생각

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBk9lLFWGcI

would you run a marathon if you weren't allowed to post it on instagram, facebook, youtube, or any social media? would you run a marathon if no one but you knew you did it? would you run a marathon if no one would ever believe that you did it? would you do anything without social validation from others?

i made a new youtube account today, not on purpose though i created a new google account to bypass some rate limits for some API but I remained logged in while using youtube earlier today and i realized what had happened when i saw the homepage filled with videos related to stuff i had watched (normally i have tracking and history turned off) what surprised me most was how accurate of a profile it had built on me in just a few hours the home page had videos of programming, machine learning, calculus, minecraft, manhwa stuff, and lots of stuff i'm interested in- even though i had never even searched anything related it reminds of that one mirror in harry potter that reveals one's deepest desires its weird to think that such a device was complete fantasy a few decades ago but now is just a basic reality for us and its got me thinking, a lot of the technology we use today must have undoubtedly been inspired by sci-fi or fantasy stuff for example: phones im pretty sure some of the earliest depictions of modern smartphones were done so decades earlier in comic books or some kind of literature ultimately the only reason why we have smartphones that look the way they do and function the way they do is because of these creatives that came up with the idea decades earlier a generation that grew up consuming this media showing them a future of technology written and drawn by some old guys ended up building exactly that future same thing goes with AI chatbots and stuff- i don't think we'd have that technology right now if the possibility of it had never been examined or come up with by some sci-fi artist or author or smth else but i digress history is not written by the victors but rather by comic book artists

what is art? art is whatever we call 'art' certain factors influence the number of people that call art 'art' - i.e., market value, meaning and intention, and popularity. this definition is very shallow, but in my eyes, is the only one that makes sense trying to objectively define something as subjective as art is very difficult and arguably impossible to accomplish without having to make numerous exemptions

the chinese room argument- where is the line between mimicry and understanding?

the things im embarassed or ashamed about are things that no one else probably remembers or knows about

i wonder how many of these thoughts are actually mine and how many are just regurgitations of ideas i've heard from elsewhere is there even such thing as 'mine' or 'yours' in this context is a thought mine if i come up with it alone or is ownership given to whoever comes up with it first does it even matter

if you knew you were going to lose all of your memories tomorrow and you could only choose one person to tell you who you were, who would it be?

it is everyone's first time alive probably

why is nostalgia a thing even if i experienced many negative things in the past, i seem to only be able to remember the good things

is it better to have a broad life or a deep life? to visit 100 countries for a day each, or to live in one town for 50 years and know the history of every crack in the sidewalk?

is personality fixed or fluid? i notice that when i switch from speaking english to korean, my voice drops an octave and i become more deferential am i two different people, or is the 'me' just the observer watching both of them?

future archaeologists will probably get most of their information from digital archives or something my entire legacy, my humor, my fears, are all stored in magnetic tape in a data center i will never visit

re: the mesopotamia thing—i think the ballpoint pen is harder. tungsten and glass (lightbulb) are just materials. finding them is hard, but the concept is simple. but the precision engineering required for that tiny rolling ball and the specific viscosity of ink that flows but doesnt spill would be pretty hard. we take smooth writing for granted we take a lot of things for granted

among a population, which is more important? that they are on average more equal or that they are on average more happy?

if you got sent back to ancient mesopotamia would it be harder to create a ballpoint pen from scratch or an incandescent lightbulb?

as silly as it is, i sometimes forget that this is my life and not anyone elses; i have free will and the ability to do whatever i want i wish i forgot about this less

what does it mean to be a person? more specifically, a 사람? growing up, i was asked this question a lot by my parents- "When are you going to become a person?" they asked it when i got into trouble or did something stupid. it was obviously rhetorical, but its always bugged me- I AM a person. what more do i need to do? eventually, i did manage to define "person." not as maturity or being yourself, but something else. something less tangible. this definition guides my life