Star Wars The Last Jedi

Star Wars The Last Jedi.
I loved the movie.

I liked how gender and appearance didn't define or confine what the characters could accomplish.

I liked how leadership, and the potential to make a difference in the universe, was coming from many different angles. 

It was a refreshing look at the battle of good and evil that admits that masculinity is not the strong hero that saves the day that we have been fed in so much fiction.

Once again the idea that you can outsmart evil even when they have resources beyond your capacity.

Finally, I was left with the thoughts that dwelling on our past doubt and mistakes can cloud our vision of what we have to offer. Sometimes wisdom comes not in teaching others from what went well but in sharing our pain from losing control of that which we purported to be leading.

fact or fiction

We have for a long time had The National Enquirers and "Professional" Wrestlers and those that believed that their fiction was real.

Currently though this game to attract readers/viewers and therefore advertising revenue is beginning to emerge as a absolute chaos of capitalism.

Everywhere you turn there are links to content that looks "real" but its fake. Whether purely for entertainment purposes or to cement their beliefs further people are clicking into this content.

What makes matters worse is not only that fiction, pretending to be fact, is ever increase but also that what we once considered journalism is being tainted ever increasingly to compete.

Just like in the TV business ratings make or break careers, profit and earnings. The move views/visitors the better the business, regardless of the lack of truth behind the information. 

Indeed we the people are tracked such that the advertising of the fiction is customized to suit what we will most likely click on.

Government's have stepped aside as the big internet companies leverage that traffic of visitors and viewers  for advertising revenue, shaping the flow for maximum audience retention and profit.

When we watched TV or read a newspaper in the past we were an anonymous consumer of advertising but today everything we do is tracked online and the ever increasing fiction content of the internet is dominating what we consume.

How long before we accept that only what we can feel, touch and taste is truth? How long before those are gone too?

Predicting the demise of Facebook

Over 5 years ago I predicted that Facebook would be gone in 5 years.

It turns out that I was wrong.

At the time I had looked at Facebook and saw that the features and content were so juvenile that it couldn't possibly survive in the long run.  Just looking at the name and the original intent was the foundation of my prediction and seeing the interactions 5+ years ago confirmed it for me that the collective "we" would grow out of Facebook.

I assumed people would stop the bickering about celebrities and consumer brands. I assumed people would learn to distinguish between truth and fiction based on gaining knowledge on the internet through credible sources.  I assumed that a web site based on Facebook's model could not sustain itself.


I did not predict that people would so enjoy sharing the most mundane parts of their lives with each other in real time. 

I did not foresee that a person's value would be assessed by their "likes" and "shares".

I did not predict that trolls would rise to have so much power to manipulate and provoke.

I did not predict that the online advertising regime would grow so massively reckless that the content of the tabloids in the checkout aisle would grow to dominate the content of today and be the source of so much misinformation.

I predicted the demise of Facebook because I had hope that the internet would enable people to better themselves. and I saw no role for a web site like Facebook in that future. I hoped that people would use the internet to learn about culture, science, technology, philosophy, society and peace.

That social media has bloomed around many of the dark parts of society is truly a saddening reality.

we don't like sharing but we do like borrowing?

or maybe you don't like borrowing either?

labels

I think perhaps the greatest lesson I will learn in my life is the expansive disruptive power of the label.

I have never liked labels, not since I was a small child.  I was labeled with many negative labels as a child and I am hopeful that some of those types of labels are reducing as the system is slowly coping with issues around bullying. As I grew I came discover how labels worked in community, making it simpler for people to identify whether you were with them, or not. The problem was I often ended up out of the community either because I did not have their label or I just had not made a definitive decision to accept everything with that label. It has been an interesting path to say the least as I reflect back on it.

One troubling fault in it all though is just how deeply rooted our society is with its labels and the dependencies. From an early age we create contrast between labels that leads to further contrast as we age and are exposed to more scenarios.

time

On a recent trip to Florida I experienced a lot of wasted time with travel and running errands. Twice I lost time due to poor traffic planning and or long line ups.  I watched around as everyone just seemed to accept that they will not get to use their own time wisely.