Above is a piece from my new Tezos NFT collection, History and the Machine. Each piece in the collection features a figure from history that I painted in oils between 2012 and 2018. This one is Carl Jung. Each original painting was combined with written biographical details of the person and fed into an artificial intelligence engine. The resulting AI adaptations of my oil portraits were then minted as Tezos NFTs on Objkt.
Each NFT description contains a link to the original oil portrait. You can see all of the original portraits here. There are 19 unique still image portraits plus a video in the collection. I minted just 7 each of the stills and one of the video. Pricing begins at 9 xtz, though I'll consider all reasonable offers.
Today the weather was perfect for sitting outside the coffee shop. So I sat, sipping coffee with a few of the establishment's other regulars, listening to a guy go on and on about why the Earth is flat. This average-looking fellow told us that the world was flat like a pizza, with the North Pole in the center and Antarctica around the edge. Beyond the ice wall at this edge are other worlds, and the global conspiracy to convince us that the world is round has to do with preventing us from traveling beyond the wall to these other worlds. Also, according to this guy, there is a hole at the North Pole, below which hangs a black sun, and this underworld black sun apparently produces the northern lights.
While Flat Earth was pontificating, another young man kept trying to join in the conversation by saying, "Reality is objective." He said this several times, and then went on to explain what he meant. He explained that every person lives in their own reality and was using the term 'objective' incorrectly. He meant 'subjective,' not 'objective,' and argued with me when I pointed out the error.
Like Flat Earth, Solipsist kept using terminology that was obviously beyond the scope of his understanding. When the two of them started talking directly to each other, it was like word salad jazz. I couldn't tell if they were arguing with each other or agreeing. Then a woman sitting nearby joined in, and both of the men began unconsciously competing for her attention by becoming increasingly passionate about whatever it was they thought they were saying.
Although the episode was mildly entertaining, it left me feeling disappointed in our culture. Disappointed, specifically, in how our culture prizes intellect over so many other important traits. If we instead prized compassion or honesty or helpfulness, people like Flat Earth and Solipsist might not be driven by unconscious forces to feign intellect in social circumstances.
The weirdest part of watching these people pretend to be intelligent was knowing that high intelligence isn't necessarily all that great, particularly when it comes to mental health. From Scientific American:
The biggest differences between the [superior IQ] group and the general population were seen for mood disorders and anxiety disorders. More than a quarter (26.7 percent) of the sample reported that they had been formally diagnosed with a mood disorder, while 20 percent reported an anxiety disorder—far higher than the national averages of around 10 percent for each.
Personally, although it's definitely conferred some advantages, having a high IQ has rarely helped my mental health and has frequently felt like a hindrance in social circumstances. In fact, one of my biggest social challenges so far in life has been training myself to communicate with others in a way that doesn't draw too much attention to my IQ. So when I see people like Flat Earth and Solipsist showing off their pseudointellect, I wonder who they're really performing for. Themselves, probably, on a stage built from cultural misconceptions about intelligence.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.