When people say the future is bright, I don’t think this is what they meant…
I try to keep up with the latest technologies. AI, ChatGPT, Blockchain, Crypto, at this point they’re buzzwords that people throw around to try and seem smart around their friends. After researching and using some of the above things, I can say there’s at least some semblance of functionality in the real world, but there’s always been one new thing that I just can’t wrap my head around.
NFTs.
Despite watching countless YouTube videos and listening to who knows how many explanations, all I can get from it is they are pictures that you have to pay to own, but everyone can still use it and you get no royalties from that use.
AKA, a scam, they’re pretty much just a scam.
That hasn’t stopped who knows how many influencers and celebrities from trying to cash in on these non-fungible tokens by paying some college kid $100 to whip up some picture, slapping their name on it, making a few statements saying they “worked so hard on this project”, and selling it to some sucker for way too much money, sometimes well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Well, just the other day a whole group of NFT believers made a trip to Hong Kong for a convention called ApeFest and found out the hard way that the digital world can have some serious real life consequences.
A collection of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT’s (whatever that means) were on display for participants to view, but during and shortly after the event wrapped up on November 5th, a number of people began having some serious health issues.
First hand reports began flowing out onto X, where convention goers were complaining about burning eyes and vision problems, some even going temporarily blind.
Many of these people went to a doctor to get checked out and they were diagnosed with Photokeratitis, also called welder’s eye, which occurs due to prolonged and excessive exposure to UV light, according to The Messenger. There have been at least 15 reports of these injuries.
Basically, these tech-bros stared at NFTs for so long that they literally burned their eyes as if they were staring at the sun… I mean, what do you even say about that?
These allegedly smart people, who are trying to shape the future of our world with this “cutting edge” technology blinded themselves? What kind of screens were they using? How long did they stare at slime covered bathroom? What positives did they get out of this?
If this isn’t enough proof that maybe we should hold back on listening to these “Experts” than I don’t know what is. So often you’ll hear people say something like “Well, I don’t understand it but it wouldn’t be so valuable if it wasn’t real” or “There’s a lot of smart people who understand it so it has to be good” and I just want us all to take a deep breath.
People blinded themselves because they wanted to travel to Hong Kong to stare for hours at a bunch of pictures that radiated insane amounts of UV…
I’m ready to make the call; the end of the world is near.
