Sprok Notes: "Hey Look Over Here"
I write because if I don’t, I might lose my mind. There’s just too much up there. I turn thoughts and observations into essays… even if they sometimes end up too verbose or a bit irrelevant for some.
That’s why I’ve started running my essays through AI … to distill the core themes and key takeaways. I’m calling these summaries “Sprok Notes” — a mix of SparkNotes and Grok. Think of them as quick-hit breakdowns of each Junteau piece, published a few hours or days after the full essay. Here’s the first one, based on this morning’s piece.
Key Meaning and Themes
The essay, titled “Hey Look Over Here! There’s a pigeon!”, is a reflective and critical exploration of modern society's economic, technological, and psychological state, framed through the lens of systems critique. It examines how human progress, driven by technological and economic systems, has shifted the nature of work and societal purpose, leading to a world overwhelmed by information, content, and manufactured demand.
Key Meaning
The essay argues that modern society is in a transitional phase where traditional economic activities (e.g., farming, manufacturing) have been largely automated, pushing humanity into a "quinary" layer of economic activity focused on entertainment, marketing, and attention-seeking. This shift has created a world where much of what is produced—content, products, and even jobs—is unnecessary for survival but exists to maintain societal stability and individual purpose. The essay uses the metaphor of "pigeon counting" to illustrate a dystopian future where invented, performative tasks dominate to keep people occupied in a world where essential needs are already met. It questions the sustainability of this system and the psychological toll of living in a society driven by manufactured demand and attention theft.
Major Themes
Systems Critique and Invisible Rules
The essay is rooted in systems theory, exploring how invisible rules, feedback loops, and incentives shape societal behavior. It critiques how these systems create outcomes that may not align with human needs or well-being, such as the proliferation of unnecessary products and jobs.
Example: The shift from primary (e.g., farming) to quinary (e.g., marketing, content creation) economic activities illustrates how systems evolve to prioritize attention and novelty over necessity.
Overabundance of Information and Content
The essay highlights the overwhelming nature of modern life, where an excess of content (videos, books, social media) creates a sense of excitement but also existential despair due to the inability to consume it all. This theme reflects the paradox of abundance: while access to information is unprecedented, it leads to feelings of inadequacy and chaos.
Manufactured Demand and Performative Productivity
The essay critiques the creation of "invented" industries and jobs to keep people occupied as automation reduces the need for traditional work. It introduces the concept of "pigeon counting" as a satirical example of performative, unnecessary tasks that sustain economic activity.
Example: Industries like adaptogenic mushroom hand cream or SaaS email summarizers are portrayed as unnecessary but sustained by manufactured demand to keep the economic "machine" running.
Attention Economy and Time Theft
A central theme is the commodification of attention, where content creation and advertising are tools to "steal" focus for profit. The essay describes this as a normalized but problematic aspect of late-stage capitalism, where even personal branding becomes a form of attention-seeking.
Example: The call to “embrace the cringe” reflects the need to provoke or polarize to gain followers and relevance in a crowded digital space.
Human Psychology and the "5 S’s"
The essay posits that human desires (sex, status, security, salt, sugar) remain constant despite technological progress. These desires are exploited by marketing and consumer culture to drive demand for non-essential products and services. This theme underscores the tension between unchanging human psychology and a rapidly evolving economic system.
Economic Progress and Its Consequences
The essay critiques the narrative of progress, questioning whether automation and new industries truly benefit humanity or simply create new forms of busyness. It challenges the optimism of technological utopianism by suggesting that fewer people are needed to sustain society, leading to existential questions about purpose.
Example: The decline in agricultural labor (from 40% to 1-2% in the US) highlights how automation displaces workers, forcing society to invent new roles.
Existential Crisis and the Search for Meaning
As essential needs are met and work becomes less necessary, the essay explores the psychological and societal challenge of finding meaning in a world of performative tasks. It suggests that humans still crave purpose, usefulness, and recognition, even as their roles become less essential.
Example: The "pigeon counting" metaphor illustrates a future where people cling to invented roles to feel useful, despite their lack of intrinsic value.
Degrowth and the Fragility of Consumerism
The essay proposes a thought experiment where consumerist industries (e.g., energy drinks, luxury goods) disappear if people reject unnecessary consumption. This highlights the fragility of the current economic system and raises questions about the feasibility of degrowth.
Example: If everyone drank only water, entire industries would collapse, exposing the artificiality of much of modern economic activity.
AI and the Future of Creativity
The essay warns that even creatve work (quinary activities like content creation) is being overtaken by AI, pushing society closer to a future where human contributions are increasingly redundant. This theme reflects anxiety about the role of humans in an automated world and the potential loss of creative agency.
Delirium and Societal Transition
The essay likens society’s current state to "delirium tremens," a withdrawal-like syndrome where people sense a profound shift but are disoriented by it. This captures the chaotic, noisy transition to a post-essential economy where meaning and purpose are harder to find.