The Problem With Social Media

Everyone seems to get that social media is having bad outcomes but I don't think people are understanding why. To be blunt: "Perverse Incentives" and "Traffic Prioritization"

That is, it gives people incentives to post things other than friendly updates or pro-social communication...and two, it does not expose those ideas linearly and fairly...it exposes some ideas to people more and hides other ideas.

What you get when you apply those things is an ANTI-social media platform...a propaganda machine. If you want to "save" social media, we must remove all the perverse incentives; no more marketing, no more "likes," no more "views"...all that nonsense...and we must remove the prioritization of posts; posts should appear as a straight timeline, in order, all showing up...and no algorithm should be pushing who you "friend" and what posts get shown. No arbiters of truth, no curation, no censorship...just sensible rules against threats, inciting violence, etc.

Nightmare: Redwood Genocide

I had a terrifying nightmare last night. It goes something like this: My father and I were sitting on a hill enjoying the view of a majestic Sequoia Forest when a red miasma filled the sky, and we were swept into a deep sleep. We awakened to find a surprising and horrifying NOTHINGNESS...all the trees has been cut down. A note hung by the road read "Forest Management." Where giant, ancient, fellow travelers of LIFE once proudly stood...stumps...but so massive they looked more like wooden house decks... monuments to meaningless death, whose rings reveal an eons long story of ups and downs but whose final line seemed to sigh..."foolish humans."

Nightmares are nightmares, but what is terrifying about this one is I know it's not impossible. We live in a world where a good percentage of the people hold nothing sacred, value only their fragile, entitled egos...are not willing to walk one millimetre -let alone a mile- in another persons shoes...who would sell the future of any one of our grandchildren if it made them a nickel. Immune to facts, immune to shame, and thirsty for destruction. I am reminded of the famous pop quote:

"Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

Well, the Terminator is real...but it's not a rogue AI made of metal...it's a group of humans with poor understanding of the world, damaged psychologies, and who will take out all their fears, frustration, and hate out on us if we allow them to run the show.

Gaming & Media Addiction

Having grown up in the golden age of video games and open Internet, I know a thing or two about electronic addiction. However, I have to think that our current situation is oddly positioned to create the next generation of addicted kids. School is gone, virus/fires/hurricanes/chemical spills...and every other disaster has forced children indoors and parents are desperate for their independence...in comes media/video games. Hours of "respite" for parents, and "entertainment" for the kids. As if our kids weren't engulfed in electronic culture enough, now what little access/incentive there was to be outdoors is quickly shrinking.

If you are a parent right now, it's probably overwhelmingly tempting to throw your kid in front of a console or netflix...don't do it. Engage them, spur their curiosity...some game time is fine but don't let the primary influence on your children be the instant-gratification gaming and streaming corporations. If you do find the need to throw them into media/games...be SURE to teach them about "Media Literacy" and "Harmful Narratives"...they may be in a formative time in their lives, be sure they will be the "captains of their own ship."

The Resource Curse Of Venezuela

Just learned Venezuela, in addition to the largest oil reserves, have the largest diamond and gold reserves too...I'm sure that has nothing to do with our desire to spread "democracy" there.

Corporations Are Watching You Sleep

The Corporations/ultra-wealthy got their bailout during this pandemic, they've seen record wealth gain, they've had environmental restrictions lifted, they've milked the public on critical goods and services...and now the largest monopoly, Amazon, is hiring a former NSA head to crush labor-organizing in their company. Yes, our politicians made a startling comment; yes, our friends/family/colleagues are dying; yes, there is outrageous racism by police...but behind all those things is the reason nothing changes...our decision-making system has been captured by corporate interest. That really is the PRIME EVIL at this point. We've been successfully divided, and now we've lost sight of who our enemy really is...not left, right, black, white, muslim, christian...the real enemy is an abusive system.  An abusive system that arises when laws are only created to please lobbyists, when corporations are considered people and become the largest recipients of "social" or "relief" programs...when resources are dedicated to prevent corporate suffering, not human suffering...when we start believe that the ecosystem consists of "markets" and not life or nature...when humans become "customers" and "capital."

We are asleep, and the corporations/ultra-wealthy are watching. They see us not fighting back, but each other...they see us ignore policy...they see us ignore power...they see us elect "representatives" for nonsense positions on the "culture war" and ignore all the systemic root causes of our misery and destruction. Look, if we let our self-interest DROWN the bandwidth, and we forget the LARGE issues, like Environment, like Democratic Mechanisms, like Labor ...our other issues won't matter. I get it, your lived experiences are screaming to solve that thing that affects you personally... guns/bathrooms/reproductive rights/police reform/immigration/etc.... and those things ARE important, but we need to PRIORITIZE solving our EXISTENTIAL threats and fixing the Governing Mechanisms of our civilization.

Things can be done Concurrently but PRIORITY should be:
- End Corruption & Financial Capture of Government (nothing can change until we reclaim power)
- Environment (we are ALL dead if we keep destroying the planet)
- Human Health & Basic Necessities As A Right
- Everything else

Guess What... Corona Virus Doesn't Evaporate

Despite the perception given by the idiots that run our government and our media...Corona Virus is not gone...or even appreciably better. In my area, at this moment, we have twice as many new infections per day in early September, as there was in early June. Was the Corona Virus gone in June...absolutely not. You can not will this virus away...it will only get better with rational, medical-evidence-based, action. The conversation should not be about re-opening restaurants, not about schools opening...you can't just wait a few weeks and expect things to go away...stop pretending that ignoring the problem is a solution, it's completely moronic.

Hyper-Socialization Of Society

I think a lot of people just assume that the more "social" society is, the better people will get along. I think there is a fine balance, and we've far overshot our limits of "sociability." We are in this age where all the jobs are becoming "service sector" and our religion of Capitalism makes us worship at the fountain of "consumerism" as a way of life. This creates a situation where all our introverts can't find ample amounts of peaceful solitude. In prior times there were plenty of jobs that allowed us to do hard work but without the constant "servicing" of "customers" and home-lives that had privacy and autonomy...not ultra-concentrated urban life.

Add on top of that forever-present smart devices, dopamine monopolizing social media, and instant gratification marketing... and we have a society pressed to the brink of homicidal rage to not have to constantly deal with/worry about other people.

Why do wealthy elites not care which President we have...why do the wealthy elite politicians feel no pressure to create any legislation or even bother to placate their constituents...because they have their solace. They can retreat to ice-cream filled castles, or luxury golf-courses, or just escape into their cabins in the woods...without a worry of livelihoods, obligations, or emergencies...they control the resources and they have the rest of the population to service THEM.

Aside from our leadership problem, however, we need to restructure society so that we DO cater to different personalities, different "ideal" working conditions, and different living conditions. I think we're finding that it's oversimplified to believe that any job is fine for anyone, and that any living condition is fine for anyone. While things like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs rings somewhat true to me, I don't think you can strip people down to ONLY the lower rings of need, and have functional citizens.

So bringing this back around to Socialization, we can't keep believing "one size fits all." Humans aren't homogeneous, and our societal structure assumes they are. Polling reveals a lot of this, huge percentages of people prefer one thing, and other huge percentages prefer the opposite...there is no middle ground. This puts a big question before us...in a time of ever-increasing interdependence...can we design a society that can allow vastly divergent ways of living and thinking...and make them work together in a functioning System. That is probably one of the big questions of our time.

Magical Thinking

Since Q-Anon is in the news a lot lately...one might be curious where this kind of thinking comes from. However, this kind of thinking is not new...it's a twist on typical religious thinking. When people live in turbulent times, can't understand why things are happening, and have a strong need to find certainty...ideas like this pop up. Vague, ethereal, ideas that you can project all of your fears or hopes into and make all the connections yourself, without the need for evidence. It brings a feeling of certainty and order where there is none...it brings a feeling that you know why things happen, when you don't. Hopefully this can serve as a real world case-study for why we need to stop Magical Thinking in general.

Lashing Out

In June -of this year- 11% of people in the United States seriously contemplated suicide. 40% struggle with mental health and/or drug abuse. We are a broken country. Why are politics so radical? Why is there so much hate? ...because "damaged people, damage people." We have not given the attention and resources we should have to support actual people...to nurture curiosity and mental health...to keep them healthy and energetic...to inspire and give them hope...we have succumbed to the religion of self-interest, short-term gain, and sociopathy...and this is the result. Why do people latch onto crazy conspiracies and tribal hate...because they don't know why they're living...they haven't been shown the greater values that they should aspire to...they haven't been given any opportunities to make them feel as though they've progressed. Viruses are detrimental, Economic Depressions are detrimental...but a population who doesn't feel like anyone cares about them, and who don't care about anyone else...is TERMINAL. If we are not completely in this situation, we are dangerously close...and must try with all our might to course correct.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm