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The state of the web in 2020:
discussion sites as a medium are dying. chalk that up to censorship.

reddit is an echochamber. twitter is mostly a marketing platform disguised as (anti)social media. instagram is a self promotion/wannabe eceleb site, and youtube is the new hollywood..quickly becoming irrelevant.

facebook is where I (dont) go to (totally not) ignore all the people important to me.

and email is where I go to send letters bordering on hatespeech to my various local and federal "representatives", in between borderline cyberbullying people stupid enough not to automate their spam marketing in 2020. or talking to left/right self-help grifters about the state of society.

in the grim dark future of 2020, the last bastion of intelligent conversation, free speech, and civility, the one shining icon of hope in a dark world..
is the comment section of pornhub videos where a women got stuck under a bed for the 50,000th time. And all I can think is "wow I never knew how easy it was to get trapped under a bed. They should look into fixing this safety hazard."

newsmedia has jumped so many sharks, the fonz now spins in his grave so fast we could hook him up to a generator. meanwhile people hide in their homes for a disease so deadly you have to be tested to know if you even have it.

while ever more car commercials
are released, set to somber but hopeful piano music to the tune of "in this time of social distancing its important to stay close even when we're apart."

Im beginning to think media has become a poison on society, both television and the internet, and like an ersatz cargo cultist worshipping the great-charles- manson-in-the-sky we should all take a page from the unabomber and smash our televisions with hammers before going outside and sawing down the telephone polls.

I jest of course. But there is no denying the inherent appeal of moving from the unsettling uncertainty of complex societies, driven by expertly manipulated fear cycles, to the beatitude-esque simplicty of pastoral protestant style living, sans witch burning and shoe buckles.

And against the reckoning of utopians who are still fresh from the womb as it were, wet behind the ears and smelling of their mother's pussy, I reject the notion that "up" is a synonym for "forward."
Were it the case, every drinking binge, followed by throwing up, would bring us, with each vomitting, one step closer to heaven. Rather the state of affairs is what it is, and what it is, like most of nature, is a cruel master and a harsh teacher. And while we may binge on digital delusions of grandeur and a greater society, rest easy in the nihilistic and sobering thought that we are little more than 200,000 year old cave men wielding magic bricks, and atomic bombs.

..where water flows more readily from metal tubes in our houses than it does from the nile. where food comes to our door at little more than our beck and call.
where we may bath, and sleep, and *shit*, cleanly, comfortably, and safely, wrapped in the (failing) bubble of delusion we all tenaciously grasp collectively, the thing we call "civilization".

an empire of needful things, wanton and fragile.

if we have not gone mad from boredom, I have no doubt we one day will.

it becomes more and more obvious to me every day, had war never existed, it would have been necessary for man to invent it just to have something to do, that didnt include farming, fucking, or building.

And so enters "political idealogy."

How would we ever have enemies if we were allowed to speak our piece instead of being given the means (and reflex dogwhistle training) to silence and destroy one another?

give a man a gun, he'll rob a bank. give a man a bank, he'll rob the world.
give him a media empire or a tech platform, and he'll lie about the theft and convince one half of millions of lemmings to hate all the other lemmings.

Comments
  • 6
    Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?
  • 3
    @vane thanks for the upvote. Your validation fulfills me. My life is now complete and I see no reason not to drink the poison koolaid to join our lord and master, zuckerberg, in heaven. may the upvotes flow like wine, and may you be reborn in his glory as a ritalin addled android/lizard person as he has.

    amen.
  • 1
  • 2
    Damn I love the last quote.

    This is a story as old as time. Keep the masses preoccupied with junk and lies so they will not rise up to challenge you.
  • 2
    @Wisecrack I was watching whole day how for the second week police is pacificating people on streets so what else could I write.
  • 2
    This stance is problematic. Pastoral life is alluring for its freedom from the persecution driven assholes that surround us. Perhaps also the physical results of the work. But that is not at the root of what you are saying.

    Hate, anger, use of force, all learned behaviors. Can they be unlearned? It’s not clear but if we can avoid wiping ourselves out I look forward with hope for the next 80,000 generations rather than backward with regret at the previous 80,000. It took that long to get here, it will take at least as long to get away.

    The transistor is the greatest tool ever invented, as evidenced by its manufacturing numbers. However it is a tool. It is as much a force for good or evil as the person who wields it. Electronic escapism is not a problem if you don’t build a society you have to run from.
  • 2
    So, what I think you're saying is... more cat videos?
  • 1
    @jeeper those are not learned behaviors. Aggression is a natural behavior.
  • 3
    sidenote:

    "disease so deadly you have to be tested to know if you even have it"

    You are getting tested to make sure you won't infect those who can recognize they can't suddenly breathe without tests.

    Past half a year truly exposed how western people are unable to grasp the idea of "i'm doing something for benefit of others, not myself" while it's normal in Asia to use a face mask to prevent infecting others even if you have a common cold.
  • 2
    @qwwerty negative. pcr tests are wildly unreliable and the official desth toll is less than 12k according to the cdc.
    the flu is more of a problem than this.

    dont get suckered by "case numbers."
  • 3
    Have a favorite.

    The world is a depressing place, and I don’t think there’s any saving it. Best to make my little corner as pleasant as I can, I suppose. Doing anything more just brings down ire and scorn from others.
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