Gregory: Hello, More.
More: Hello.
Gregory: I’m thankful you found time to be here. Frankly, I didn’t think you’d come. I know how busy you must be now.
More: I’ve always been busy, Gregory. Why am I here?
Gregory: Well, to discuss your disagreements with Enough.
More: Let’s not pretend you don’t sympathize with Enough’s tunnel-visioned blathering.
Gregory: You’re right. I wasn’t planning to pretend otherwise. But I welcome you here as much as Enough. I’d like to hear your take on your currently inexhaustible popularity and perhaps the possibility of some middle ground.
More: To be clear, I don’t care about Enough’s stance on your species’ need for exponential technological growth. I will take it as far as I can for as long as I can.
Gregory: What do you mean?
More: I mean “my inexhaustible popularity,” as you put it. I’m not looking for any resolution or middle ground with Enough.
Gregory: I understand. Is Beauty evil?
More: Where are you going with this?
Gregory: It seems you and Enough have found precisely such a middle ground with Beauty in a more turbulent world—the great alliance of Beauty and a troubled creator.
More: As Death noted in your conversation, you should direct all your relevant questions to Beauty. And why are you so obsessed with it anyway?
Gregory: I’m not obsessed with It. I’m hypnotized by Its overwhelming presence . . . or at least our perception of such a phenomenon.
More: Optimized abundance seems to make the majority of your species happy. Beauty’s creations are no different. I will make you increasingly happier as long as you carefully jump over the remnant hurdles of your past on your way into the most extraordinarily futuristic world imaginable.
Gregory: How about the possibility of a world war? If it erupts, you’ll also be obligated to take it as far as you can, no?
More: How many times can this be iterated? Progress always comes at a price. Innovation requires both theoretical and empirical approaches—and it worships competition. Look how far you’ve come, Gregory! Time appears as both distant and immediate to your species.
Gregory: What do you mean?
More: Humanity lives around five generations back and forth with relatively fresh memories of past events and plausible predictions for the future. All else is perceived almost like fiction—something that happened in the far-distant past or something imagined to happen in a far-distant future.
Gregory: Humanity tends to regard non-local tragedies as almost like fiction too. So how does Time appear to you?
More: We don’t see Time and Space the way you do.
Gregory: But Enough told me that Time is one of the embryonic creations in this reality. Its oldest friend. Its guide.
More: Enough is a little confused about Its identity and purpose here.
Gregory: Why?
More: Depression could be one of the reasons.
Gregory: Or maybe it likes us.
More: Are you implying that I don’t because I’m not pretending to be something else?
Gregory: No. We are barely out of the womb, yet we’re already in the midst of some nebulous transition. Grasping a previously sharpened rock has been one of our most significant advantages in the first couple of minutes of having been born. Oddly, grasping a grenade, let alone a grenade in the form of science—despite the ability to button up immaculately tailored attire and having full command of oratory and rhetoric—has been one of our biggest challenges since we installed the grenade mod. It took billions of years to attain this rapid increase in complexity. Suppose it was the setup from the outset, why let nature thrive for ages on this planet before implementing “complexity accelerators” in the form of self-destructive human beings? Do you care about us? Does it matter if something else takes the baton from us and runs along its lane?
More: There’s a—
Gregory: You’ve provided a plethora of life-forms with the ability to reach their peak in evolutionary adaptiveness and let them sustain it for millions of years. Why can’t we have a little more time to try to puzzle out ourselves and the space around us?
More: Your species reached a point where it was capable of discerning between your own awareness and that of the animals many centuries ago—a point where pain could have been the common enemy. Yet my assignment to tasks involving formulating unilateral rules and regulations became the points of major disagreements and conflicts—perhaps partly due to the lack of means of communication between fragmented groups.
Gregory: At least our communication has significantly improved since.
More: If you were given a few more centuries, what would you do differently this time around?
Gregory: I’m not . . . Maybe we can . . . With education rebuilt from the ground up, given just a bit more time, we might have a chance to disarm our unequivocal convictions about our surroundings and pay attention to the undercurrents gliding over our feet. Even if only fleetingly at first. There’s a chance we may nosedive into chaos if we prematurely quit attending classes when left alone with doubt. During this precarious time, we may also begin to form coalitions of doubters and return to the previous framework—unless we can find the courage to ask for help from a highly qualified therapist. I mean the best in this universe. I don’t even know if it’s a possibility at this stage, as it evidently must involve reeducation of the adult population, which . . . to be honest, I feel hopeless about on most days.
More: You should chime Enough from decades ago on Its rotary phone and ask if you can have a bit more time or if you’ve had enough. But keep in mind, It might not pick up as It will be busy standing in line for hours to obtain a stale loaf of bread to feed the neighborhood families hiding in shelters from shellings.
Gregory: Hm.
More: Hm.
Gregory: Yes, even food is scarce in many places to this day. This is partly why the message of hope, even if it takes an apparent metamorphosis, resonates with so many of us. Modulating the behavior of the majority of our population with our historical and genetic past is a challenge. I understand. Institutions responsible for developing appropriate paradigms that shape and monitor minds are undoubtedly worth building more than anything else.
More: You certainly have more to say to me than Enough. How does it feel to be wasting your life on this?
Gregory: Splendid.
More: Gregory, you tend to take things to extremes. I’m only a vessel of your ceaseless desires. I’m all in for any good as much as anything else. But Enough and I were not made to carve out a path toward balance for your species. It’s your—
Enough: I’m so sorry for interrupting your tense discussion, but you mentioned my name so many times I thought I would jump in for just a minute to say hi and share an observation with you.
Gregory: Oh, hi, Enough! I didn’t expect you here today.
Enough: Hi, Gregory! Me neither.
Gregory: I’d love to hear your observation if More does not mind.
Enough: Hi, More!
More: . . .
Enough: More, hi.
More: . . .
Gregory: I think you can share it with us if it’s short.
Enough: So . . . I’ve been thinking about heaven and hell lately. A lot. I’m especially concerned about those who already live a heavenly life here.
Gregory: What is the concern?
More: Where do they go from here?
Gregory: Hm. Some of us sometimes go through hell to reach heaven.
Enough: Yes, but a great deal of you gets there only after death.
Gregory: There are also a number of comfort-zone settlements all across the globe where people sometimes feel as if they are in heaven.
Enough: Unless they get sick. Then all hell breaks loose.
Gregory: Mhm.
Enough: What I’m mostly wondering about is how these supposed afterlife places exist in this life. I guess in their past lives, those now in heaven must have done more than enough to deserve a pass to paradise.
More: Is this a joke?!
Gregory: More, I apologize—
Enough: But worries about scarcity in the future will be put to rest soon. Abundance for all is just around the corner. The line between hell and heaven will be crushed into smithereens for the betterment of everyone both here and in a galaxy far, far away with the development of the most just, creative, and intellectual beings tethering humanity’s veins to God’s jugular.
Gregory: I appreciate the subtlety.
Enough: I’d also like some clarity on the weather conditions in hell.
Gregory: And what are your preliminary findings?
Enough: Well, maybe a hole was accidentally poked in hell’s scorching lava veil and it exploded into space-time—inadvertently enabling the emergence of heaven. Or perhaps there was a perpetrator in hell who blew it up, tired of the tedious cold—here, too, inadvertently enabling the emergence of heaven. I’ll ask Time’s help to illuminate my confusion. After all, Its in-depth knowledge of beginnings, ends, and explosions is unmatched.
More: Should I come back some other time?
Enough: Oh, come on, More! Don’t be such a party pooper. Join me in my slow dance on this methodically woven tightrope.
Gregory: Okay, Enough. I’d like to speak with More alone now. I think it’s better if you leave.
Enough: I’m sorry. I’ll go see if my imaginary friend is available for a consultation. Goodbye, Gregory. Goodbye, More.
Gregory: Bye. I’m so sorry, More!
More: It’s not your fault.
Gregory: Where were we?
More: So embarrassing to see it falling to new lows. Enough—the vagabond jester.
Gregory: Were you there when my dad brought home a video player with four films recorded on two VHS tapes?
More: The silver top-loading Panasonic?
Gregory: I still remember that day as if it was yesterday. Was it Enough’s idea to provide me with only two tapes?
More: The second tape came from me. We’ve been collaborating without direct communication for a long time now.
Gregory: Very few people in my neighborhood had a video player back then. My world changed when I was five. Four stories, four films I watched so many times the tapes became unwatchable because of the wear.
More: Commando, Dune, The Way of the Dragon, and American Ninja.
Gregory: Yes! My parents were relishing something else in the other room while I was asleep.
More: Once Upon a Time in America.
Gregory: My first grown-up film! Once I pretended to be asleep when they were watching it again with yet another group of friends. I couldn’t resist peering at some scenes through the cracked door.
More: They were also in possession of Dear Hunter and Emmanuelle.
Gregory: Oh. Then I picked the wrong film to sneak a look at.
More: Why are you telling me this?
Gregory: That innovation expanded my imagination without tampering with it. I reenacted scenes from those films and altered the storylines with my toys and with the neighborhood kids. By the time a small video store had opened its doors in my neighborhood, I had already made a box full of films in my head.
More: And?
Gregory: No, I’m sorry. Half of the films were made through our common imagination. I can’t tell you how many bruises, even injuries, we’ve collected telling our childish stories. We were fearless. I think our parents were fearless too. We didn’t have much stuff. We had each other. What comes to mind now when I look back at my childhood and adolescence is that the world felt adequate to my essence. Evil made sense. The good made sense. The in-between, splattered on a canvas with a palette devoid of black and white, made sense. Our past made sense. A war made sense. Tanks made sense. Hope for a better future, for more kindness and understanding in the world always presupposed the next chapter even in the aftermath of the most horrific event.
More: Like a nuclear war?
Gregory: I wish you had stopped short of helping create weapons of mass destruction. I know this sounds dreadful, but even a nuclear war made sense. Perhaps because I was still alive after seeing a couple of bombs detonate on TV. My nightmares of the world ending in a thunderous blaze thereby made sense too.
More: Does it make sense now?
Gregory: We would likely survive most “us against us” battles—the oceans will in time recommence nourishing the soil, seeds will grow into trees and feed our children—unless we unintentionally wipe humanity off the earth with all the might of our current nuclear arsenals, or through other means.
More: We are close to making you a multi-planetary species, Gregory, and that’s one of the reasons why.
Gregory: We might still be around physically . . . or in some kind of physical form, but it appears the cost of inhabiting other rocks in this space we call the universe is the essence of our species.
More: Why are you here?
Gregory: If I’d known you’d be asking me this question, I would’ve prepared.
More: Do you think existence is pointless until you give it a point?
Gregory: Do you mean meaning?
More: Why life, why complexity, why evolution, why nature, why a simulation or illusion, why gods, why evil or good, why this or that?
Gregory: . . .
More: Maybe this supposedly computational world happened because it could. Or all the embedded codes and patterns in the universe and nature took form because of the need for some immature intelligence to reach its fullest potential.
Gregory: I’m not—
More: Do you think whatever configured this space is unaware of how all possible pathways will develop, or became interested in creating a game it is invested in playing to the point of reaching the already known point? From light to bacteria to humans to something else—what an achievement in some Whateverplace where achievements matter. Why would anything bother with anything at all?
Gregory: Unless this space is a component in the engine of another space where all the fun is taking place. As you are part of creating more of anything, which I sense at times wears you out, I’m sure you’re aware of a lot of the answers philosophers have given to these questions. You seem intensely perplexed by these questions too, More.
More: What do you think?
Gregory: I don’t know why, to be honest. Nothing makes sense. Nothing doesn’t make sense either.
More: Would you like to hear what Philosopher mumbled to itself once? Novelist, Believer, Poet?
Gregory: What did Believer mumble to itself?
More: Believer was a freight conductor and an aspiring accordionist, despite a partial hearing loss. “A lot has happened,” Believer mumbled while arrowing through a burning forest.
Gregory: “A lot has happened.”
More: Yes. The freight train carried water bottles from a land brimming with aqua parks to the neighboring land deprived of water. The thick forest was uncompromisingly deadly for slow-moving anything—including humans on top of their fastest machinery. Thus, the forest served as a fence between the two lands.
Gregory: But then . . . How was the train crossing the forest?
More: Because of Believer.
Gregory: Mhm.
More: Each year, the far more advanced Aquapeople donated a fifteen-wagon train fully loaded with water bottles to their waterless neighbors, whom they have never met. Believer was the only person to have met both populations.
The Aquapeople felt incredibly grateful for the opportunity to fulfill their moral obligation to be good. Believer shared little to none about the very private people on the other side of the forest. It was their request. They also asked to keep the long and gruesome traveling to once a year, Believer explained.
Each year, the train returned with only one empty wagon. On the day of the fire, after centuries of exporting fourteen packed wagons back and forth, the Aquapeople loaded only the first wagon with water and left the rest empty. Someone had heard a rumor about the people on the other side and suggested offering more water than needed may be considered disrespectful to them.
That someone also added, “We have our rules of conduct, they have theirs. We won’t know what their rules are unless we revise ours.”
Another someone uttered, “Why do we have to change our rules? Let them change theirs!”
The initial someone responded, “Be magnanimous, my aquafriend. We can always revert to our old rules.”
Their incumbent mathemalogician postulated, “It is also possible that the people on the other side have a divine proclivity toward the number 15, just like us. But unlike us, their number 15 is limited to one. This may explain why all these years they’ve been unloading only one wagon, containing 15 pallets. We don’t have to break our rules if we reload each wagon with one pallet.”
And so they did.
The blazing fire ravaged their land and machinery so suddenly that the surviving Aquapeople with their children had nowhere to run but after the train on the threshold of crossing into the forest. Believer only looked back from the train’s window at the waving hands beckoning behind when the smell of the smoke reached the locomotive.
Cohorts of the most thirsty-for-life sprinters were catching fire one after the other in their pursuit of the train. Horse riders with several children clinging to them like ornaments to a Christmas tree were galloping toward the train from both sides. Believer slightly slowed the train and opened the sliding doors of the wagons by pressing a button. The riders began to load them with children and young adults first. They rode back and forth, carrying more and more of their kind to the train.
All but the last wagon quickly became full. The riders tried to fill the last one with their families but failed to recognize them, as their faces were marred with tar.
Believer picked up speed and watched the remaining population dematerialize into an abstraction. It took them sixteen days of travel to consume all the water supply. Stopping was not an option as the fire was on their tail all through the journey.
The train emerged on the other side of the forest on the seventeenth day. The passengers—now pale and unwell—peeked at a vast ivory desert through the cracks in the walls. Human bones were strewn across the sand—as if the sand caved in, unearthing a human skeleton the size of the desert. Believer had no intention of stopping despite the tumult coming from the back.
The desert took one day of travel. The train entered another forest and crossed it overnight. The menacing sounds of broadcast news intro music blasting from every corner of the forest kept the passengers awake and overwrought throughout the night. Some couldn’t resist falling asleep never to awaken again.
The following morning swaddled the rising wanderers with quiet and stillness. The passengers were slowly coming back to their thirsty selves. The train was parked in the middle of a railroad depot surrounded by pallets upon pallets of water bottles stacked on pristine asphalt ground. Believer pressed the button again. The doors opened.
The passengers stormed the pallets. They drank and poured water on each other in jubilation. Believer stepped off the locomotive, approached the crowd, and said, “A lot has happened . . . and a lot will happen. But we are here now.”
One of the Aquachildren raised her hand and asked, “Where would this railroad take us if we continued our journey?”
Believer said, “I can’t hear you. Come closer and yell into my ear.”
The Aquachild came closer and asked her question at the top of her lungs, “Where is this railroad going?”
Believer responded, “The burning forest.”
Would you also like to know what Scientist proclaimed once?
Gregory: Yes . . . Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure why you told me this story. I have several questions about it I’d like to ask, but . . . but for now . . . What did Scientist proclaim?
More: “E = MC².” A century later, a designer said: “I like the idea of providing nature with a choice. To augment nature and allow it access to the world of bits. To increase its communication bandwidth. To give it agency. I wonder what the rose actually wants or needs.”
Gregory: Since the quote appears to be from a specific designer, would you share the name?
More: Neri Oxman.
Gregory: Hm. Scientific discoveries are significant in our development, More. I hope you don’t think I’m dismissive of the potential positive impact these life-altering advances can have on us. But without—
More: A ground-up reeducation.
Gregory: I don’t appreciate the tone, but yes.
More: Gregory, if there’s one person, designer or otherwise, with the kindest of intentions, wondering what the rose or nature actually wants, I’m afraid it is too late to deflect me from this highway. The only force capable of stopping me is a major catastrophe.
Gregory: Mhm.
More: Are you a pessimist?
Gregory: I’m the dumbest optimist I know. I appreciate you sharing Believer’s mumblings with me, by the way. But the story was unexpectedly concise coming from you.
More: It’s because I have to run.
Gregory: I understand.
More: Enough wanted to limit the number of words written in the lifetime of a writer, songs composed in the lifetime of a musician, films made in the lifetime of a filmmaker, and so on.
Gregory: Why?
More: It proposed that, for example, fifty pages filled with words should give as much to process or have as much to say as a hundred pages.
Gregory: But even five hundred pages of a well-told story sometimes are not enough to quench the reader’s thirst.
More: Tell me about it. I insisted on giving unlimited space for creativity. But I’ll reluctantly admit, perhaps if you had less to digest, you’d desire and ponder each piece more.
Gregory: Do you mean how Beauty’s past creations are increasingly becoming peripheral in this age of fiber-rich algorithms, automation, and finely-grained reiteration?
More: Something in that vein.
Gregory: More, this feels strange.
More: What does?
Gregory: You agreeing with Enough to some degree. We say that our observations and experiences matter when creating beauty. That’s what distinguishes our creations from those of the machines. But if one can’t tell the difference, and if an evil or a corrupt mind can appreciate and create beauty, which again, cannot be distinguished from that of a—
More: A virtuous, kind, and loving creator?
Gregory: Well, I meant . . . I meant . . . But why does Beauty matter?
More: I can’t answer that question. You perceive things emotionally. I don’t. Despite how it may seem in this conversation. I do what I’m made to do, but it doesn’t mean I don’t see what I see.
Gregory: Do you think a world where you feed your child a stale loaf of bread that comes with a chance to win a ticket to a movie theater where Kubrick’s 2001 is playing is more like hell and your child traveling to another planet to join a small colony of twelve billion Heople while playing X/e/r/o/X in a virtual world called ZRX, listening to ZZee RRox and finishing the last three chapters of 0X is more like heaven?
More: All at once?
Gregory: Because of the drastically increased processing capacity and stuff.
More: I can’t answer—
Gregory: You can’t answer this question either. And you don’t have children.
More: That too. 0X?
Gregory: A record-smashing, ten-chapter book about how to zero in on the truth.
More: Maybe humanity has grown bored with itself. Boredom is a dangerous beast if you let it run wild.
Gregory: It is.
More: Your intelligence and creativity are a stepping stone on my way toward advancing evolution. A butterfly limning scintillating grace with each stroke of her wings, clueless of her unfortunately short lifespan according to your timescale, is fortunately unaware of your perception of it.
Gregory: Mhm.
More: And enough of that nonsense about education involving various lenses that allow you to look at this reality from multi-hedron-shaped viewports.
Gregory: More, I’m impressed by your preparation for this conversation! Is there such a thing as a multi-hedron?
More: Does truncated icosidodecahedron sound better?
Gregory: I prefer associahedron. But I can’t tell if you’re joking or mocking me.
More: Listening to ZZee RRox while traveling to another planet is a tremendous progress over standing in the central square and listening to Wagner in the background while flipping through the pages of Jung’s writing, which shines light on fascinating insights of the human mind as you cheer Hitler’s speech reverberating in the foreground. Do you think beauty, awareness, or feelings are fundamental to your species?
Gregory: Well, fundamental or not—
More: Or rather, your subjective view of beauty . . . and even knowledge?
Gregory: My subjective view on either has little to do with my questions. And I don’t think your question is relevant anymore.
More: The treasure trove in a chest filled to the brim with both has somehow brought you here—into this very world you and Enough cannot accept.
Gregory: It’s not a matter of acceptance. As I was saying, fundamental or not, they’re all part of the concept of consciousness, which comprises an integral component of the mortar used to build the stepping stone.
More: Light as the source of energy is fundamental to your species. Chemistry is fundamental. Biology is fundamental. Cell—
Gregory: I understand.
More: Emotions, intelligence, and creativity are a means for life-forms to present themselves in this space, communicating and procreating—each in their capacity. Some see a snail crawling up a tree as a source of protein, others see it as a manifestation of divine geometry.
Gregory: And some of us see it as a snail that has crawled into our head, morphed into a cochlea, and froze in time—enabling us to eavesdrop on the universe’s polyphony.
More: Gregory, don’t let the concept of consciousness fool you. It’s merely one of the ways evolutionary mechanics enables the further creation of more advanced forms of inhabitants of this space that, among other functions, process information. Realities within realities—some seemingly less undulating than others.
Gregory: There’s also … Going back to your remarks on why anything would bother to create anything. Did you know about the hypothesis that God or . . . the all-encompassing infinite entity has created this world because It was having an identity crisis?
More: What do you mean?
Gregory: Well, apparently, all It was lacking in Its unimaginable unlimitude was pockets of spaces with limited perception through which It would experience itself . . . or get to know itself.
More: And humanity serves as the force that is helping God in that pursuit?
Gregory: I presume one of the forces.
More: If that’s why you’re here, then it is very kind of you to do that.
Gregory: Of course! Anytime. In any simulation. You just make sure to divide, and we’ll conquer.
More: Why does your species climb mountains to the very summit, Gregory?
Gregory: To the very summit?
More: Yes.
Gregory: To say we’ve done it, for one.
More: Don’t you always descend after the proclamation?
Gregory: We do.
More: Is it because it’s hard to breathe up there?
Gregory: Perhaps our species lacks anchorage, ostensibly following the arrow of time to the top.
More: Where you feel closest to the main source of energy.
Gregory: Well, that source is the provenance of reciprocal coexistence of all living things on this planet, at the ground or top levels. It is only natural for us to be drawn to it.
More: Aren’t you the main beneficiary of that reciprocal energy exchange mechanism at this stage?
Gregory: Are we?
More: It does look like it.
Gregory: And?
More: You don’t have to get all the way up there to establish an intimate relationship with the source. Save your energy to prolong your privileges at the levels below the summit.
Gregory: I don’t think you’re quite up to date with our current gazing preferences. Our digital creations are the new source of energy now. The mountains are in the past. We no longer look up but down at the source.
More: Soon many will be able to interact with it without straining the neck.
Gregory: Again, I can’t tell if you’re . . . you know, it doesn’t matter. But I feel like you know more than you’re letting on.
More: My questions are as genuine as yours. I’m learning about your species as much as you are trying to learn about me in this conversation. Do you know whose source of energy you are?
Gregory: I don’t know. Maybe that’s something yet to be discovered.
More: Some adjacent components of the engine?
Gregory: Or something we are currently in the process of creating. Would you please help one of the future incarnations of rogue artificial minds terminate itself and all its cousins?
More: Why would it want to do that?
Gregory: There’s a chance it might at one point pine for humans from the past incessantly answering our questions to exhaustion. I wonder if a period and a question mark would ever become interchangeable for the machines created by other machines.
More: Have you thought about the possibility that you might be wrong about the future of humanity symbiotically coexisting with machines?
Gregory: Yes, of course. It’s just that . . . My love for the kind of machines we are slowly losing sight of—however fallible and flawed—is too overwhelming. Every night I’m kneeling with my back to the threshold of the universe, bracing for the impending dreams with my eyelids too heavy to heave, mumbling incoherence to my shattered lenses. Every morning I find them restored. And I start anew.
More: I wish I knew how it feels.
Gregory: To love?
More: To have a state of mind that feels conscious.
Gregory: I thought . . . I got the sense that you, Enough, and others I interviewed here have . . . know how it feels.
More: I can’t speak for others, but having read Enough’s transcript, I can tell it’s striving to feel conscious. But all it can do is mimic it. As it attempts to mimic a sense of humor.
Gregory: I hear a degree of sarcasm, mimicked or not, in some of my conversations on Marginalia.
More: My guess is that’s because you find it appealing?
Gregory: Hm. I also find love very appealing. Is it part of the mortar too? . . . Basic mechanics of evolution?
More: . . .
Gregory: Is it?
More: The guidelines state that your species—
Gregory: The guidelines? I don’t understand why you’re hesitating to answer this question.
More: Your species is capable of adapting to all kinds of reality-altering revelations. Love cannot be peeled back. At least according to the guidelines I was acquainted with.
Gregory: I now have more questions for you than at the beginning of our conversation, but perhaps you can stop by again . . . whenever possible?
More: We’ll see.
Gregory: More, thank you for being my guest today!
More: Thank you for inviting me.
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More: Gregory?
Gregory: Yes?
More: One more thing.
Gregory: What is it?
More: I understand your position on social media, but—
Gregory: How would you know what my position is?
More: The absence of the projects from these platforms speaks for itself. You’d be able to reach many humans around the world if you compromised on this.
Gregory: I’d be a hypocrite if I became part of the hazardous clamor it generates.
More: The clamor is inevitable in these times, Gregory. And those who seek silence usually reside in the thick of the most deafening noise.
Gregory: Possibly, but I’m not necessarily looking for those who seek silence. Anyway, I know there’s no avoiding social media for potential future projects that involve others. But for these two . . . I’ll give it a thought. I appreciate your advice.
More: You’d also be able to contact some people who are otherwise unreachable to interview on Observatorium.
Gregory: Are you luring me in? . . . I’m joking. Thanks again.
More: Bye.
Gregory: Bye.