I am heavily critical of tech. When I say tech, I entirely mean the smart phone and social media. I’ve actively limited social media apps on my phone to 20 minutes a day (it goes by quicker than you think!) and am insistent that the doom scroll usage should be actively fought against. When I’m waiting in line, I now try my hardest to not take my phone out. Embrace the boredom. DO NOT DISTRACT. These are novel thoughts.

HOWEVER.

I am going to give you a tech-success story! In August of 2024 I replied to a post in r/chess about ‘coach-a-player’. People offer to coach a stranger for no compensation. After connecting with someone from there, he sent me a friend request on chess.com which I accepted. I shit you not, below was his profile at the time.

If I told you I friended a stranger on chess.com and asked you to come up with the most ridiculous profile for that person to have, this would be in the top 5% of ridiculous. I sincerely tried to NOT judge this guy and accept his coaching. However, after a few messages we determined that he wasn’t good enough to help me and I gladly said “seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyuhlater“.

I am not a quitter though. And about two months ago I commented on another r/chess ‘coach-a-player‘ post to a guy who was definitively better than me. We exchanged a few messages and scheduled a meeting. I knew nothing about this guy. I didn’t know his name, his race, his sexuality, nothing. Would he have his camera on? (Yes). Would he be totally naked? (No). But I did it anyway.

And for the past like 5 weeks I’ve met with my guy Jay. I actually just got off a 90 minute call with him. What do I know about him? He’s a mid 30s software engineer in San Francisco, he has a girlfriend, and he’s really good at chess. I asked him why he wants to do this and he said he loves chess and wants to give back / try something new. That’s about it.

The point of this is that tech has done a lot of good things for this world, and can still do things unimaginable just a decade or two ago. You just have to try to think about it like that. I just try to look at it through that perspective. It’s easy to do it once you try to do it. A lot of folks don’t care to try.