certified by the manufacturer — which often means more expensive and less sustainable. Example: Apple’s Lightning cable ecosystem often blocks uncertified accessories, while newer MacBooks only support external displays via specific USB-C docks.
On the software side, entire ecosystems are locked down. Samsung Galaxy phones ship with unremovable Facebook apps. Amazon Fire tablets restrict app choices to their own store. You’re not choosing an experience; you’re renting a branded enclosure.
2. Forced Updates, Feature Loss, and UX Hostility
Updates used to be a good thing. Now, they’re Trojan horses. You wake up one day to find your device has rearranged your menus, removed your favorite feature, or is running slower because your old hardware can’t handle the new bloat.
Examples:
Many Windows 10 users were forcibly upgraded to Windows 11 despite preferring the previous layout.
Google Nest devices lost key features like local device control after updates.
Instagram moved the post button to prioritize shopping.
Spotify now auto-plays algorithmic tracks after your playlist ends.
For neurodivergent users, this is deeply destabilizing. Predictable routines become shifting sands. Custom workarounds break. The cognitive load to re-learn an interface you never asked to change can be overwhelming.
3. Vendor Lock-In and the War on Repair
Remember when you could pop open a laptop or phone, swap out the battery, maybe upgrade the storage? Now, you need specialized tools just to open the case — and even if you succeed, you might find parts refuse to work unless the manufacturer “pairs” them via software.
Examples:
Apple requires calibration for many replacement parts like screens and batteries.
HP printers have rejected third-party ink cartridges via firmware updates.
Tesla has remotely disabled features like Autopilot on used vehicles.
John Deere tractors require proprietary software access, blocking DIY repairs.
For many neurodivergent users, the ability to tinker and customize is part of how they function. Taking that away is more than just annoying — it’s disempowering.
4. Surveillance and Consent Illusions
Your device is always listening. Your apps are always tracking. Settings may appear customizable, but they often hide the truth.
Examples of “dark patterns” include:
Confirmshaming: “No thanks, I prefer boring content.”
Pre-checked boxes for mailing lists or data collection.
Buttons where “Accept” is bright and big, but “Decline” is small and grey.
Amazon’s multi-page unsubscribe process.
Google’s multi-click cookie opt-out.
For neurodivergent users especially, these deceptive experiences create anxiety and a feeling of being manipulated. The illusion of control is a form of psychological strain.
5. The Neurodivergent Toll
For many neurodivergent people, consistency is survival. We rely on routines and predictability to function. When updates override our settings, change layouts, or disable our workarounds, it can throw everything out of balance.
Sensory overload from flashy animations, auto-playing videos, or constant notifications compounds the stress.
Many ND users report:
Updates that reset accessibility settings
UI layouts that defy logic or require too many steps
Changes that break assistive tools or workflows
This isn’t just a usability issue — it’s a form of systemic inaccessibility.
6. A Glimpse at Alternatives
Some hopeful alternatives include:
Librem 5 and PinePhone: Linux-powered open-source smartphones
/e/OS or LineageOS: De-Googled Android systems
Right to Repair: Supported by groups like iFixit
Linux laptops and mod-friendly systems
They’re not always easy or accessible to everyone, but they do prove that different models are possible — ones that respect the user’s right to own, modify, and control.
7. Conclusion: Know Your Shackles
Built-in tyranny doesn’t arrive with jackboots. It arrives with glossy screens, sleek packaging, and biometric locks. It whispers, “for your convenience,” while tightening its grip.
If you can’t fix it, can’t change it, and can’t control it — Then you are not the owner. You are the product.
If we want a more ethical, inclusive, and truly empowering digital world, we must start by naming the shackles that come standard — and imagining a world where they don’t.
