Posted on 03/19/2015 5:21:08 PM PDT by Chris Shugart Uncommon Sense
You’ve probably heard the old statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters that they'd eventually pound out the complete works of Shakespeare. Now we know, thanks to the Internet, that this isn't true. The evidence can be seen by anyone who spends any time on Facebook, where sentient intelligence seems to have been replaced by boring insipid images.
Facebook has gradually risen to a level of stature that’s taken on a dimension that’s even bigger than a posted photo of Kim Kardashian’s rear end. This premiere social media platform has evolved into an online political playground that can transform pop culture internet memes into dubious political talking points. Aimed at the gullible and uninformed, this typically takes the form of deceptive and manipulative word pictures that frankly, aren’t as good as the old propaganda posters produced by totalitarian countries of a pre-wired age.
The ease by which we can post anything that aligns with our illusions and misconceptions has spawned a brand of Facebook communication that’s as weak as Pajama Boy threatening to run away from home. With a single keystroke we can transform ourselves into one-fingered ministers of misinformation for or own virtual idiocracy. With little effort and no thinking to slow us down, we have the power to parrot ridiculous statements without any intellectual examination or real information. Reality becomes subjective; something we decide what is or what should be.
These kinds of posts are a spectacle to watch—a viral cascade of mindless rhetoric that reproduces at the rate of a Ukranian computer virus. And it’s amazing how easily and quickly people will buy into such fish-brained nonsense. But at the end of the day, all of those Facebook “likes” and “shares” amount to nothing more substantial than a simple-minded “me too.”
To be fair, this is not something peculiar to the Left. The Right makes use of this tactic just as often. I’m not sure which is better or worse—it probably comes down to which offends you the least. But in either case, employing jpeg images to serve as facts can be a lazy substitute for critical thinking.
Facebook may be an example of virtual reality at its worst—turning us into illiterates on so many levels while providing us with an illusion of authority that makes it difficult to tell the difference between knowledge and ignorance. And if you’ve ever seen any of those “man on the street” videos where unknowing bystanders display their incredible cluelessness, you might get an idea of the dumbing down process taking place, of which Facebook is but a single component.
With such a dim view of this worldwide Facebook phenomenon, you might ask, “Why bother with it then?” It’s a fair question, and one that deserves an answer. As a marketing professional and a student of human nature, I’m interested in what people think and why, no matter how convoluted and illogical the results may be. Think of me as the Jane Goodall of popular culture, living among the social media primates in order to gain some insight into their behavior and habits. Pretentious posture or sincere pursuit of study? Only Facebook knows for sure.
If I want to see and hear about the kids and grandkids of my friends, I essentially have to do it on facebook.
I just gloss over all the likes and shares and similar BS.
You know what of my posts garner the most attention on FB? Pictures of me and the grandogs hiking in the forest. Pictures of the grandogs playing in the snow. OK, pictures of the grandogs period. With or without me. Justifiably so, they are great.
I avoid political and social discussion for the most part. Pissing into the wind.
I see facebook as an ideal place to aggravate liberals.
That’s what I use twitter for.
I am a man of incredible patience, and usually draw from the ‘to each his own’ well, BUT Facebook is the shizzle, total Crap!!!
Not a member.
If it’s not worth saying on FR, it’s not worth saying.
In all my years at f.r. that was the first redeeming blog pimping I’ve seen
Nope.
Not even remotely close on a good day.
Absurd.
That one has always bothered me too. Shakespeare isn’t random and the odds against reproducing it from randomness is so high as to be effectively impossible.
Nothing seals an individual into a collective like active participation. A Hitler Youth bearing a torch at the Nuremberg spectacle was committed to the Party in a way that a casual observer was not. Social media can be like that for the susceptible, and the manipulative know it.
Facebook is idiocy exemplified...
Perhaps I can introduce you to the sci-fi writer Raymond F. Jones who wrote the short story “Fifty Million Monkeys” way back in 1943. I read it in high school many years later. I suspect it was a humorous illustration of the “infinite monkey theorem,” an often discussed theory of mathematical probability..I don’t believe it works in Vegas.
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