In addition to the articles on censorship, remember that the can media preemptively bias their content by only hiring those who demonstrate a shared point of view. This is done before any need for actively censoring jouirnalists -- just hire the faithful rather than objective investigators.
memfree
joined 2 months ago
I'm like this when I microwave fresh veg. I cover the bowl in plastic wrap, and when the veg are cooked I KNOW the big balloon effect is steam hotter than boiling water, and I KNOW it will burn me if I try to take the plastic off without a utensil, but I don't want that steam bubble to collapse on the veg, so I try to get just a corner off, and maybe if I ... SSSSSSSTEAM BURN! Why oh why didn't I use a fork or something? Next time, I swear, I will be ready (not).
"They're all the same! ... Actually, this one's not good." John Lutz: Product Tester - Pour-Over Coffee Makers (Seth Myers)
You hit some of the first that came to mind. I'd also include Terms of Endearment, I'll Cry Tomorrow, Postcards From the Edge... do Snow White and Cinderella count?
Worry that being invisible did not make me invincible. Getting hit by a car or bullets or such would still kill me. I'd still make noise stepping on twigs and have a wake trying to swim a stream, so I'd have to keep being stealthy. Presumably, I'd still smell like a tiger and send prey fleeing. If I did catch prey, their blood would be visible on my claw and teeth, wouldn't it? Would the chunks of flesh I eat stay visible as I gulp them down or would my invisibility mask them once they were inside me? If someone shot me as I mangled their their livestock, would my bleeding wound leave a blood spoor for hunters to follow?
All and all, I would try my best to be a silent hunter in unpopulated areas. Trying to move through city sidewalks would surely lead to my capture.
This is equivalent to your parents saying "you may only talk to people at school
You've got my point backwards. I'm saying kids would be better prepared for life if they talked to people, and particularly if they talked to people they don't particularly care about rather than only swapping phone memes with kids they already know. Also, no one is saying there should be a complete ban on phones. The article simply suggests keeping the bedroom screen-free (better for sleep, studying, etc.). I went further to point out that as we've become more 'social' on phones we're less social in society.
First bit: Why do we as a country (speaking from the U.S.) allow police to assualt the citizenry? Why aren't we all in our town halls demanding the removal of any cops who handcuff kids, tackle people who don't speak English, or fire guns at anyone who isn't at that moment attacking someone? The police should be under our control by our consent. We elect their bosses if not the sheriffs themselves. Why aren't we showing up in numbers in person to demand better?
Second bit: I know there are still some communities where kids can ride their bikes without fear because the parents still know everyone on the block. They might not like all the neighbors, but they know them and aren't calling the cops on them. The bad part of that is a distrust of outsiders and unwillingness to accept anything different. Humans fall into us/them thinking too easily. As far as I have heard/read/seen, the best way to mitigate that is first-hand exposure to the 'other' because people tend to be better than whatever sterotype someone worries about. Reminiscing here: I remember visiting my grandparents and having them walk me into various houses on the block to chat with neighbors. It never occurred to me as a bored child that this was socially incorporating me into an insular community that might have been sucpsious of a strange kid biking around the same streets over and over if they didn't know I belonged there.
That said, I don't understand how the kids like me who grew up running wild wherever we wanted became parents who didn't allow any roaming, and who's kids then became adults that will call the cops before asking the neighbors. Maybe we move too often. Maybe we fear litigation. Mostly, I suspect, we work too many hours for not enough money such that adults don't have the energy to form old-style communities where people banded together (both for good and bad), and instead everyone only removed online just as I am doing right now.
I understand that it is harder to bond to someone who isn't immediately digitally available. I understand that "kids these days! " do their social stuff online, but at the same time, they seem to have largely lost all skill at interacting with real humans of slight or no aquaintence.
It is easy to make sarcastic comments on your phone about how stupid this or that is. The sterotypical basement dweller can snark all day. What takes social skill is actively engaging with people you don't care about and finding common ground.
Yes, digital people track some of this on facebook and such, but in real life: in which community groups do they participate? Do they know what their neighbors do and what they like beyond snapshots of events? That is: yeah, they saw that pic of that cookout, but did they know that he volunteer teaches English as a second language Tuesday and Thursday at the library? When was the last time they went into a neighbor's home (or had one visit theirs) to share a cup of coffee and complain about that road that needs fixing and who to push about it?
Edited to replace 'you' with 'they' so there'd be no confusion that I mean multiple 'you' readers rather than a single person.
As an old fart who witnessed social gatherings for decades, it looks like social stunting comes from smartphones rather than their absence.
The split isn't left/right (what the rest of the world would see as middle/extreme right), but money/workers, and I no longer see a fix. When Citizen's United decreed that "money is speech" (it isn't: money is power, and codifying 'free speech' was meant as a protection against power), the fix was to overturn that and go further to get money out of politics -- but that didn't happen.
We are in the process of losing everything that made the U.S. worthwhile. Other countries used to try to emulate the U.S. models for things like: public education, research and development, public works (roads, dams, etc.), economic model (and laws restricting it after it crashed), and lack of corruption, including laws to prevent and/or punish the latter. Now we are removing and de-funding all the stuff that made the U.S. attractive and successful. We're working on becoming the next North Korea rather than the next, say, Sweden.
We seem to have lost all culture except for a love of money and spectacle. There's no respect for education, Truth, Justice or the like. If an official does something questionable, they get to keep their job and the most their underlings can do about it is resign -- and that doesn't make things better. There ought to be an option where the official has to resign and the underlings who are doing honest work need not fear retribution. Instead, we reward those who can 'spin' the narrative or outright lie. The populace ought to be offended by those lies, but instead there is a large number of people who would rather be a good team member than demand honesty.
That's where money comes in. You pay agents to start or reinforce several ideas, do data tracking to figure out which ones get high "engagement" scores, then campaign on that garbage rather than on anything of substance. Once you win the election, you don't have to follow through on anything. Just give tax breaks to your backers.
view more: next ›
** "Hildegarde Withers" series of whodunit murder/comedies (there were 6, but I only saw 5) **