The Fucking Internet, Fucking Facebook, etc.

[MrsGamp]

Ps, sorry, forgot to mention my main point: this woman was obviously thrilled to be arrested. She made numerous "witty" quips to police and seemed to have prepared all these soundbytes in advance. She was also upset at having her own clothes taken away and substituted with a prison jumpsuit because she wanted to look right for the cameras ...

 

[Japhy Ryder]

Re:
"Neither my nephews and nieces, nor my daughter will watch anything that isn't contemporary to themselves same way they won't touch old books..."

My daughter, who is 17, claims that a lot of her friends have no interest in anything - anything - that isn't extremely new.
More spookily, however, she insists it is not just a question of zero interest, but a strange Orwellian loss of memory. Her friends don't remember stuff that was popular only a year or eighteen months ago...

I believe the way the internet and media sites, both social and commercial, are structured, how they work, has a strong impact on our consciousness, including sense of time, criteria for prioritizing, and also completely reformats our internal systems for assigning importance, and meaning. It is often discussed, how internet use is detrimental to attention--our power to choose what to put attention on and how much attention diminishes. it isn't so straightforward as no attention span. the way information flows and is organized--intricate webs of intertwined layers of hyperlinks with no boundaries, no beginning or endings, it creates compulsive use, it creates a base level anxiety about missing out on anything, coupled with anxiety over not having any way to measure accomplishment from endless scrolls, to endless links, there are no finish lines

There is countless creepy mindfuckery that arises from plugging in to the internet, including a consciousness that feels in a perpetual state of now that is free floating, divorced from contexts a mature adult mind normally would have--a sense of history, chronology, consequence. Add to that, the dopamine hits from clicking links ends up making your brain assign value--the neurochemical markers it assigns, heavily devalue anything past, and can overvalue momentary things because they are accompanied by a flurry of stimulus from internet activity, hence outrage activism that overreacts in rigid ways, but does nothing and remains divorced from a real world beyond screen stimulation and neuro responses. It makes organizing and evaluating effectively difficult. it makes measuring anything over time or having strategies with any complexity near impossible.

It is a bit like an orwellian easily manipulated ever refreshing now, compounded with (to bring in the other really popular dystopian vision from Mr Huxley) our BNWian relinquishing of responsibility in favour of living in the sensory moment. We have the internet as a potent drug for erasing the past, rendering it meaningless, while flooding us with pleasures. It is too vast and pervasive a technology to ever really evaluate what all its many positive or negative consequences are.

 

[Japhy Ryder]

I doubt that.

And yours was a lovely post by the way. Well thought out and presented and a nice read. Thank you.

I wasn't going to continue here but for the record (now that I'm here):

I think the media and entertainment industry could be brought in here too and could be, and should be, taken to task (although it's never going to happen).

I don't know if this is just a South African thing or what but over these past years there's at least one news report per week (give or take) where a 13 year old child has raped a 7 year old child at school (sometimes even younger on both counts). Or a 10 year old has stabbed a 4 year old to death. Where the FUCK (excuse the expletive) did THIS all come from? I know for damn sure when I was 8, 9, 10, whatever I didn't know what "it" was for other than for taking a piss. And I know for sure that the thought of stabbing somebody at school because I had a beef with them didn't cross my mind. My opinion: Internet, movies, TV, you get the picture. Nowadays you have to try real hard to find something to watch that does NOT contain gratuitous sex, violence, drug use and abuse, rape, murder, you get the picture. Or just take a good look at some of the online games that are available to all and sundry nowadays. Basically over the years it's become a "free-for-all" and "anything goes" and it's resulted in not only children, but adults as well, becoming totally desensitized to certain things and so on and so forth. Matter of fact in some cases certain things are glorified nowadays that before would have been considered debauchery. Personal opinion is that the technology has taken us way too far and to a point of no return i.e. Pandora's box has been opened and there's no closing it.

And for the record I'm not just some old prude "fuddy duddy" i.e. I'm 55 now and I've been around the block a few times and gotten up to my own mischief over the years as has/did all of my peers. But it was, back then anyway, almost "nice mischief" if you know what I'm mean. You know: you had a beef with somebody at school so you met after school at whatever the "designated spot" was and gave each other the odd beating (to the best of your ability) with your mates cheering etc. But that was about the extent of it. That type of thing. Now: they meet at the "designated spot" armed to the teeth and there's basically a binary outcome (or if pissed off enough just take out the whole school).

Anyway. Let me move on from this i.e. I could go on about this for DAYS! Lol!

The area I grew up in was pretty violent. lots of fighting, lots of larger brawls, especially between us english kids, and the kids from the french catholic school across the street from us. We brought weapons to those. it was kind of crazy, because we were just grade school kids. i remember a kid pulling a knife on a teacher too. Even my high school was the first where i'm from to put in metal detectors, and we had police at our high school dances. It was a poor area and the housing projects were full of crime and drugs and tensions over a rising influx of immigrants into the area. The average person from where I grew up was pretty vocally racist and just generally pretty petty and mean spirited. I was glad to leave it all behind. it was an endless trauma zone where you never knew what would happen next. I'm 48, not all that young or all that old. Though things have changed so much that it seems like long ago. Back then, the teachers were violent with us, and some of them were all boozed up, so, just a different world.

 

[Japhy Ryder]

Good morning.

Well I have to tell you that I really appreciate your insights and posts. Very much.

You make so many good and valid points and have worded all in such a way that there's really not much I can add to such masterpiece of insight.

Only thing I could possibly add that may have some value is that it never ceases to amaze me at just how insidiously pervasive the Internet and the media is. And I'm sometimes overwhelmed at the power of persuasion that both have.

Before I do further with this I'm reminded of this statement of yours in your first post on this thread:

I believe we have (at least) that much in common. To me (although many may disagree): it take strength and courage of your convictions to stand your ground on whatever the topic or issues at hand. Even if you're wrong. But with the proviso that it's not done simply to be argumentative. Also: it takes the same strength to admit you were wrong and change your view in light of whatever additional or new evidence is put before you.

Why all of the above?

Because in spite of my believing that is who I am and how I conduct my life (for better or for worse and both or either of which I'm willing to accept and take responsibility for): even I find myself so very easily swayed by something as inane as just scrolling through a list of YouTube topics/videos without even watching the videos themselves i.e. by just reading the titles given or the click bait information provided. And I must admit that sometimes I feel quite disappointed in myself when I find that I started out with a certain strong opinion or belief on some or the other issue, then spent an hour (for example) scrolling through the just the titles and said click bait information related to said issue, and during that hour have flip-flopped on my strong opinion or belief based simply on the titles and said click bait information. The point is: no human being has ever had, or will ever have, that type of power over my thought process or cause me to simply flip-flop on an opinion or belief on such a random basis i.e. without there being an intelligent debate and discussion beforehand and then and only then would I either stand by my opinion or belief or see that I was in fact incorrect based on whatever has been debated and discussed, admit that I was wrong, and then change my opinion and move on. But it's almost as if because whatever the information or opinion presented on the Internet or in the media is simply accepted as statements of fact each bit of information or opinion expressed is accepted as such for whatever reason. I've spent years trying to fathom out why this is the case. Still don't have an answer. Only thing I can say is that I'm fully aware of the power wielded by the Internet and the media (something which years ago I never had to contend with nor bothered me). The sad part about it is that it gets to a point where you become so skeptical about anything and everything that you read/see/hear on the Internet or in the mainstream media that you start overlooking or questioning what INDEED is the truth and is valid. And that's just me i.e. 55 years old, believe I have enough knowledge and life experience to last me a lifetime, and like to think I'm reasonably (at very least) intelligent and logical. Unleash that power on somebody (very young people for instance possibly in their formative years) who may not be inclined to question anything, are accepting of whatever is presented to them at face value as fact, and, well, that is powerful stuff.

In my just proof reading the above before posting: I hope it makes sense i.e. it appears to be a bit of a ramble. It's not meant to be. I'm trying to make a point but that maybe I'm not expressing in quite as eloquent a manner as you are able to.

People have become so polarized in their beliefs that it becomes like religious truth--not to be questioned and requiring no proof. And it has become the norm to simply disbelieve anything outside a persons position, and to disbelieve anything coming from a source that they feel isn't wholly of their own camp. It doesn't matter if evidence is presented, it doesn't matter the soundness or credibility of it if they see you as the enemy, then they dehumanize you and feel no need to listen or to accept facts. It is sickening and truly scary. Just the idea that nowadays people see as enemies those whose thoughts differ, that is a huge scary thing in today's world. People literally deem other people in their community to be enemies when they disagree politically. It is routine for me to see people spouting off, that they don't believe those with a different position should be allowed to vote, or serve in office or even be heard.They believe people who disagree with them are so wrong that they shouldn't even be afforded the same human rights or common decency. How did that come to be?

Sadly for me, the worst of this seems to come from the left. I feel completely abandoned by the left because they have become pathological. I see them do far worse than the things they accuse the right of doing. I see the things they want and try to make happen being the opposites of the ideals they espouse They have a religious zealotry that makes them feel above any rules. They will lie, falsify data, suppress information, lobby against others trying to get resources for their needs, commit character assassinations against academics who speak out, and the most loathsome dehumanizing cruelty comes out of these people's mouths, who i once would have been active with and sided with. I don't even try any more. I just get attacked or deleted or banned. The saddest thing is what gets my content erased most quickly is providing evidence and support for what I am saying that contradicts their mythologies. Thatt is what makes it most clear they're clinging to a dogman and will violently resist anything that threatens it, including contradictory truth and facts. I watched our prime minister reject evidence from his own researchers, he rejected it viciously and doubled down on the ideological narrative instead, and he based policy and government spending this way. I was shocked. I usually just feel more and more in retreat from it all

We are all on such a dangerous path right now. I know the internet is a factor in polarization, dehumanization, rigid thinking and authoritarianism, but I believe the factors that have led us to this are many and complex. There's no simple thing to blame.

 

[Japhy Ryder]

South Africa at the time was (and still is: as much as our government would have the rest of the world believe otherwise) a third world country

While I spent some time reading geopolitics, it was often around the political economy of oil, as well as other resources. I don't think first world/third world terminology is in use any more. Somebody somewhere decided it was not polite or something. That said, I know very little about South Africa, other than the context it was in the cultural consciousness way back in the 80s, but it wouldn't have occured to me to think of it as third world. But I see on Wiki, labels like "newly industrialized", "middle power" and "developing country". I love how these terms come with built in normative ideology, as though these were inherant stages like childhood-adolescence-adulthood. So much for improving on "third world". Ol' Wiki also says you have three capital cities, ten official names and eleven official languages. South Africa sounds like an even messier aggrieved soup of multicultural appeasement than Canada, LOL

I think, trying to label and stick a nation in a box can be misleadingly reductive. Canada is aa bit of a moving target to nail down, and looks very different depending on what angle your peering at it from. We get to enjoy a likeable persona built from a warm fuzzy mythology about how awesome Canadians are, how peaceful, how courteous and how green we are. The reality is a bit murkier. We have an angry polarized population with the left despising the right, an eternal clusterfuck with our indigenous population, fuelled now by a privileged young white educated class who are always chirping about decolonizing and unceded lands, virtuously crowing about our oppressive villainy. Or then there's the whole peaceloving even though we trundle alongside the US to all its wars and make a serious bundle on arms manufacture. My favourite facepalm is how we manage to sell ourselves as green. Our very large parcel of land is some of the richest on earth for oil, bitumen, gas, and coal. We strike down regulations and protections whenever they inconvenience any resource industry. We dangerously overfish our fisheries while toxifying them at the same time.Our timber industry clearcuts as fast and frenzied as it can. We've irrepairably decimated and poisoned the country to stay drunk on endless mining wealth--zinc, copper, gold, nickel, diamonds, asbestos, molybdenum, potash, uranium, rare isotopes. We are a global power in mining and resources with all the nasty ugliness that comes with it We have leveraged technological know how to gain power in mining all over the world, and our foreign policy uses whatever it can to leverage other countries either for their resources, or to be a market for ours. We market toxic substances that are illegal here or controlled because of environmental risks, to other nations and pressure them not to make any regulations. Not really so warm and fuzzy.

We occupy such a weird space. We have good guy rep as global diplomats. But we are arms dealers and military adventurers and meddlers. We are nasty mining overlords who play sneaky geopolitical games. Hardly the gleaming global citizen depicted in our PR. But, simultaneously, we are often at the mercy of our larger markets in ways that make us somewhat akin to a banana republic, where we sell raw materials cheap and then buy back expensive manufactured goods. We have dependent relationships that erode our sovereignty. So we are sort of imperial small-c colonizers, first world shot callers, new age global citizens, two faced extorters and exploiters, bullied third world resource outsourcing for more powerful allies.

I think, the identity, makeup and inter-relational nature of a state isn't all that simple to really sum up with vaguely defined blanket terms like first or third world. South Africa sounds like an interesting and confusing place to try and unpack.

 

[Shady's Fox]

Y'all over-think, man. Is not like that, no one says ''Make a social media account to add strangers'' you know, they are your journal but you choose to. Many of my relatives only have their real life friends in their list. I don't have Facebook, but I have Instagram. If you had bad experiences and now you throw your mistakes on others which it's also called ''irony'' -- there's no one to blame but you. You choose how to make your bed, it's a basic rule in life. I dunno why people keep discussing stuff like this but I guess the boredom gets us all.

 

[Japhy Ryder]

Y'all over-think, man. Is not like that, no one says ''Make a social media account to add strangers'' you know, they are your journal but you choose to. Many of my relatives only have their real life friends in their list. I don't have Facebook, but I have Instagram. If you had bad experiences and now you throw your mistakes on others which it's also called ''irony'' -- there's no one to blame but you. You choose how to make your bed, it's a basic rule in life. I dunno why people keep discussing stuff like this but I guess the boredom gets us all.

I can't really tell what or who you are responding to; your text doesn't seem to match any context I could see, looking back at posts. What was it you were referring to?

As far as over-thinking goes, I've never seen anyone really demonstrate or substantiate what that means. Some thing require more thought than others. I don't see how it is possible to over-think something: the amount of thought one gave was the amount he required. I do often suspect when someone says you over-think, or you think too much, what they are really expressing is their own reticence at thinking about anything, which is fine, there aren't quotas. I guess too, I don't experience thinking as a burden or chore