Posted on 04/06/2021 4:18:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Internet was supposed to bring with it a renaissance, a new enlightenment and a brighter future. It was to be a time when people became smarter, having access to the collective knowledge of humanity at their fingertips, and with the invention of the smart phone, in their pocket, always. What could go wrong? A lot, it turns out. Actually, just about everything. The promise was not kept. All we ended up with was a bunch of narcissists desperate to share pictures of the food they're eating and demanding validation for their existence from everyone else.
Scroll through social media and you’ll be inundated with selfies and pictures of food. Did something really happen, did you really eat a meal if you didn’t tell the world about? It’s not that these people think you need to know where and what they’re eating, they need you to know. They want the likes and comments, they crave those more than the nutrition in the food. Hell, they probably choose where to eat based on how the food looks more than the taste or cost.
There is an entire segment of our population who now lives for the validation they receive from others. They need it. It’s not just because they like it, it’s because they have no self-worth without it.
It used to be that if you didn’t like someone, or they didn’t like you, you’d simply avoid them and the problem wasn’t only solved, it disappeared. Now people you’ve never met, will likely never meet, and probably would dislike if you did, demand you not only acknowledge their existence, but you celebrate it as well. If your beliefs, deeply held religious or simply a matter of taste, hinder the approval they desire you are labeled an “ist” or a “phobe” of some sort, then God protect you.
A recent column in The New York Times exemplifies this mentality perfectly, not because of its content as much as its existence. Entitled, “How Do I Define My Gender If No One Is Watching Me?” the sub-headline of, “Without the public eye, who are we?” completes the giveaway.
It’s a column full of progressive buzzwords and feelings about things most people couldn’t care less about.
Here’s a little fact most people understand: no one cares how you want to live your life, or who or what you think you are. Most people simply want to be left alone. As long as whatever you do is done with willing adults, and is legal, who gives a damn?
That’s not good enough anymore, you have to give as many damns that are requested of you, lest the mob be sent after your life.
The author of that Times piece wrote, “I was surprised by how much my gender instead seemed to almost evaporate. No longer on the alert for how to signal a restaurant’s waitstaff that neither 'he' nor 'she' applied to me, or for whether colleagues and neighbors would use the right language — devoid of anyone to signal my gender to — I felt, suddenly, amorphous and undefined.”
This is the mentality – validate me. But that quest for validation does not lie in accomplishment, it does not lie within each person to the left, it lies in the attention of others; in getting others to validate them. Friends, family, and strangers alike must constantly validate them. Using the “wrong pronoun” or refusing to use a made up one is not a mistake that doesn’t matter, it is an affront that matters more than anything else.
This isn’t about the transgender issue, this is just the latest example that caught my eye. It’s with every issue on the left. People and corporations are in a woke-off to “prove” how much they support voting rights, even though Georgia’s new law actually makes it easier to vote. It’s not enough that people live in fear of COVID-19, you have to triple-mask while lecturing anyone else who wants to see their family about how they’re worse than Hitler, even after being vaccinated.
Seeking validation for your existence outside of yourself means you’ll never find it, ever. The Internet is the pathway through which people who otherwise would’ve found contentment have found misery. A generation of Americans are seeing this pathway illuminated and praised in popular culture as though it’s something to aspire to, when it is the exact opposite; it is the road to misery and ruin. How we get out of this death spiral remains unknown, but the first step is to stop elevating those who impose it on us. The second is much easier, stop electing the Democrats who fostered and benefit from it.
I used to think the internet was one of the great inventions among fire, the wheel, and so on. But after watching twitter do its thing, I’m wondering if it wasn’t a big mistake.
Secularists always seem to say that, "ethics will need to catch up with the new technology," but it seems to me that in doing so, they are already excusing their intent to misuse or abuse it. People with strong moral principles tend to adopt new knowledge/technology to their core ethics. People without firm principles tend to adopt their ethics to the new tech.
Our culture was largely one of self-centeredness before social media. Social media is simply the garden and fertilizer that has cultivated it's growth beyond what anybody could have reasonably foreseen 20 years ago.
eat based on how the food looks more than the taste or cost
that would be very strange
...did you really eat a meal if you didn’t tell the world about?
Schroedingers’s Meal?
You can't have demand without supply. The Founders died for, among other things, a 4th Amendment guarantee to be free from state search and seizure. But flowing from that guarantee is a reminder that curtains don't just block the sun but also keep peering eyes out of your living room, be they from the state or your nosy neighbor.
In short, the risk of being ridiculed or canceled for your views is minimized by keeping your Big Yapper shut. Just because there is a public forum doesn't necessitate your participation, especially if you have your actual name tacked onto it.
I'm not condoning the doxxing and cyber bullying. But I am saying that 30 years ago, most people didn't send lengthy tomes to their local paper about the evils of X or Y. And if they did, most of us ignored them.
As for the gentle generational bashing, as I wrote elsewhere, every generation starts out stupid. The Boomers were drugged out counter-culturists, the GenXers were a flannel-wearing depressed lot, and now we have the pod-eating Millenials. Of course, exceptions existed (not every boomer smoked dope, not every GenXer liked grunge, and not all Millenials eat Tide), but the elders of each of these generations thought "it's over" when they spoke of the youths. And as our copied FRiend noted, The older generation has complained about the younger throughout human history; my favorite quotes in this vein are from Socrates and from the ancient Egyptian graffitti purportedly found by Napolean (and which may both be apocryphal), suggesting that the younger generation are going to the dogs:
http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html
Today, the Boomers are, as a generation, the most conservative (technically their parents' generation is the most conservative but there aren't as many of them around) followed by the GenXers. The Millenials are showing signs of maturation. It happens. And it'll continue happening, so unlike the author I don't look at today's kids and think we're ipso facto doomed.
The radicals always positioned themselves as anti-establishment. Well...they're the establishment now. It's actually an act of radicalism to say you're conservative or think independently etc. And youths usually gravitate to this "question authority" mindset...in a strange way, the left's ascent may be their downfall. Indeed, many younger folks see what's happening, and while they don't get air time, they DO text and use iPhones to communicate with each other...these communiques basically say that they're all for justice and not bashing gays etc., but torching buildings, wearing nine masks, and reassignment surgery at 4-years of age aren't great ideas.
These kids are smart enough not to speak loudly during The Purge, but they exist...and they're getting "radicalized" I.E. red-pilled. I believe that while some fraction of society will always be lost, a bigly number of people are hip to what's happening and, for obvious reasons, we don't see the silent backlash.
The interwebs is a great source for whatever information you choose to find, however inaccurate you please; it is a great source to connect with like-feeling people, where no judgement is allowed. And as for online dating and sex, it can get you past the first thousand rejections in no time, and the content available can help you as you validate your self.
Thank you Algore. /s
Internet, one of another invention of the great American War machine was not a mistake so much, as it gives the world an example of how many humans are idiots.
Democracy is a failure and all you have to do is read to see why.
Until Democrats screw it up and Ban PEOPLE for using words that upset them, the Internet is the ultimate Democracy, the “Town square” soap box as it were.
The big three is
Soap box
Ballot box
Ammo box
We all know the Ballot box is a waste of time,
With Democrats being the counters.
In many places the soap box is guarded by people that ban
comments based on a very subjective set of rules
AKA Algorithms.
Where does that leave us?
Free and open discussion is the way to go.
I plan to donate to keep this one site open,
(although they should announce a jubilee
and remove all their bans).
Happy Easter!
I miss the feeling of Live and let live or You take the good with the bad. Everyone draws a line in the sand on every dang issue and loose family, friends and a part of life over a single point.
——There is an entire segment of our population who now lives for the validation they receive from others. ——
That has been true for a long time, perhaps forever. I recently watched the movie The Devil Wears Prada. The essence of the movie is living for validation. The message is that the fashion industry exists and thrives because it is about validating women’s views of other women and thus themselves.
A Smart phone or computer is never seen. There is no electronic device depicted. The validation medias was a magazine called Runway
Validation is not really the issue....... the real issue is female vanity
There are some terrific educational resources on the Internet. But, there is even more danger in social media.
Properly-used, social media is a wonderful way of staying in touch. But, it isn’t life, itself.
People need to get off their dead asses and make something of themselves. Your bank account of life is fixed...invest it wisely!
“I used to think the internet was one of the great inventions among fire, the wheel, and so on.”
It is absolutely that..and more! However, one has to have a certain level of maturity and sophistication and a stable, healthy “weltanschauung” as it were. Unleashing the internet on youth has been akin to giving guns and beer to 10 year olds.
Internet is good. Social media is not so much. It started out great. Find old friends and family members . Chat about life. But then politics took over and screwed it all up.
Great post, J6P.
Ditto for Linked-in. I must have a thousand "friends" there and my email is cluttered with requests to add them to my network. But it's really nothing but people puffing up their resumes and making their mostly mundane jobs seem glamorous while congratulating each other for every promotion lateral move, etc. I guess I'll go back there if I ever need to find another job but for now it's a colossal waste of time.
I gave up Twitter when they kicked Trump off. Trump was the only reason I was on that platform anyhow.
As for conservative friendly platforms like GAB, Parler, etc., they have yet to resonate with me. I have accounts in those places and will poke around now and then but I have no sense of community there (like I have here on Free Republic).
Free Republic might be Internet 1.0 and Millenials might laugh at our primitive HTML but it's "sticky". Whenever I want to find out what's going on in the world, I come here. Even though many of you guys annoy the hell out of me (and I'm sure I annoy others on my own accord). But it really is the best social media platform I have seen yet.
Maybe the Trump platform will turn out to be something worthwhile. We shall see.
It created the “look at me me wonderful me” generation.
7.5 Billion humans walking around and every last one of ‘em with Daddy issues...
” All we ended up with was a bunch of narcissists desperate to share pictures of the food they’re eating and demanding validation for their existence from everyone else.”
The first time I saw this at a restaurant I wanted to get up and smack the guy.
I’m reminded of Jeb Bush telling his audience to, “please clap”.
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