You could tell Dave Grohl’s time had passed by the faint tendrils of disgrace and embarrassment curling off his admission that he had recently become the father of a new baby daughter, but not with his wife, Jordyn Blum.
I used to feel something about how much it helps to be a vile person to succeed in certain ventures in the USA. I don’t think it was envy exactly—but some kind of frustration. But as I get older and these people become more omnipresent I feel so much relief that I am not like this. It would like living next to a pile of burning tires or rotting offal. While they say when you get used to a smell, you stop smelling it—just the thought of what I was breathing…I would not want to get used to that. But it’s a drag to me as a parent that there’s a whole kids’ economy based on it==that my kid is being inundated with shitty people like this, that they are polluting the landscape.
Am I the only one who thinks that the tribal reality-deficit has a vaguely medieval feel to it? We're a hair's breadth away from pitch-forks and witch burnings (actually there already in some quite close places). And it's not all individualism and bubbles: some of the tribes (like Mr Beast's) are numerically huge.
It's sobering to think of how much of our "reality", the bits that we interact with every day, are not controlled or conditioned by the rules of physics or biology at all: they're stories made up and agreed to over time. The laws, the borders, the in-groups and the others. All narrative. All utterly and ultimately up for grabs.
Sorry about the long (but authentic) quote: "The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." Hannah Arendt.
Rupert - may he rot in hell for bazillion years - has a lot to answer for - his idea of ' infotainment ' has ruined all forms of media & ' bothsidesing ' ( where did that come from? Him too? 🤔 ) has taken root - it's just appalling
Arendt is right, but what we have at the moment isn't as simple as the lack of a "free press", to the extent that there ever was one. Now everyone can say their own thing, all the time, but the distribution of those messages is now controlled by sociopathic robots who delight in maximizing chaos. As John has pointed out: some of the people have learned that winning involves playing for the robots. We're beyond mere lies now. This is cubic bullshit.
Right on in the sense of ubiquitous understanding about life and what it entails. You put it so well.
The only saving grace I see is that there is no actual reality that we can confirm. We are all the constructs of our own minds and our very existence is something which we cannot prove. We may all be imaginative characters in an imaginative movie as trivial, as important, as banal, as tr ansformational, as entertaining, as black or as as wildly funny as to make us laugh out loud or as scary as to make us wet our pants and cover our eyes.
We just don't know. So we do we as we do and live as we live and create our structures and meanings and provide them with varying degrees of 'reality' or 'meaning' whilst ignoring or avoiding our insignificance and knowing of nothing.
Please, follow your feelings, enjoy, release, transcend the trivia, be quiet and transfigured, from whatever rational standpoint could anyone be demeaning of that?
I remember a Bloom County comix in the 80s which portrayed some Televangelist, I think it was Jim Bakker on TV decrying after being found out as being unfaithful "God has forgiven me, why can't you" and the two viewers stating 'fair enough we should send him (insert their child's name) collage fund. So I would suggest at least in contemporary US culture the Televangelist's were early adopters of your Shame is good for business thesis.
I used to feel something about how much it helps to be a vile person to succeed in certain ventures in the USA. I don’t think it was envy exactly—but some kind of frustration. But as I get older and these people become more omnipresent I feel so much relief that I am not like this. It would like living next to a pile of burning tires or rotting offal. While they say when you get used to a smell, you stop smelling it—just the thought of what I was breathing…I would not want to get used to that. But it’s a drag to me as a parent that there’s a whole kids’ economy based on it==that my kid is being inundated with shitty people like this, that they are polluting the landscape.
Am I the only one who thinks that the tribal reality-deficit has a vaguely medieval feel to it? We're a hair's breadth away from pitch-forks and witch burnings (actually there already in some quite close places). And it's not all individualism and bubbles: some of the tribes (like Mr Beast's) are numerically huge.
It's sobering to think of how much of our "reality", the bits that we interact with every day, are not controlled or conditioned by the rules of physics or biology at all: they're stories made up and agreed to over time. The laws, the borders, the in-groups and the others. All narrative. All utterly and ultimately up for grabs.
Sorry about the long (but authentic) quote: "The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please." Hannah Arendt.
(And no, dammit, I'm not sorry)
Rupert - may he rot in hell for bazillion years - has a lot to answer for - his idea of ' infotainment ' has ruined all forms of media & ' bothsidesing ' ( where did that come from? Him too? 🤔 ) has taken root - it's just appalling
Arendt is right, but what we have at the moment isn't as simple as the lack of a "free press", to the extent that there ever was one. Now everyone can say their own thing, all the time, but the distribution of those messages is now controlled by sociopathic robots who delight in maximizing chaos. As John has pointed out: some of the people have learned that winning involves playing for the robots. We're beyond mere lies now. This is cubic bullshit.
Right on in the sense of ubiquitous understanding about life and what it entails. You put it so well.
The only saving grace I see is that there is no actual reality that we can confirm. We are all the constructs of our own minds and our very existence is something which we cannot prove. We may all be imaginative characters in an imaginative movie as trivial, as important, as banal, as tr ansformational, as entertaining, as black or as as wildly funny as to make us laugh out loud or as scary as to make us wet our pants and cover our eyes.
We just don't know. So we do we as we do and live as we live and create our structures and meanings and provide them with varying degrees of 'reality' or 'meaning' whilst ignoring or avoiding our insignificance and knowing of nothing.
Roger I feel like hitting the bucket bong after taking in this phenomenological master thesis!
Please, follow your feelings, enjoy, release, transcend the trivia, be quiet and transfigured, from whatever rational standpoint could anyone be demeaning of that?
Take care. Stay safe. ☮️
I remember a Bloom County comix in the 80s which portrayed some Televangelist, I think it was Jim Bakker on TV decrying after being found out as being unfaithful "God has forgiven me, why can't you" and the two viewers stating 'fair enough we should send him (insert their child's name) collage fund. So I would suggest at least in contemporary US culture the Televangelist's were early adopters of your Shame is good for business thesis.
Great article JB, shame I only got a third of the way through it before my attention went else where :-)
Was the rest of it good?
Meta-stasising attention sickness 👏🏻
Jake and Logan Paul?
Never heard of them before, and now I think I could have lived well enough without learning about that particular alternative to reality.
Sorry!
Wasn't meant to be a slight on you, JB - it's all on them and their modus operandi. They should be like a nightmare that we wake up from.
S’okay. I took no offence.