Algorithm (算法, アルゴリズム, 연산)

Today, on one another divided day in Trump's America where on one side of the country Trump pardoned fraudster George Santos, and on the other side the No Kings rallies around the country protested against the president's policies, I heard one of the more inspired speeches by Bill Maher on my favorite show: Real Time (other than Jeopardy of course, which is so ingrained in my Youtube feed that anytime anything drops remotely related to Jeopardy it hits the top of my feed). Bill Maher told everyone the algorithm is dividing us as a country into 2 different camps and that we should just mess with the algorithm: Don't let it dictate which side of the aisle you are on, so you get both sides of the viewpoint. Funny he mentions that, because.......I already do do that. Sometimes I'll click on a Joe Rogan video or Ben Shapiro video, but then.......I'll click on a New York Times video or Daily Show episode, or mainstream news outlet. My algorithm is probably weirded out by my political affiliations, but it does know I like chess puzzles and highlights of soccer goals: it continually feeds those to me all the time, and I mindlessly click on them to further cement their place in my queue. This is probably happening to millions of Americas right now who are powerless to stop it, and unfortunately those who have clear political leanings get the most extreme, one-sided material and believe the other side is the enemy. This is one of the worse parts of living in Trump's America and one of the more urgent problems facing us right now. Algorithm comes not from an Arabic word or Greek word as I had thought, but actually the Latin version of a Persian mathematician's name. (This may come up on Jeopardy, especially final jeopardy one day, as the writers love to ask about word origins). That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge about how it operates, but it works off of data, and we feed the algorithm data every time we click on anything. It's scary, makes me want to trade down to get a "dumbphone" or "flip-phone" and hope that our baby will never have a phone. Just like when I wake up and feel like my brain is fresh and uncluttered with junk from the phone, but over the course of the day as I hit "Youtube" or "Facebook" almost mindlessly to take a break from work, I suddenly see myself watching another video even though I had told myself just 10 minutes earlier I'm done with videos for the day. The algorithm is so powerful because it knows what you really like and filters to only those kind of videos, so it's hard to put the phone down, it's just right there for you, like eating ice cream and pizza at the same time. I feel a baby's brain is still fresh and can be molded how we want, feed it fresh veggies and fruits and none of the junk of the algorithm. That's partly why I actually feel more comfortable watching a channel with just ONE view than one with 10 million views, and I have been tuning into a Twitch live feed called "TriviaDragon." TriviaDragon is probably one of the best non-professional Jeopardy players out there right now who hasn't been on Jeopardy, much faster and much more prepared for Jeopardy than I am. He has a set of flashcards that he just runs through for the whole episode and answers them quickly, usually totaling 500 clues within 30 minutes. I know, thrilling, right? It's great for me, brings me a sense of peace, no ads, no links to different videos, no loops where the video plays again after you get to the end......it's just Taotao the host dispatching clues over and over again, like an old school study session I had in high school where we locked ourselves in a room and just studied, no phones no distractions just learning. After each video I feel defeated and feel my mind ready to explode with all the new facts that I just absorbed, many of which I'll probably forget soon, but it's a good feeling of exhaustion, of having accomplished something, rather than letting the algorithm lead me into oblivion and endless Mr. Beast videos or disc golf videos (those just recently popped up into my algorithm for no reason, it's weird sometimes what the algorithm decides to push even if you don't click on it, it just makes educated guesses on what you might like). Focusing on trivia is like going out into the wild and only having the great outdoors around me, no connection to the internet. I'm focused, I'm entertained, and I'm set on a goal- to be not embarrassed on Jeopardy if and when I get onto the show, especially by trivia superchampions like TriviaDragon or Dargan Ware, the guy who just became champion on Friday, whom I'm predicting to be a multi-multi-game champion. In his first game he pulls 5 out of 6 $2000 clues (supposedly the hardest clues in the bottom of the board) and also knew the 6th one just got beat by another contestant. Solon, Hokusai, Hegel's dialectic, TS Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, and Terrence Malick's 1995 "Love! Valor! Compassion!" Unbelievable.