Important Signal Piece Article In "The Atlantic"-- Raises Question, Is Social Media A Technotronic Modern Roman Circus?
Important Signal Piece Article In "The Atlantic"--
This "Atlantic" article was posted by a Facebook friend, and after reading it I thought it worth sharing.
Many of the concepts presented here express my own thoughts about the sheer folly of attempting to effect real political change through social media. Likewise, it provides much food for thought for part 2 of the article I just posted which very few of you will want to read or comment on.
In effect, this article raises the question of whether or not we are all "lab rats" in one big social/ behavioral experiment, being studied, profiled, conditioned, trained, to either do something or do nothing. A technology which began as a means to stay in touch with friends and family, or share experiences, appears to have morphed into a mega-structure of mass based mind control and psychological warfare.
My insights after reading this are my first take, but I'll have more on this.
The great myth of the 21st Century is that which underlies the premise of our transition to the so-called "information age." That is, that with information we gain freedom, knowledge, Democracy, and wellness.
The article here calls all of that into question, and gives us insight into how it is possible for society to have gained virtually unlimited access to information, while becoming stupider, more passive, more ripe for autocracy, more divided, and more unwell in every sense of the word.
The ability on social media to click "like", to share, retweet, to "go viral" has led to our descent into a squabbling "post-Babel" mob of confused and disoriented tribes, each adopting our own sets of presumed knowledge based on "confirmation bias." That is to say, we can use search engines to "find" facts to confirm the authenticity of any personal belief, obsession, or prejudice, from flat-earth, to "UFO's killed JFK", to covid vaccines having 5G tracking chips to give us covid, to "Stop The Steal."
This is not to universally denounce every highly read pundit or influencer on Facebook or Twitter as destructive, bad, or tools of some pernicious agenda. I and most of my friends have enough developed judgment and intellectual identities to know who and what we follow and why. The question I raise in every piece I write addresses the issue of our passivity. As a former organizer and activist, I cannot reconcile inaction with the reality of the current existing fascist threat.
In all honesty, if we are satisfied that what we are doing is working, is good enough, then go no further.
The modern threat of being shamed or personally destroyed resulting from something we post on social media has become, in effect, the information age police-state apparatus which maintains our social control mechanisms, in much the fashion as the old East bloc internal security agencies like the KGB and Stasi did decades ago. Or as was the Hoover FBI during the heights of McCarthyism. (My formulation, not the author's)
It is more convenient to keep quiet rather than be shamed, bullied, fired, purged, shunned, or denounced. So we keep our heads down, avoid controversy, stick to safe subjects, only share output from blue-checked "verified accounts," of course after we fact check them with some authority which is recognized. "Snopes" has replaced our Teachers, Priests, Rabbis, Imams, Judges, and TV newscasters as the ultimate arbiters of truth and morality, yet we never ask who or what Snopes is. Just that "they" are the officially designated checkers of facts who hold the entirety of our credibility in their hands. We have lost our right to make mistakes to algorithms.
My growing concern is that the net effect of social media is to use the threat of viral shaming to induce either paralyzing fear, leading to mass passivity, or spread disinformation to unleash violent unbridled rage, with everyone else caught in between as spectators. We are becoming a kind of technotronic Roman Empire, with everything implied by our understanding of the history of that collapsing Empire. Except that the Coliseums, bath houses, vomitoriums, gambling dens, and Pantheons to the gods are all on our desktop, and we can live comfortably as "good Romans" from our homes and through our personal devices. We have our gladiator contests to watch people die on "Squid Games." We have orgies to order on "Pornhub". We have eating competitions like "The Wing Bowl." We have Televangelists, so no need to go to the Temple, and we have online betting. All saved in our "Bookmarks." And of course, we get to watch our corrupt and wealthy Senators update their fundraising stats on C-Span, just so we can feel democratically empowered. And we now have the democratically available option of giving "thumbs up" to those who are approved of on Facebook, or to condemn those we don't like by denying our approval. Let's hear it for the Lions.
These are some of the thoughts I've been tossing around in trying to make sense of why we are headed for fascism, and why liberals are failing to successfully resist it. We are our own worst enemies. And as the author describes it here, it is as if we are shooting dart guns into our own brains with our growing dependency on social media.
This leads me to consider finding new options in order to have a personal impact. It should be seen as a wake up call, in my view.
