If I might paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, who was certainly a clever man, but one who seemingly enjoyed being recondite (I get this, by the way, but there’s a time and place) the medium itself is part of the message. There is the content on Facebook, the specific posts, like the video of the latest shooting in Atlanta [that exact scenario happened to me, by the way. I got in my car, realized I was too drunk and–mostly–tired to drive, so I just parked on the side of the road, and woke up to see two cops circling me. After questioning I flunked, like this guy, I was arrested, spent the night downtown, and was released about 10am. I got a lawyer–who was not all that expensive, something like $500–and the whole thing disappeared after some easy community service], and there is the forum, the place, where people are in the habit of easy anger, where they hover and look for it.
I’m guilty of this, certainly. It’s an easy addiction to slide into. The alternative is being productive in the real world, which is my current focus.
But I think everyone needs to get that there is a LOT of money flowing through these companies, and they can afford top rate psychologists to teach them all the ways to make all of this more conducive to obsession and addiction.
Capitalism–which by the way many of these greedy bastards use while opposing it in principle and in terms of who they donate money to–does not say you have to be greedy to the point of rapacity. Ideally, it is tempered by moral notions of moderation, as taught in any of the major religions. It simply says that you should have the right to be paid for your work, and that how you negotiate that amount is between you and your employer or your customers.
It is an odd thing, though, that the most greedy rich people we see–like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg–are all in favor of a world where socialists control everything. No doubt they know that their own power and wealth INCREASE in such a world. They will not be controlled. They will not be regulated. That is for the fools who don’t get on the gravy train early enough.
Virtually everything you see the 20 somethings chanting in the streets is the opposite of the actual truth.