Tag Archives: social media

Drinking poison

I just read this and it kinda hit hard:

‘Never again should anyone be amazed at how Jim Jones got his followers to drink poison.’

I’m not a fan of naming killers on my blog, I think they get too much attention by name, and that glorification permits others to seek the attention. But we are living through an era where millions of people are polarized, and I’d say misguided. They blindly follow a leader whom can do no wrong in their eyes. And this is utterly and completely dividing a once powerful nation.

Worse yet, the media passively permits it. It allows blatant lies to be shared as news. I can’t decide if it’s simply complacency or if it is equally the fault of ignorance. Complacency from some for sure, from the ones that willfully spew the propaganda and rhetoric. Ignorance perhaps from others wherein there is a belief that the viewer sees the lie, and can discern truth from lies themselves… but many can not.

So the painful truth is that the poison is fed to the masses, and too many are drinking it.

Avoid this, try this, buy this

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I am getting sick and tired of social media ads these days. They are following a recipe designed to make you less knowledgeable, more stressed, and frankly dumber. Here are the two main formulas, or should I say ingredients, in these tasteless ads:

Either:

“Don’t eat these 3 items that are killing you.” Followed by a list that includes seed oils, or certain nuts, or another common item in your kitchen. Before plugging a product, or casually naming a name brand item while suggesting alternatives.

Or:

“Doctors hate me.” Followed by an exercise program or diet that has made the person ultra fit without ‘traditional’ medicines and practices. What,you need is our callisthenics program, Tai Chi, ‘Just 9 minutes a day’, or the Butt Blaster 3000.

It’s ‘Avoid this – it’s killing you!’ And then a product plug. Or it’s ’Transform your body, it’s easier than you think… if you buy into what I’m selling.’

And none of these are 30 seconds long. They are all longer format where they attempt to suck you in, feeling invested in the video for a minute or two before the secret to a better or healthier you is revealed.

But there is no real science behind what is claimed. Or worse yet, there are some factual aspects that are proven but irrelevant. “Did you know that ingredient XYZ in product ABC causes cancer?’ You didn’t, so you watch the video. But what isn’t shared is that the dangerous amount of that item would be 10,000 times the dose you would get from eating product ABC… and it only ever showed a link to cancer when that massive dose was fed to mice for continuous days or weeks.

These ads scare you with ‘facts’ that aren’t actually scary, or make promises that a program or product will change your life with a sample size of one person who is telling you how ‘This worked for me and it will work for you too’.

Fear and false promises are being sold on a grand scale and this formula is just showing up more and more. I guess from the amount of ads like this that I’ve seen, the formula is working.

(I’m sure everyone who tries Tia Chi looks like this at 62! 🤦‍♂️)

Rich conversations

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It’s amazing how good conversations with people you love and care about can help you through a day. It reinforces that we are social beings and that we require connections to sustain us.

I am someone who appreciates my alone time. I like solitude, and I’m much more of an introvert than people might think I am. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that I value and appreciate time with family and friends. Liking solitude isn’t contradictory to enjoying rich conversations. Being an introvert doesn’t mean that I don’t want to build strong connections to others, I’d just rather not do so in larger social situations.

I have a friend who can go into any social situation, make connections with people he just met, and have a rich conversation that go well beyond discussing the weather, occupations, and general family updates. He can find common ground and start to instantly develop rapport and develop a relationship with people he barely knows in minutes. That’s not me. In a large setting, I’d rather find one person I’m comfortable with, maybe two people, and have a more intimate conversation rather than sharing things in a group. Both approaches are valid, they are just different. Both are about the same thing, which is making and maintaining connections to others.

At one point I used to have these kind of rich conversations on Twitter. I found like-minded people who I’d connect with and then we’d slide into direct messages and get to know each other. I’d go to conferences and connect to people I had never met face-to-face, and I’d feel like I already knew them. I no longer do that with social media. Now I use social media to connect to people in my life already, as a means to add one more layer of connection. My daughters get sent different things than my wife, which is different from what I share with my best friend, which is different from what I share with my uncle, and again different from things I share with my mom and sisters. In each case adding another avenue to build connections I already have.

Then there are text messages, phone calls, FaceTime, and even Zoom. In each case I’m building up a connection to keep the conversation going with people I care about. I’m looking to develop richer connections, richer conversations… essential to maintaining my wellbeing and my bonds that sustain me when I can’t always see people in person.

New study: ‘Stupidity is Contagious’

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Is this the newest epidemic?

New study: ‘Stupidity is Contagious’

Some very interesting findings have come from a new study:

Researchers at the Institute for Cognitive Decay claim stupidity spreads “at rates comparable to the common cold, but with longer-lasting effects.”
Dr. Helen Tropp, lead researcher:
“It turns out stupidity is highly contagious, especially when transmitted through phrases like ‘I did my own research’ or ‘That’s just your opinion.’”
Study participants who spent just 10 minutes in a room with someone spouting conspiracy theories lost an average of 12 IQ points, some “permanently.”
Exposure is not limited to in-person contact: scrolling through the ‘For you’ section of X (Twitter) carries “a 73% risk of infection.”
In rural test sites, researchers noticed “stupidity clusters” forming, which they compared to “wildfires fueled by bad takes, energy drinks, and supplements promoted on ‘Bro Culture’ podcasts.”
One experimental group was forced to binge-watch reality TV marathons—nearly half had lowered basic math test results afterward, and 12% struggled to write in complete sentences when asked to summarize episodes in a paragraph.
Professor Alan Greaves, epidemiologist:
“We tried developing a stupidity vaccine, but test subjects refused it, saying they ‘don’t believe in science.’ At that point, we gave up.”

And if these ‘research based’ bullet points weren’t enough ‘evidence’, let me be explicit in saying these were all Chat GPT inspired, following a response to my request for them stating, “Here’s a bundle of fake “facts,” bogus statistics, and ridiculous quotes you can mix into your parody piece.” I tweaked them a little, but none of them were my ideas.

Stupidity travels at the speed of laziness.

Stupidity isn’t contagious, lazy thinking is. We no longer live in a world where information can be taken at face value without some level of fact checking. Our bullshit detectors need to be left in the ‘on’ position. And we need to be sceptical of evidence, be that evidence in favour of or against what we believe.

It can be a quote, an AI generated video, or even a person of influence that you have followed and admired, but who was equally duped (or lazy) in their gathering of information… Misinformation, fake “facts”, and downright intentional falsified data is everywhere these days, and if we are lazy with our diligence, it’s easy to contribute to the spread of information and lies.

So while this study was made up, it seems to me that if we are lazy in the way we consume (and share information), as many people seem to be, this really is leading to the spread of stupidity.

We are the consumed, not not the customer

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There is so much BS on the internet these days. There are posts that either exaggerate or confabulate research data to sell ideas and products that don’t do anything they promise to do. I look up topics like reducing snoring or tinnitus and then for the next month I’m bombarded with ads for ‘cures’ of these annoyances. I’ll get detailed, directly-marketed-to-me advertisements including things like, “We are looking for males over the age of 55 in Coquitlam” to participate in a tinnitus study”.

I won’t just get pop up windows, and still ads, I’ll get videos embedded in my stream. I’ll get long format ads where it takes 5+ minutes to get to the point, because advertisers know that if they can keep people watching long enough they will feel invested in getting answers.

And here’s the thing, my ad algorithm will be completely different to yours. It’s targeted to our individual interests, our searches, our likes, shares, clicks, and even the things we say. We are not the customer we are consumed based on our interactions. We are data points that provide identifying features to be exploited. Targeted not for our benefit but to the benefit of companies that pay to learn that our data points are relevant to their products.

Click on an ad, even accidentally, and you can expect similar products to be fed to you many more times. Is this to serve you what you need or to serve advertisers what they need? The answer is clear. It’s not about us. We are data points consumed by an advertising machine. We are the target, the product, and not the actual consumer. On the internet of things, on social media platforms, we are just nodes of data sold to advertisers, we are products… And advertisers are the ultimate consumers of the data points (our data points) that they pay for.

What if forgiveness prevailed?

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I think the two most noblest of traits are compassion and forgiveness.

Compassion because it links us to others in a way that we lose ourselves.

Forgiveness because more than any other trait, it can not be faked

and true forgiveness is to see love even in the faults of others.

~ (Shared previously here.)

5 years ago I wrote about 7 sins:

Gluttony
Envy
Pride
Lust
Wrath
Greed
Sloth

And in a concluding post I said that I was going to share 7 virtues. I haven’t done that yet, maybe one day I will. The virtues I chose at that time were:

Love (including Chastity and Loyalty)
Discipline (including Patience, not just Diligence or Temperance)
Empathy (including Compassion)
Integrity (including Honour and Courage)
Kindness (including Charity),
Humility
Forgiveness

I remember intentionally putting Forgiveness last because I wanted to end with the noblest of virtues. I put Forgiveness on this pedestal because I think you can ‘go through the motions’ of the other virtues, but not forgiveness. You can virtue signal, intentionally or unintentionally, with the other virtues and have those virtues develop, but when it comes to forgiveness there simply isn’t an easy way to act it and have it grow. For example, you can do loving things towards someone, and eventually develop a love for that person. You can fake discipline and after a while that practice become disciplined. But if you aren’t truly forgiving, if you have hesitations, then they will be revealed… You can’t fake forgiveness. It doesn’t grow with time. You are either open to it, or you aren’t. You can half love someone, you can’t half forgive someone.

That said, I’ll hold off on discussing other virtues for a future date. Right now I am looking at a world where forgiveness is a lost art. Vengeance is everywhere. People want to say, ‘I told you so’. Social media is all over FAFO. Changing your mind (especially in US politics) isn’t met with compassion, nor forgiveness, but rather finger-waving and anger. The amount of variations of, “Oh sure, you only realize now that it affects your life”, that I’ve heard on social media posts is disconcerting. There is no room for forgiveness.

I understand why. Forgiveness is the ultimate virtue and not easy to attain. It requires love, empathy, and kindness. It is an affront to integrity, and the humility shared by those that did harm seldom seems like it’s enough to warrant forgiveness. Forgiveness is hard to fake and even harder to authentically give.

However, forgiveness is the best way to build a stronger bond than was there before. It is a place where real change can happen. The danger is that is also makes the forgiver more vulnerable to be hurt again. It requires trust. That’s what makes it so difficult to give.

Currently, I see a window of opportunity for real change to happen. I see hurt and disillusioned people openly admitting that they made a mistake. But I don’t see compassion. I don’t see forgiveness. I see hurt creating a gulf between the people who seek forgiveness and those who could, but do not forgive. And while I understand the hurt, while I see the fear of forgiving and being hurt again, I also see a golden opportunity being missed. Where there has been a great divide, there can be agreement. Where there has been opposing factions, there can be common ground. Where there has been arguments and yelling, there can be dialogue and discussion.

At this perilous time I have but one question: What if forgiveness prevailed?

Old jokes, new format

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Build it and they will Like, Follow, and Share… the newest craze to hit the internet is nothing more than a rehashing of old ideas in a new format. By now everyone has seen the Bigfoot videos where an AI Bigfoot is doing a selfie vlog and telling jokes as well as doing ridiculous antics. If you haven’t seen them, Google ‘Bigfoot Vlog’ and they will show up in droves. I’ve notice a few things. While a few of them are refreshingly funny, most of them rehash really old jokes, many of which are based on racism, sexism, or tropes that have all been done before. It’s literally just old jokes in a new format.

But they work. They get the click, likes, and shares. They are going viral. And they are creating copycats that are now doing the same thing, using AI, but with people rather than Bigfoot. Videos that are mostly 100% realistic and yet still sit somewhere in the uncanny valley of almost right, yet not fully. And again, just rehashing old content in a new format.

Expect a lot more of this. Also expect world crisis to be leveraged for the same attention. You’ll see bombing in the middle east that’s actually just AI video. You’ll hear government leaders and celebrities saying outlandish things, except it won’t really be them. You’ll see alien landings, meteor landings, and even plane crashes that didn’t happen but were rather prompted into video reality.

When we get tired of the jokes, we’ll just start to get fooled more and more by AI drama that is invented to draw our attention. But for now, the jokes will come. They will get more inappropriate and cross lines a person wouldn’t with a video of themselves. And as attention wanes they will get more extreme, more tasteless, and so abundant that we’ll just be tired of them… as I am already tiring of them.

Worshipping the algorithm

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It’s inescapable if you are on social media: The click-bait, the over-promising ads, the fake-reality plots made to look (almost) real, the recycled and revamped cliches and attempts at comedy. Are you entertained yet?

You aren’t the target audience, the algorithm is. Yes, it’s your click, your view to the end before you scroll that is wanted, but what’s really targeted is the algorithm. What’s going to get the most amount of views. Sometimes the byproduct of this is a very clever video, a brilliant caption that plays on a well known meme, or even accidental authenticity or charm. But it’s not you, it’s the algorithm that matters.

Play the game, feed the algorithm, and the attention will come. Whose attention? Yours, but that doesn’t mean it was made for you. No, it was made because that’s what is feeding the algorithm right now. It’s the algorithm on the alter, the false god being worshiped. Not for some promise in the future but for right now. Burn the candle quickly, consume the flame as fast as it is produced.

Your stream is what is working for the algorithm right now, it will change, the rules will be different, and the productions will have to chase it. If not, the attention will go elsewhere. So when the strategy is working, the algorithm gets fed. Not for you, but for maximum attention.

You are an algorithmic statistic. The algorithm wants only attention, not any one person’s, not yours. All hail the click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment. The algorithm does not care if you are entrained or angered, heartened or disheartened, happy or sad. The click, the pause in scrolling, the ‘like’, and the comment are all that matter, all that is worshipped in pursuit of feeding the algorithm.

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New study: ‘Stupidity is Contagious’

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