/**
 * file: karbytes_14_march_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 14_MARCH_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

I was wondering why it seems socially taboo to be a loner (especially as a lifestyle choice). Then it dawned on me that it may be almost entirely that it is because being a loner is a major public burden. In job applications, many employers ask for personal references (i.e. people who personally know the person applying for the job which that job application is for and people who would be willing to talk to the prospective employer on the phone about that person applying for the job). Also, many medical and legal forms ask for emergency contacts (i.e. people who are considered to be friends or family who would be available to make decisions on behalf of the person filling out the form in the event that the form filler becomes incapacitated, incarcerated, disappears, or dies). 

If I, for whatever reason, go "no contact" with any people who society would consider to be my friends, family, care staff, coworkers, classmates, or associates of any kind, then I may be regarded as a liability because not enough people would have been keeping tabs on my activities and whereabouts for me to matter significantly enough to count as even one person. Basically, if I am not part of a group consisting of at least two people (but more than two is what is considered to be socially acceptable), then I effectively count as zero people. In some ways, that might be the opposite of a public burden because that means that, if I become incapacitated, incarcerated, disappear, or die, I could easily be made to look as though I never existed. 

Since I was in the single digits (in terms of numbers of years of being alive as the human individual named Karlina Ray Beringer), I have always dreamed of growing up to be some kind of hermit who lives alone in some tiny cabin close to beautiful North American wilderness areas (but, of course, with unlimited high-speed internet and working computational devices and other equipment which enables me to enjoy my favorite activities and to stay safe and healthy). I see now as an adult of 34 years that it is extremely difficult to afford such a living situation (though I have been trying my best to approximate it). All I have really wanted (imprecisely speaking) was ample time and space to enjoy solitude in addition to having the social safety net of a government which provides for all of my basic needs whether or not I have a job, whether or not I have a disability, and whether or not I have friends or family (but, if such support is not provided entirely by self-maintaining robots, humans would have to fill such roles (which means that none of those support services are free (at least yet))). 

I wrote this note to try to figure out why it has been so difficult for me to live my dream. I thought overpopulation and over consumption of resources by humans was to blame. Now I think it is because technology is not up to date enough to imbue all humans with that luxury standard of living I described in the previous paragraph. What I described in the previous paragraph is (at least partially) the basis for a utopia in which humans could seriously live their entire lives in isolation from each other if they choose to (and be taken care of entirely by intelligent and self-sustaining (and, if need be, self-replicating) machines which predecessor humans set into motion by building and training the first of such machines).

Finally (as an aside), I understand that much of what I have published on the web seems a bit under developed, melodramatic, and factually inaccurate (and also perhaps a bit inflammatory and divisive). I did not write with the intent of compelling as many humans as possible to want to read my content and to care about what I have to say (and who I am and how I am doing). Instead, I wrote almost entirely for my future selves and for intelligent machines to discover (or rediscover). I wrote for scientific experiment reasons, for amusement, for self-comfort, and, also, to inform intelligent beings other than my future selves about my existence in case they are curious to know about my existence. I wanted to satisfy their curiosity by leaving potentially interesting digital and physical artifacts for them to find.