THOUGHTS ON TECH - BY JEREMY
Those who know me in person know I love to whine, so this blog shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. All of you should be thankful I’m relegating this to a blog post and not making it everyone’s problem.
I am filing my 2024 taxes today. I waited until the last minute because I’m stubborn and that’s what I do.
Sequence of events;
1) I file
2) IRS rejects my return because I estimated my last years AGI
3) I can’t find my AGI on my ‘23 W2, I have to find it on my actual IRS return
3b) the IRS doesn’t give this over the phone, even after providing your BIRTHDAY, FIRST/LAST, AND SSN
4) I have to go into the IRS.GOV website to find MY 2023’s AGI
5) I do not have an online account on their .gov website
6) In order to MAKE AN ACCOUNT, the IRS requires me to:
6b) Upload my State ID, taken on my iPhone, front and back
6c) a SELFIE of myself sitting at my office at my day job
7) the IRS.GOV website has a loading icon that spins forever
8) I try it again
9) The website was actually working, it just wanted me to go back to the computer to finish it
10) I finally get logged into the IRS website, I navigate through until I find my last years return, and there it is, in tiny font, like an addendum, in the middle of the page, in eyesore typeface.
11) I resubmit.
12) I try to log into my bands squarespace website so I can bitch and moan about this inconvenience
13) squarespace doesn’t believe who I am, has no remote fucked idea what my band is, has me verify my identity for my own band on my own computer that I own in my office even though it’s never asked me this once before and I log in once a month
14) the squarespace icon spins forever
15) i recive 3 different VERIFICATION CODES before squarespace the website lets me into my own website that I made with my own bare hands and work computer
16) I type this blog
I am thinking about this on a very basic human level. Keep in mind, there was a time not too long ago where we all thought it was impossible for a human to fly. Then in the 20’s or some shit some guys in Dayton made the first plane. We used to live in caves. We used to be hunter gatherers. In the 80s, one went to the bank, got their W2, filled out the boxes with a real wooden pencil, then put it in the mail. We were all still American’s back then, just like now. That is the perspective I am thinking about.
Now look at us – this is the future. Get used to this stuff because that’s all this country is now. Everything – getting a sandwich, going on a bike ride, ordering goods online, trying to rent a car or get a hotel room – it is all going to feel like The Airport. Everything in this country will be like going through TSA.
I was a little boy when they released the iPhone in 2009-whatever, when Silicon Valley hit the culture, when Disney stated uploading their kids programs to the internet for free in the 9/11 era, I wasn’t born for the dot com economic boom of the 90s, but I know people were excited by technology, there was money to be made for everyone, there was future on the way, no one talked about Oligarchs, it was just Steve Jobs was on stage in a turtleneck presenting the coolest thing ever, the thing that was going to change the world, and it did. What does the iPhone do for us now? Like actually? Waste our time on reels. Fill our brains with rage bait and porn.
