GOSMGO

 People can assert whatever they want, and there are always people who want to believe it.

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 Because it's so vast, you can always find a community of people who think the way you so, even if what you think is completely wack and without merit. And once you find and establish that community, its very easy to convince yourselves you're not wack, you're just special and more perceptive than everyone else. that kind of feeling is addictive and makes you feel powerful. it makes you feel like you have a duty to inform and convince others of your crazy and act on your impulses, because in your mind that action has become imperative to saving mankind.

 It happens a lot, loss of friends, family, coworkers. Saddest part is it happens because we've become inflamed by an event or issue that in a few days or weeks it's very likely we won't be passionate about, but the damage to the relationship is done.

Even if t you leave the platforms, the way they intersect with news makes it impossible to ignore or discount what's happening on them.

 Karening Cancel Culture Backlashing Clapping Back Viralty Manipulation of Images to Mislead Reviving Past Lives for the purpose of judging and doing harm Cancel Culture The "citizen" journalist The "researcher" The "influencer" Prostitution of families and cute kids Pursuit of making money with little effort doing nothing of real value Making money or getting attention just for slamming or shaming Hypocrisy at all time high It's become easier to ignore when you said something would happen and it didn't by being with a crew that continues to talk and carry on  without reflecting, introspection or checking itself.

On social media we're cultivating a belief system than is unsupportable, a system in which we've come to believe our opinions  matter in every situation and context and the exercise of our free speech is important and shouldn't be curbed or restrained in any way. We insert ourselves into conversations that really have nothing to do with us, and act as though all opinions are of equal value, when that is rarely the case. We opine at length on topics we have very little information on, make judgments, and broadcast them to the world.  It's wrong, and it's a trend that needs to stop.

 I loved reading from an early age, which was not so unusual for someone of my generation and those that came before us. Most of what we knew, aside from practical knowledge and conventional wisdom, came from reading books, magazines and newspapers. We also wrote a lot. Letter writing and letter reading was for most people an enjoyable pastime.  Because we read a lot, we also knew how to express ourselves effectively in writing. We weren't all pros at it, of course, but even poorly educated or indifferent students usually had the basics down and knew how to spell simple, frequently-used words and phrases. When you read professionally edited material regularly, it's hard not to pick up on the rules of grammar, punctuation, and style. That doesn't happen anymore, and social media has played a big part in the change. I am almost convinced at this point that America's schools are filled with English teachers who have given up on trying to teach students the difference betwe...

 In the real world, there are slow news days, and that's a good thing. A slow news day means we did less damage to the planet, other humans and ourselves than usual. It means nothing got blown up, no one shot a slew of innocents, no one well known got arrested, no public utterances reached the level of outrageousness, and no major investigation yielded fruit. But there can be no such thing as a slow news day on social media.  If nothing catastrophic has occurred once people wake up to a new day, social media will birth something to talk and obsess over. It could be a rehashing of a retired newsy bit, the exposure of an old post from a digging expedition, or the magnification and elevation of something minor but new in people's news feeds. The social media appetite, once whetted, must be fed daily and continuously. If there's nothing legitimately newsworthy, a trumped up issue will suffice. The bad thing about trumped up issues is while they may come and go quickly in social...