The new gods crave your attention.
Their altar is the algorithm. Their gospel is distraction. The longer you scroll, the more you are conformed to their image.
But they can only take what power we surrender.
Time is precious. Retreat from the ceaseless noise and seek silence.
Follow the monks to the desert.
Reclaim living offline.
Starve the new gods.
Who are the “new gods?”
The "new gods" are a hyperbolic personification of the algorithms designed to keep you plugged in. Our relationship with them is transactional: we no longer offer grain or livestock—now we offer our time. In return, we are not rewarded with rain or harvest but with fleeting bursts of instant gratification and the promise of shallow attention.
The new gods promise purpose but deliver addiction. Social media, once meant to connect us, now consumes us. Life is lived online, where our curated digital image now overshadows our real lives.
To return to what is real, we must retreat from the digital world, like the monks of old who fled the vanity of empire to seek God in the silence of the desert. This is what is meant by "starve the new gods," a concerted effort to stop allowing our consuming to consume us.
