Age of Idiocy

[Jacek Zakowicz]

I have a different opinion... I think the new news media is Twitter, Snapchat... social media. True there are many who still watch Fox news and CNN, but then may also get on social media and call bullshit on a slanted news story (and yes, I truly believe every news story is slanted at least a little.)

Someone made the comment after the last election that Trump (by using Twitter) had the circulation of the New York Times without the overhead.

Say what you will about his politics or his style, but as a marketer the man is a genius. OBTW, this is meant as an observation and is not politically motivated so don't feel you have to turn it into a political rehash.

What makes you think that social media cannot be manipulated? Just like any other mass media. As they say: "same sh!t, different bathroom" ;-)

 

[Elsie N]

What makes you think that social media cannot be manipulated? Just like any other mass media. As they say: "same sh!t, different bathroom" ;-)

My personal thinking is that if it became apparent that something like Twitter were hiding tweets, some "balancer" (read: hacker) would right that wrong. And while I think hackers who hack for personal gain or glory are low-lifes, hackers who hack for the common good are a necessary check and balance tool.

There is a story in today's LA Times (I think that was the newspaper I'm paraphrasing) about how the state's Attorney Generals' have numerous times thwarted a ballot initiative by the way they construct the brief on the ballot. They do it in such a way that they know the common voter will reject the issue which favors the status quo and the donors of campaign money for the politician.

This has been going on for years (even back during Swartzenegger's term as governor when he tried to get the initiative on the ballot) and they are only now reporting on it. Maybe they tried to get out ahead of the story before it becomes the 'buzz" on social media.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

No offense Elsie, but that's cute...;-)

 

[Elsie N]

No offense Elsie, but that's cute...;-)

No offense taken even if you had not thought that whatever you are referring to is cute. '-)

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Social media and the internet are some of the biggest sources of fake and biased in format I know and news. Vested interests virtually unhindered could color the facts and the truth as they liked it, muddy the waters, and be the main ones sing airtime, as honest people don't have the amount of vested interests to distort the truth, so the idiots drown out the good people on searches. You can find a good example and have six others working against it, and when that is really 600k bad apples, the 100k good examples might not even get into the first X number of pages of google results. Just the other day, I put on two letters, and got a page full of Apple phones sales totally unrelated, and no way equating to that is the bast likely hood of what I was looking for, it wasn't even the defining feature of those products.

Now, as far as the conspiratists and their puppeteers, manipulating people into believing lies for fun or to divert attention from what is actually happening, this has been rife on the internet for decades.

Good honest Journalism and media, in neutrality with the truth, can sift through and Weed out these distorted influences. Problem is, they have been corporately compromised too these days. But having somebody in charge that is trustworthy responsible for sorting through the truth is the way to go.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I have a different opinion... I think the new news media is Twitter, Snapchat... social media. True there are many who still watch Fox news and CNN, but then may also get on social media and call bullshit on a slanted news story (and yes, I truly believe every news story is slanted at least a little.)

Someone made the comment after the last election that Trump (by using Twitter) had the circulation of the New York Times without the overhead.

Say what you will about his politics or his style, but as a marketer the man is a genius. OBTW, this is meant as an observation and is not politically motivated so don't feel you have to turn it into a political rehash.

If he was a genius, he could have done it all truthfully and supporting those that were truthful in opposition to him. That would have been genius to pull off.

 

[Elsie N]

Social media and the internet are some of the biggest sources of fake and biased in format I know and news. Vested interests virtually unhindered could color the facts and the truth as they liked it, muddy the waters, and be the main ones sing airtime, as honest people don't have the amount of vested interests to distort the truth, so the idiots drown out the good people on searches. You can find a good example and have six others working against it, and when that is really 600k bad apples, the 100k good examples might not even get into the first X number of pages of google results. Just the other day, I put on two letters, and got a page full of Apple phones sales totally unrelated, and no way equating to that is the bast likely hood of what I was looking for, it wasn't even the defining feature of those products.

Now, as far as the conspiratists and their puppeteers, manipulating people into believing lies for fun or to divert attention from what is actually happening, this has been rife on the internet for decades.

Good honest Journalism and media, in neutrality with the truth, can sift through and Weed out these distorted influences. Problem is, they have been corporately compromised too these days. But having somebody in charge that is trustworthy responsible for sorting through the truth is the way to go.

Are these arbiters of truth elected or appointed... and by who? Who is the god that decides... or what test do they take to say they are capable of doing the job? Maybe an artificial intelligence will be able to perfectly referee between two positions... until it starts thinking for itself and chooses to believe more like one side.

That is, the right has people who are sorting through the truth as they see it and the left has someone sorting through the truth as fits their beliefs. And yes, they are respected journalists who believe they are being fair in their reporting... unless you believe the opposite of what they are saying at which point they become nothing but a mouthpiece spewing the other sides rhetoric. '-)

 

[Elsie N]

If he was a genius, he could have done it all truthfully and supporting those that were truthful in opposition to him. That would have been genius to pull off.

I'm not judging Trump or defending him. I'm just saying the results show the genius of becoming the most powerful man in the world using free social media to overcome a very well funded political opponent.

 

[Martin Stevens]

Evolution does not produce a large number of highly intelligent humans because
high intelligence is not required to live and breed.

Highly intelligent humans are an anomaly or evolutionary aberration.

And, we are not living in an age of idiocy, nor have we recently fallen into a state of
complete idiocy, because human civilization have always been idiotic. If you look at the newspapers
today or from long ago you see that nothing has changed in regards to our stupidity. Every generation
thinks or sees their time as the worst.

 

[Ben Scott]

I actually just started shooting a doc for someone else on this very subjet and the first conversation was with Stephn Fry was was fantastic on the subject of where we are as humans in 2017. No spoilers at the moment soI will just leave these quotes here instead.

Whither are the manly vigor and athletic appearance of our forefathers flown? Can these be their legitimate heirs? Surely, no; a race of effeminate, self-admiring, emaciated fribbles can never have descended in a direct line from the heroes of Potiers and Agincourt..

- Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, 1771

Youth were never more sawcie, yea never more savagely saucie . . . the ancient are scorned, the honourable are contemned, the magistrate is not dreaded.

- Thomas Barnes, 1624

... see the simpering little beau of ten gallanting home the little coquette of eight, each so full of self-conceit and admiration of their own dear self, as to have but little to spare for any one else... and confess that the sight is both ridiculous and distressing... the sweet simplicity and artlessness of childhood, which renders a true child so interesting, are gone (like the bloom of the peach rudely nipped off) never to return.

- he Mothers' Journal and Family Visitant in 1853

A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages...chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises--not this sort of mental gladiatorship.

- Scientific American, 1859

...[The screen artists'] beauty, their exquisite clothing, their lax habits and low moral standards, are becoming unconsciously appropriated by the plastic minds of American youth. Let them do what they may; divorce scandals, hotel episodes, free love, all are passed over and condoned by the young... The eye-gate is the widest and most easily accessible of all the avenues of the soul; whatever is portrayed on the screen is imprinted indelibly upon the nation's soul.

- The Pentecostal Evangel, 1926

The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?

- Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

In short, old people have complained about young people and media no longer considering them to key demographic they are chasing for centuries...

Or to put it another way

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

I agree. We just mature to see the magnitude of idiocy and think it got worse over time. Just like our fathers did....

 

[Elsie N]

I agree. We just mature to see the magnitude of idiocy and think it got worse over time. Just like our fathers did....

Pretty much sums it up for me.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

I have a different opinion... I think the new news media is Twitter, Snapchat... social media. True there are many who still watch Fox news and CNN, but then may also get on social media and call bullshit on a slanted news story (and yes, I truly believe every news story is slanted at least a little.)

Someone made the comment after the last election that Trump (by using Twitter) had the circulation of the New York Times without the overhead.

Say what you will about his politics or his style, but as a marketer the man is a genius. OBTW, this is meant as an observation and is not politically motivated so don't feel you have to turn it into a political rehash.

Elsie - I am curious. Do you disagree with the many reports that show how the U.S. electorate was artfully manipulated in the last election - all through social media? With a combination of bots, human players, existing extreme news outlets and the now-president himself (whether wittingly or unwittingly), fake news, sometimes even absurdly ridiculous narratives, was used to obfuscate the truth and amplify falsehood - leading to a specifically targeted outcome. IMO, whether you liked the outcome or not, it's hard to argue with the flawed and disturbing manner in which we got there.

If there is to be no curation of actual facts, any bit of information can take on the aura of legitimacy in a world where this so called "social media freedom" exists.

As for Trump and Twitter, do a series of 140 character rants actually constitute information? Or is it just noise?

 

[Elsie N]

Elsie - I am curious. Do you disagree with the many reports that show how the U.S. electorate was artfully manipulated in the last election - all through social media? With a combination of bots, human players, existing extreme news outlets and the now-president himself (whether wittingly or unwittingly), fake news, sometimes even absurdly ridiculous narratives, was used to obfuscate the truth and amplify falsehood - leading to a specifically targeted outcome. IMO, whether you liked the outcome or not, it's hard to argue with the flawed and disturbing manner in which we got there.

If there is to be no curation of actual facts, any bit of information can take on the aura of legitimacy in a world where this so called "social media freedom" exists.

As for Trump and Twitter, do a series of 140 character rants actually constitute information? Or is it just noise?

Terry, I actually agree with the absurdity of it all in regard to the previous election cycle. And while I for one disagree with the winner's tactics of fake news, I marvel at the effectiveness of the strategy to counter-act the allegations (whether true or not) against him.

I'm just saying this is the new norm and we as consumers of the news have to hone our abilities to make judgements. The supporters of Trump are going to use his tweets to justify their position and the supporters of Hillary are going to use favorable news reports about her to justify their beliefs.

Truth has no bearing on the matter to anyone except perhaps the Independents who will in all likelihood be the deciding factor in most if not all elections.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

My apologies everybody, I've had a flu for days and it is very late at night and sleepy. So this isn't as well written and thought out as I would have liked. I also answered the last quotes first.

Evolution does not produce a large number of highly intelligent humans because
high intelligence is not required to live and breed.

Highly intelligent humans are an anomaly or evolutionary aberration.

And, we are not living in an age of idiocy, nor have we recently fallen into a state of
complete idiocy, because human civilization have always been idiotic. If you look at the newspapers
today or from long ago you see that nothing has changed in regards to our stupidity. Every generation
thinks or sees their time as the worst.

Martin, by your very definition we are living in a continuing age of idiocy. Third that weren't guided by intelligence faired worse usually. If you look at what newspapers report as idiocy compared to the intelligence around them, maybe parts of the world do fair worse. Having less education around and doing something stupid is relatively better than having more education around and doing exactly the same thing today. Also, what we may regard as OK today, might have been reported as even scandalously stupid ages before, but rarely reported now though much more common. So, there are multiple ways (these two adjust samples) that the true amount of stupidity could be obscured. If you went for a liberal education, they might teach you how certain things were done before and now, but neglect to point out that now they are much more common, but then much more exceptional, but they have biase to approve their beliefs, and wish to push that biase around like steam boat willy.

I'm not so much against certain things in education, but against there misuse.

I actually just started shooting a doc for someone else on this very subjet and the first conversation was with Stephn Fry was was fantastic on the subject of where we are as humans in 2017. No spoilers at the moment soI will just leave these quotes here instead.


- Paris Fashion: A Cultural History, 1771


- Thomas Barnes, 1624

- he Mothers' Journal and Family Visitant in 1853

- Scientific American, 1859

- The Pentecostal Evangel, 1926

- Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

In short, old people have complained about young people and media no longer considering them to key demographic they are chasing for centuries...

Or to put it another way

Stephen Fry Ben. Most funny guy, terrific personality intelligence etc etc. But I disagree with him. My point I forgot with Martin, despite having more intelligence we do more idiotic things with it.


1771 quote. During those centuries a new note effeminate class of gentry did arise, compared to the waring factions past the dark ages, of less effeminate people fighting each other for power . With the constraint of this fighting, and more political freedom, culture and effeminatism (however it's spelled) could flourish. Even Stephen could agree with that.


1624 quote, I don't know, societies go through phases. Presumably that society had just been through alone rough times, leading to breakdown of respect and inverse in idiocy.

1853 quote. Who are they talking about, smacks of cultural snobbery or selfishness of an age that maybe very different from their forefathers?

1859 quote. Well, that's one way to look at it. They probably would think that our present preoccupation with movies, social media, online gaming, means we are even more idiotic. But this person may not realise the reason pollen play chess and such, is because they are predisposed to like it and may, it may not, be less disposed to outside activity. Stick them with my ancestors in the Alps for up to 6 months snowed in playing cards, and see what they think.

1926 Quote. So, how did that turn out. Sure enough, things got worse, and Hollywood even had pull things in a bit in the 80's. Yes, we were lead down a path to wider stupidity. The 1920's were another period if excess brought to an end in depression then war (like the period before World War 1). A period of increased idiocy.

1790 Quote. Again, the more decadent period I mentioned, the novel rich, and I believe an surge in novels. Of course there were consequences. The introductions of such a shift, will result in some people stuffing things up.

The point is, the idiot will go on to believe all these things at face or corrupted value, when there might be other explanations to investigate. Idiocy does surge back and forwards, up and down. So don't trust all these quotes, go on and investigate what was going on behind them, to see what the real situation might have been, makes a great documentary. It is not a matter that all were equally idiotic, or that society is not slipping at the moment. We are idiotic to a degree and if we don't constrain ourselves, we are likely to be more idiotic (and not just because we don't do it unbroken sane way as before, or that old pollen don't understand)..

Are these arbiters of truth elected or appointed... and by who? Who is the god that decides... or what test do they take to say they are capable of doing the job? Maybe an artificial intelligence will be able to perfectly referee between two positions... until it starts thinking for itself and chooses to believe more like one side.

That is, the right has people who are sorting through the truth as they see it and the left has someone sorting through the truth as fits their beliefs. And yes, they are respected journalists who believe they are being fair in their reporting... unless you believe the opposite of what they are saying at which point they become nothing but a mouthpiece spewing the other sides rhetoric. '-)

It is a culture of promoting people who support the proper songs of the business, and jailing others. Proper say this that or the other, bit it really is about having the proper culture, minus the corruption, to allow people to steer themselves. If they had taught proper caring ethics at business and law school, America would likely be a very different place today, which I think you can agree with Elsie. We would have more people thinking they can't do that it's wrong, to counteract "we can do that wrong to get more", "and stuff them" crowd. Greed is good, merely wrecked a lot to build less in society as a whole, I would think.

The further loss of this ability has led to bad polarisation which is leading down the path of conflict. Where as what you normally would do is establish common ground, build on that in just and fair ways that suited both sides when they are not being unfair and unjust. But people have lost sight of the bounds of fact, truth, just or fair, trying to tramp in over them for advantage. That disrespect of even the notion of that respect, is the real issue. They have trampled them, and now trample the people. So, the basis of unbiased reporting (I would say of unbiased facts truth, that is even fair just (people's opinions get in at this stage biasing and should be carefully justified in doing so) and respectful) has been progressively compromised, and the issue.

I don't knew how it was over there, but in many ways Australia has been an idealized in reality, not rhetoric hype, country in the past, a workers Paradise at a time when the worker's parties had been kept out of power for decades even. It was because of reasoned middle of the road politics, where the educated poor had an active interest and kept informed. Where shop keepers etc small business owners and whoever else would get together and discuss and reason on politics. I know a bit of an idealized recollection, that undoubtedly was not the case for everybody, but from our constitution onwards, which was discussed around the country and even in reflection of past constitutions of previous countries, like the US, we reasoned and produced a prosperous state. In the start of the last century we were the highest per capita standard if living in the world, and jumping ship to stay here was an issue. The return of the workers parties in the 1970 to the 1990's saw another upswing this time in social economic aspects. But bad Dec is I knack have plaguaged the idealism, and as the country has become more was more polarised, the idealism has gone and the situation has become worse. Anyway, rather late, and I can't remember where I was going with this. But part of the slip is the corruption of the constitutions amenities by the foreign affairs power through international treaties, allowing unjust actions that override the constitution by it's aceptence of this avenue to do so without agreement of all effected parties. I pretty much prefer a federation approach where areas of state rights and national bodies can be agreed upon between states with the Federal government as an advisory onlooker, without the need for federal non-constitutional control and areas of State rights outside of surrender has to be agreed to by a vast majority of State parliaments (so that not only 50% of a free vote is captured but at least 50% of the opposition aswell, so 66-75% vote, or two parliaments of opposing parties in a row in order not to sell out our freedoms too cheaply) at least, if not by a referendum (majority of voters, or 66%, in each state). These are serious issues.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

I'm not judging Trump or defending him. I'm just saying the results show the genius of becoming the most powerful man in the world using free social media to overcome a very well funded political opponent.

My point is lowest hanging fruit avenue not genius, genius is being able to do it the hard way but still pull it off. Anybody could have tried that, but people don't want to do it generally, they (people in general) see a idiotic resemblance of decency as important, even though they are trying to sell out their people.

 

[Elsie N]

My point is lowest hanging fruit avenue not genius, genius is being able to do it the hard way but still pull it off. Anybody could have tried that, but people don't want to do it generally, they (people in general) see a idiotic resemblance of decency as important, even though they are trying to sell out their people.

As I pointed out... Marketing Genius!

Trump is the P.T. Barnum of our time.

 

[Matt Bai]

I think your comments lack perspective, this is definitely the greatest time to be alive in the history of humanity. Relax

Sad.

 

[Wayne Morellini]

As I pointed out... Marketing Genius!

Trump is the P.T. Barnum of our time.

As I pointed out, easy pickings and no geniuses needed.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

13 most common signs of planetary Age of Idiocy


1) Incompetence in properly utilising natural resources.

a) Creating waste and piling up "garbage".

"Garbage" - matter which one is able to create to use for a fixated goal while incompetent to properly assimilate it back into the system without damaging the system. I.E. making something but clueless what to do with it after. (electronic waste, toxic chemicals, nuclear waste, non-biodegradeable materials)

b) System which diggs under its's own feet to walk a few steps further.



2) Incompetence in thinking ahead (visible in #1)

- Parasite mentality (doing everything for my own ass )

- Leaving next generations on the planet exploited land, screwed up social relations and polluted biosphere


3) Fixation on imaginary value - money

Invented to make life and trading more practical and not having to bring a cow to acquire chicken > deformed into fixation on the mean, mean becoming a goal and cow and chicken a mean > Having zombie stereoid pupmed meat look-alike with taste enhancers > to acquire more of the former mean to get the cow/chicken in the first place.


4) Denial

Appaled by the lunatics 80 years ago and deceived masses of the time while watching WW3 for a few decades now in a state of compliance and complacence.

Basically the whole world currently while western civilization especially acting dumb at the centuries of destruction and colonialization and robbery of half of the planet. And now recent import of cheap working labor masked as "refugee adoption" from now freshly bombed country in the east with a bad bad leader as the previous neighbouring one, which is basically a new forced colonialization done by western interest groups and obvious to anyone with a half of brain and ability of independent thought.


5) Daily mind food

- Overload of useless information

"Entertainment" (small part)
- 100 creative ways to kill a human detective show,
- 100 injuries/disseases/deaths in the hospital show,
- Super cool corrupted-socially challenged-screwed in the head yet entertaining lawyers/ business folks/political leaders/criminals show,
- Dysfunctional yet cute and funny family show
- Super cool government secret squad show
etc

= > 24/7 lobotomy

= > Complete cluelessness about what is causing disorders and complacence to corrupted leaders, lawyers, businessmen and governments.

(it must be the cheese)


6) Technology before reason

- Atomic age > 2000 nuclear bombs dropped on the planet, nuclear waste from nuclear energy stuffed somewhere to screw someone else tomorrow, or just put into missiles and dropped on someone else's lawn during a war

- Toxic chemicals

- Chemical weapons

- Designing viruses

- Child with matches re-occurring principle


7) Incompetence in harmonic social relations

- From global and general to local and particular


8) Consistent abuse of power - technological, political, financial etc.



9) "Healthcare" = pharmachological corporation mass hoax, real medicine unused and destroyed daily .



10) Obsession with "A.I"

...In society with increased illiteracy and socially challenged online generation, 2 min attention span, perceiving reality through easy to read headlines, where critical thought is undesirable and "conspiracy theory", books collect dust if requiring mental effort, responsibility to Nature is "treehugging", bombing other countries is "war against terrorism" and funded groups of lunatics are named after ancient divinities representing Nature's principles - the good.

Also, "Artificial Intelligence" is an oxymoron.

Which can make sense only in "left brain dominant"/overthinking/underknowing Age of Idiocy. Like "artificial cheese". It is like cheese but is actually something else. In this case a set of adaptive algorythms which reminds "left brain dominant" of "intelligence" because it seems to "solve" things by itself.

Before the Age of Idiocy it was well known that "intelligence" is a property of a live Being.


11) Slavery = > evolved into mental domain, chains invisible, slaves living in illusion of freedom

- Debt slavery > lives completely dependent on perpetual debt to someone else > house/education/car/basic shopping/business/whatever

- "Medicine" slavery > masses lobotomised into believing they a) must depend on pharmacy to stay healthy and b) that pharmacy actually makes "medicine".

- Food/resource slavery > incompetence to grow own food, if living in urban beehive completely dependent to whatever garbage is available or paying extra for natural food source > normal food becoming luxury

- Media induced state of hypnosis/reality distorsion field, propaganda, fantasia, reality disconnect > thought processes, attitudes and emotional reactions designed externally

- Technological slavery

- Corporative slavery - employer/toy maker/tool maker/financial idol - is always right and should not be questioned. Ever.


12) Social OS formed on Idolatry / Cult of personality/ Fanatism/ Brain dead role models/ infantile trends / extreme materialism etc.

Basically deviations of psyche.


13) Illusions

- Illusion of supremacy/evolution ("newer = improved", "technologically more developed = more evolved" )

- Illusion of democracy ("average Joe gets to pick his rulers")

- Illusion of success ("financial gain at any cost = sucess > while hospitals full, social relations & families ripped apart)

- Illusion of knowledge ("tons of information loosley flowing in the mind without any coherent and useful outcome = knowledge")
- Illusion of things happening by themselves and fixing by themselves without any human action required

- Illusion of getting away with it (ignorance of causality/karma)


...


In a nutshell:

- ignorance
- irresponsibility
- de-organization
- hypnosis
- deviations
- self-destructive behavor
- chaos
- inertia