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  • ML light posted an update 5 years, 1 month ago

    Have we learned nothing from the psychological effects of not only the “like” button but the “dislike” button? All I can ask is… Why? Please feel free to “like” or “dislike” this comment as I’m currently in my psychological happy place.

    • How does it make you feel?

      • I do like the ‘upvote’ button – I use it to acknowledge responses that need no further comment from me and to show appreciation for posts I’ve found beneficial. I do not use the ‘dislike’ button. If I disagree or have an alternative opinion about something that was said, I will write a reply when so inclined. This offers the opportunity for rebuttal or further discourse whereas the ‘dislike’ button does not (it only provides negative dead-end feedback of which I have no use).

          • Ah everyone loves “comments from the peanut gallery” yes? 😎

            • I agree PiPoe.

              • I use it like PiPoe, did not notice the downvote button until now because ML light pointed it out.

                • I’m basically with PiPoe too. I wouldn’t use the downvote button to say “I disagree,” but maybe, very rarely, as a way to mark a comment as probable trolling or blatantly inappropriate. (I always assumed the downvote button got added because the software doesn’t come with an option to remove it and/or as a way to flag potential trolls.) Anyway, I wouldn’t object to removing the downvote button. I’d say the upvote button is useful but not indispensable.

                • Before this I had never known a like and/or dislike button; as I’d never subscribe to Facebook, nor Twitter, or any other social networks.
                  I didn’t cotton to the idea of being held accountable to locations. Because I could just hear the question, Where are you?
                  I didn’t even have a cell phone[still don’t].

                  A friend of mine’s girlfriend broke up w/him when these phone were coming out and everybody was getting them. That’s when he found out about the cell phone contracts. He was locked in for a year. He gave it to me, saying watch your minutes. I passed it to my wife.
                  I immediately realized she was becoming addicted.
                  When time was up[contract]; he picked up the phone and I thanked him.
                  Fortunately, that was the end of that!
                  But I also realized that these social sites tied in w/the cell phone were actually social mirrors.
                  And everyone was acting like those “dumb blonde jokes”/Why did the blonde chick drown in the pool?
                  Someone left a mirror at the bottom of the pool.
                  Like the dumb blonde,; everyone is addicted to their social mirrors.
                  I also conjectured that this new toy was engineered for this purpose and I was merely scratching the surface of a very sinister deep dark pool of alchemal live experiments and social engineering.
                  I had thought, the generation that grows into this is going to need our prayers, BIG TIME!

                  Back to the social mirror buttons. I have to admit the pull of the “group think” is very strong, and hard to resist. I’ve been guilty of it here at this site; even before the buttons came. In fact, I’d kick myself in the ___ many times, over for siding immediately with the herd. But, through time I’ve gotten better.
                  Then along comes another spider, the button.
                  So, like Bugs Bunny[not my favorite looney tune], If you can’t beat them, join them.
                  Nope.
                  Forget joing them!
                  Just realize the enemy; and take appropriate action.
                  Try using it as a tool for social good.
                  Realize these tools can have the opposite effect/affect and come to be using you as “their” tool.

                    • Well, like it or not, whether we use cell phones, a computer, GPS units, or anything of that sort we are all in the computer databases in Bluffdale.

                        • “We have it all”.

                          • Not only is that model intrinsically political, it embodies a particular kind of politics. Its aim is the centralized collection and storage of all the world’s data and its distribution through algorithms that steer users along particular paths. It resembles the centralized Soviet system of production and distribution, only digitalized and privatized w/Chinese characteristics that mainfests as state supported monopoly capitalism, and actually-existing socialism for everyone else. Call it Big Data Socialism, a structurally-determined ideology intrinsic to the technology, and produced by it.

                            • I went to the Bluffdale UT data center during construction. A friend who lives in Salt Lake City took a day off work to hang out during a visit. I was asked what I wanted to do and suggested a drive out to see the center I had recently read so much about. She knew nothing about it.
                              Ironically it’s located by one of Utah’s major prisons. When we went to what looked like a visitor’s center we were immediately approached by security and told to leave.
                              So we did of course. The following week she had to fly out of town on business for work. When she tried to check in at curbside like always, she was denied and told to go into the terminal and check in. She was put through the fifth degree before they would allow her a boarding pass. The license plate on her car was evidently noted by security and turned in for a background check. We still amuse ourselves with that experience.

                              • Like CA Fitts I believe everyone has a file. If you don’t participate in social media, I’m sure the appropriate box is ckd off. And, if you don’t have an opinion on something, one will be created for you if/when necessary.

                              • Hey Robert Barricklow hope you are well,

                                You left a similar comment like the one here today not too long ago when i posted a twitter link to Dr. Michael Burry’s post, if i remember correctly. That day your description was shorter when you spoke of not owning a mobile phone or having a social media account on any network. Today’s its more personally detailed and thank you because from it I am starting to understand something which I did not before. You mentioned ‘alchemical’ and experiments, it wasn’t up until this week when while listening to several older interviews of Dr. Farrell on the Byte Show that i began to understand the term. I have heard the term spoken sporadically throughout my life beginning when i was very young in the low single digits mouthed from my fathers lips to his brother in conversation.
                                I am a newbie here and as with most things I am a slow learner, it takes time for me to chew a thing, then swallow it and finally digest it.
                                ‘They’ if I can call them that, work on a number of levels simultaneously, i have heard Catherine Austin Fits mention the term “stacking functions”. After listening to Dr. Farrell mention the ‘topological metaphor’, which i am still chewing on and analogical thinking as well as his reference to the old alchemists and mention of the dark arts and black magic, I am starting to feel that this mention of the use ‘alchemical’ when it comes social media is much like gathering energy from believers or followers. If the god they worshiped was in the disguise of bulletin board which on the one hand promised them the opportunity for each of them to be in his/her image and have followers, believers of their own. Giving each subscriber the opportunity to be falsely powerful through a collection of social mirror reflection reactions.
                                I came on the social medial thing early early on. I’ve allowed them to use me for close to two decades now.
                                The last couple of years I’ve been not just kicking myself in the ___ but i been banging my head against the wall for being such a gullible peckerhead. I’ve willingly walked into the slaughterhouse tagged myself, made a nice space and brought others into it along the years.
                                I’ve been off FB and Instagram for a while now, i go in just to check on messages. Even though I haven’t been active in quite some time, i have no illusions, the damage is done. It’s been some time that I’ve felt the walls closing in and i don’t just mean in there, it’s everywhere, and it’s almost like they’ve closed the lid on a pressure cooker and locked the snaps shut.
                                In retrospect I don’t ever think it was ever meant as a tool, not places like that anyhow.
                                The worse part isn’t knowing all this or that i can’t unlearn what I’ve discovered or even that i can’t undo all my deeds that enabled all this to happen. The worse is that I am culpable for building a prison the likes of which I can barely imagine so that my son and other children can be slaves or worse.
                                The few moments I forget is when he laughs uncontrollably as all children do and i join in with his carefree spirit. But those little bits of freedom make it all the worse when i realize that his and other smiles like his the world over will be extinguished with the inevitability of the tidal wave that is swelling up so it can roll on in.

                                  • We’re all learning.
                                    Learning never stops.
                                    They’re moving more and more technology in place that is engineered for a few; at the expense of the many. The technological infrastructure is still the same as the old beast. But more wicked in its breath, depth and scope.
                                    I’ll take any laughs I can get.
                                    We’re surrounded by the joy of the living; and, God willing, that will grow.

                                      • Hear hear!

                                        • Hey Robert,
                                          Hope you have been well and sorry for the late reply. I wanted to thank you even if that thank you is belated for what you wrote. I especially liked “I’ll take any laughs I can get.” it rings true and its something i keep telling myself lately. You are right, we are surrounded by the joy of the living, and yes Robert I pray daily that God will help those willing to protect each-other and through their love, all will grow.
                                          I feel like shouldn’t stay away from Giza for so long, but when i feel like garbage i stay away, not to burden or weigh down those with the weight of my own circumstances. I am learning and that learning as you said that learning never stops, although the more i learn the more i am terrified at the speed, ferocity and intensity of which this all unfolding to shackle everyone. Thank you once again and hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend.

                                            • Sunny & Max
                                              Yes, thanks for reminding me of what it is that gives me strength in times where I’m tested.
                                              And we are all tested in these times. I doubt many have survived to date; w/o “the evil:, represented by the covid1984 op, hitting very close to home.
                                              I know its hit me several score.
                                              I’ve always wondered how those in the past let it happen.
                                              Now, I can see its almost like a force of nature; but on sinister scale that belies reason. Let’s face it; we’re in a 10,000 year spiritual war.
                                              Joy & Love are their enemy; while we embrace it.

                                              I just finished another novel by one of my favorite authors, Andrea Camilleri, who started writing at 69 years old.
                                              He saw what was happening to the culture and Inspector Salvo Montalbano sprung to life on the pages of some 28 novels. He was a living oxymoron, a honest detective in Sicily. I got one more novel to read, his last[actually, It’s his beloved Inspector, whom he wrote the last novel years ago. He wanted his publishers, to publish it after his death. He didn’t trust posterity to get it right.
                                              In the last book, the theme was: “But life has more imagination than we do.” – Inspector Salvo Montalbano

                                              Good to see you both here; and sharing your experiences and thoughts and prayers.
                                              As Blaise Pascal once wrote, We human beings situate ourselves in the world, trapped in bodies given to us by nature, caught between the two abysses of the infinite and nothing”. Of course he also wrote, “One hour of pain is a better teacher than all the philosophers put together”.
                                              But, its Albert Schweitzer that nails it, “I am life that wills to live in the midst of other life that will to live”.
                                              Looking forward to more of your visits to Giza; as everyone here, enjoys each other’s company.

                                            • Hey Robert,
                                              Firstly Thank you, good morning and wish you a good start for the week. I haven’t read a good detective novel since “The Millennium Series” by the late Steig Larsson, i have a penchant for Nordic Noir. I bought the audiobook series last year narrated by Simon Vance which was a real unique treat as his absolutely fantastic as a narrator. I think i might need some fiction to balance out the rest of the real life madness that i read about daily. I looked up Andrea Camilleri and his first novel, “The Shape of Water” listened to a sample of the audiobook narrated by Grove Gardner and it really caught my attention, thank you. I grew up with Sicilians in Brooklyn seems like almost a lifetime ago, but i never got the opportunity to visit Sicily myself just listen to the Sicilians rant and rave about their home country. I would highly recommend “The Monster of Florence” by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi, the audiobook version is excellent as well narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris. It is a real life murder mystery about the author Douglas Preston upon learning that the olive grove in front of the 14th century farmhouse of Florence where he had moved to with his family, was the scene of the most gruesome double murder in Italy’s history which was thought to have been committed by Italy’s serial killer only known as “The Monster of Florence”.
                                              Thank you for the welcome wishes, your help and all your encouragement. I really enjoyed the quotes by Blaise Pascal and laughed on the latter one “One hour of pain (being) a better teacher than all the philosophers put together”. I only wish there would be more people like Albert Schweitzer out there that wills to live but free without any constraints among other life which will to live wild and free. Looking forward top more of Giza and everyone here. Have a wonderful week and thank you once again.

                                            • Hey, my Friend, No worries about the past. Move Forward. Never surrender! Keep Learning. Never too late to adjust your Actions, when needed. All the Best!!!

                                                • Hey Nidster,
                                                  I hope you are well and sorry for the lateness in my response. Thank you for your uplifting comment and your simple reminder. It’s never too late to make a difference in first yourself and then in others. Learning with patience and persistence. All my best to you my friend as well.

                                                    • My workdays are extending into working nights too! Been so busy I have almost no time to check-in, or post, but got an email you had followed-up on a old post of mine, and still stay in touch with my Friends! Thanks!