Is Social Media Too Politically Influential?

Social media is an oxymoron and, a few years ago a guy walked straight off a cliff playing with his cellphone. Some 40% of social media users casually spread fake news and misinformation, while a strong majority of Americans ignore anything they believe contradicts conventional wisdom, despite nobody ever proving the existence of common sense anywhere in the world. My own work includes the same bots that commonly inhabit social media, and have become so realistic they have begun to fool people for up to a year at a time. It also address the immune system and how social media obeys networking systems logics, that can be manipulated for fun and profit.

For over a decade I conducted my own informal survey, only to conclude that almost nobody knew the dictionary merely contains popular definitions, so I thought maybe I can sell them new words, and new bullshit to spout. Social media can't be too politically influential, America is anything but social these days.

 

A guy walked into a lamppost outside one of our theatres catting on his cellphone. We all laughed until the ambulance arrived and the paramedics pronounced him dead.
We can survive wars, but a simple lamppost can kill us.

 

Although I am sure that Zen will not fully agree with me, I still think the the media hounding Trump derailed him from his election manifesto.
The problem was that he exposed the truth about how Chinese imports have destroyed the countries industry and then its economy, and overlooked how many gravy trains he was going derail. These included some of the worlds richest people and corporations, so he had to go.

Think about this one.
Every LED light bulb in the western world (and possibly the entire world) is made in China, leaving them in a position to quite literally leave us in the dark.
When you look at other examples, the situation is not much better. About 80% of leather boots and almost 100% of sneakers come from the far east, so a lot of people would soon be walking around in the dark barefoot and a few HF members would think that it was Christmas 365 days of the year.
Even Levi's now manufacture in China, so our pants would also be falling apart. The list is endless, but we have all stuck our heads in the sand.

Sorry Zen,

 

It required decades of research, but I discovered it was lies that killed that man. Western culture is based on common sense, but nobody has ever documented its existence anywhere in the world. They are all raised to lie, encouraged to lie, to anyone they can get away it. Donald Duck is a billionaire, and has gotten away with lying nonstop to everyone for his entire life, but the price for all the lies is that we die sooner and reproduce less often, and our IQ drops noticeably. Sadly, many of the lies are just total bullshit people spout for instant gratification and nobody needs them for anything.

 

As I am sure that you must have realised, my comment about upsetting you was purely light hearted.

Whether or whether not my theory that Trump was rocking the gravy train is true, the fact remains that he took the bait and as president he failed. Any world leader needs to stay focused on what he is setting out to achieve, coupled with what he promised in his manifesto.
My one comment regarding production of imported goods now moving to south America is that it is a wise move in the short term. Rebuilding industry in the US will take 2 decades. I also see a problem in whether people wanting to relive the American dream will be prepared to take off their rose tinted spectacles and do a days work in the factories.

You know that while I supported the UKs entry into the EEC, I regarded the EU as a lumbering dinosaur, producing nothing more than a uniform standard of mediocrity.
While I am engrossed listening to opera, Jane is listening to country music and our son is banging his drums playing in a heavy metal band, fortunately not at our house. My point is that while you cannot buy a CD that would please us all, neither can you standardize many other aspects of peoples lives across an entire continent.

A few days ago, we were discussing the situation in the US and I came up with the bright idea of splitting the states into separate countries, each with it's own president to represent the state to the outside world. Needless to say, their would need to be some uniformity, particularly in democracy and a unilateral peace deal. One of my ideas was to elect an overall leader, purely with responsibility for defence, military coordination and the FBI. I suggested that each state leader had a vote in this appointment, with no public involvement. A sort of American NATO.

When you consider that many US states are larger than the entire UK, is my idea so crazy.???? It would certainly open up trade deals with us.

PS, What is your opinion on the documentary work of John Pilger, particularly his film "The truth about American democracy".?

 

As to LED bulbs thats the one reason we dont have ANY in our house, and to the sneakers I have and continue to buy sneaks MADE right here in the US there a few companies that still make them not cheap $20 ones but.......as to the rest we decided about a decade ago to pay attention to were the things we were buying were made and made a conscious effort to AVOID chinese made goods , there are 2 areas where that is now impossible cell phones and computer components

 

Their is a ray of hope for us yet.
Here in the UK, it will be illegal to sell a non LED lamp bulb in a few years. This is because they produce the same amount of lumens as a traditional 100 watt bulb from 8 watts. Our government are pushing ahead with electric cars and we need the electricity to run them without building 10 additional power stations and spending billions on the national grid upgrades.
We are looking at a new nuclear plant and the Chinese have agreed to build it for us FREE OF CHARGE. However, they will be running the reactors from China, the building will have near embassy status, they wont tell us how it works and they will be SELLING us the electricity. I wonder if our government have a single working brain cell among them.

 

That is INSANE....

again as to the bulbs we went to cfl NOT made in china it was NOT EASY at all gotta read every single label of every single wattage for example sometimes a 60 watt cfl was china and a 40 was Mexico or US

 

I hate CFL, The SED curve results in poor colour rendition, particularly in warm white. They also have half the lumens per watt of LED. To make matters worse, they strobe and even produce striations.

As a matter of interest. LEDs have a life expectancy of 30,000 hours running on smooth DC.
This caused the Chinese, along with the companies who supply their bulbs great concerns for the aftermarket.
As a result, the lamps that plug in directly to the AC supply now have a capacitor that is DELIBERATELY rated by load to fail at 5,000 hours.
Here in the UK, they fail even sooner, due to the ripple current from our 50hz supply.
Do these people just assume that we are a bunch of lemmings.
When I brought this up at an IET (Institute of engineering and technology) meeting, one reply was, "We will discuss this next time, after they fish you out of the river".

 

While the above may be indeed, fact is cfl's are more efficient and produce MUCH (as in practically none) less heat than incandescent which when you live in the semi tropics (as I do) is very important

 

I think the heart of the issue goes far beyond the role of China and Trump and insurrection. Social media provides information faster and more voluminous than human beings can process it, verify it and make decisions accordingly. Misinformation, paranoid ramblings and plan old lies used to be constrained by print, radio and tv, but no longer. I had some misgiving when a relative posted in panic than a man born in Kenya was about to be inaugurated, never mind evidence to the contrary. With Trump and the “right” it’s as if it the schoolyard bully who shouted everyone down suddenly pulled into the schoolyard with 100 megawatt loudspeakers.
We need to find some methods of managing the medium and still protect free speech while protecting the frameworks of humanity. This week we saw what happens in the absence of protection from mass social media insanity pushed by those who care little about anyone or anything else. Time is of the essence.

 

Is that in fact the case though? back in the '20,s ''30,s etc when important events happened the newspaper would have an extra edition pretty damn quick within hours so.......now newspapers are struggling to stay relevant .... just like it used to be said ignorance was caused by the lack of available information