Are you just asking questions, a.k.a., JAQing off? Do you have concerns about X? Do you use rote ideas and thinking to communicate? For example, are you invested in cryptocurrencies and like to use jargon like hodl, hopium, and so forth? Or, do you like to follow “influencers” who spend time explaining things they barely understand themselves or acting in some exceptionally horrible way, trying to top whatever horrible thing they did last time?
I’ve recently started using Reddit somewhat regularly, and it is reminding me why I have left social media and also what I have missed. For what I use it for, it’s a great source of information that I’d be unable to get otherwise. But, the price for that information is coming into contact with people that who don’t want to be informed, who need things explained to them and are unwilling to do their own research, who are looking for justification for their worldview from some authority, who are looking to proselytize or share their opinions with the world, who want to find some tribe to belong to, who want to waste the time of people that don’t belong to their tribe or share their opinions, who seem to principally concerned with entertaining themselves, and so forth.
At bottom, there’s a lot of people performing for an audience. People trying to program other people with their ideas, packaged in pictures, audio and video. Almost all of it is either related to making money, making someone famous or making some person or group more powerful.
A major challenge is not to get wrapped up in this nonsense, even if it is in opposition to it. But, here I am writing about it, ffs.
I have hope that, over time, new kinds of communities will evolve that avoid these kinds of problems. Or, perhaps a self-selection process occurs where people opt-out of performative exchanges and tribal miming.
I don’t know how to live this kind of change. But, I hope I can figure out a solution that works for me, which I suspect will largely amount to ignoring most commentary and avoiding interactions with the vast majority of people online. Of course, just not using Reddit would be the easiest path. And, then, others questions beg to be asked. Why continue writing a blog? Why use the Internet at all? It’s just me and my Linux box air-gapped from the world, which sounds both utopian and like a really dumb idea.
People are truly both the worst and the best. How to get more of the latter though? Do you smell that? Is it introversion or is it just me?
cafebedouin.org 