heading home

 February 6th 2023 ===========================

This is almost a ROOPHLOCH challenge but not quite given that it's,
y'know, February but it is posting to the gopherwarren in a
non-traditional way since I'm typing all of this on a bus back to
portland, coming in from the oregon coast.

I know my posts have been very frustrated and sad and vent heavy and
that's partly a product of how much I've been bottling up for so
long. Trying to be better about that, really.

It's grey skies, unsurprisingly for this time of year. Last night I
got to stand on the temporarily given back ocean floor next to piles
of worn rock during the full-moon's low tide. The wind was strong
enough it was struggle to stand straight, which is fine because I find
it a struggle to do anything straight, and the little pocket camera
got a little more use before the ancient battery registered its
displeasure and the camera snapped shut. It turns out that these
batteries are still being made, thankfully, and I can buy a new one
for about $7 from a reseller with good reviews. Cheapers if I'm
willing to take chances. I played it safe and backed away wave by wave
as the tide came in, so the reclaiming never quite reached my feet. I
play this all cautious because I never learned how to swim growing up,
being raised as sick and as isolated as I am, so I have this healthy
respect for how easily water can kill me.

I'm writing this as I also have my email open because my work is
switching back into full-gear. I'm already so tired, though, of the
internal politics of what's happening at this community college. I
really did get thrown into the deep end here and I never learned this
kind of swimming for rather similar reasons.

I worry a lot that I shouldn't even be doing this job. That even
taking it is to close to the falacy of trying to change broken systems
from within. Sure I'm trying to inject my anarchafeminist
permacomputing values into this space but I feel like there's only so
much one luddite can do to try and slow down the eager machine of
big-tech AI efforts. I'm trying to push back against reliance on
proprietary code, instill the faculty I work with with the knowledge
that things like large language models represent epistemic violence.

But what does any of this mean? Will it make any kind of difference at
all or am I just performing that role where capital needs a token
resistance to continue legitimizing itself.

It was morally easier when it was years of scrounging to stay afloat,
eschewing any kind of real tech sector job so I never had to
compromise my principles. The fact that I'm making a living wage now
makes everything feel suspect, like I can't trust my own motivations
anymore. I don't want to compromise.