A conundrum we all know. Imagining the last post before we get started with real life. Is the Internet hopeless? Do these guys take the point too far, or do they merely look silly saying it on the Internet even though it's true?
(note: click on timed link under panel to skip preliminaries)
https://youtu.be/2QLeyXV8W9o?t=85
"I've been trying to
formulate just a way of talking or
thinking about politics that that that
breaks the spell I guess that has
pervaded over people whereby because
there's no such thing as a social you
know but being in this country people
have completely adhered to the sort of
the wire mother of online to form their
political identities and to provide the
totality of their political worldview
and I know I'm part of that I'm
literally embedded in it because I
that's where people find my my stuff but
I've been try to just express and
synthesize a way to to tell people to
stop being on the internet while
watching me on the internet which is
inherently a conflict but one that I
feel like it's really my only hope
because I've lost any kind of faith that
that if any good can come from politics
as it's currently practiced by people
who for the most for for most people who
have even the best of intentions"
"yeah
it's it's funny looking back on uh like
if you read like a great classic
critique of television by a Neil postman
right I think I call them amusing
ourselves to death yes yeah it's amazing
and yeah the first wave of theories of
the internet we're like this is the
opposite it's an active not passive
medium so that's gonna mean that it's
gonna be this technology that people are
gonna participate in they're gonna build
new communities in and and it's like
well number one that actually has
happened not in mostly the positive ways
that these people idealized it and
secondly it's actually hurt it's it's
like be even more consuming amusing
ourselves to death medium because it can
amuse you in the exact microsecond way
you want it any second of the day yeah
in wheat atomization yeah was that
inevitable because of the kind of
origins of the internet or has this been
the path when we just turned it all over
to the big four companies like what do
you think"
"I I think I think
the the trajectory of all of these mass
media from television to the Internet
really shows that the determining factor
of the productive you know mechanism if
you have a capitalist society the
introduction of a new piece of
technology will to stabilize to an
extent but over time will largely reify
and
and celebrate every every tendency
within that mode of production and
that's what that's what happened with
television and that's what's happening
with with the internet and it's easy in
the moment to lose that especially with
the internet because of how deeply
immersive it is and how unlike
television it gives the illusion of
agency and I think that's the most
insidious and element of it the illusion"
"talk more about the illusion of agency
because you choose where you're going on
the internet and you can choose to
express yourself on the Internet
and then people can interact with you it
can make that act feel more
consequential than it is it can make the
idea of a post thinking because because
if you have political beliefs and you
find yourself stymied in any way to act
them out your day to day life which is
true of most people then you will try to
see try to find a place where you can
and because the Internet is a relatively
frictionless plane for personal
expression you find do it there and so
what ends up happening is is that you
put all of your all of the psychic
energy associated with your politics all
of that that willed to power that drives
the political belief you can dump you
can get all of that validated virtually
and over time you become so invested at
that level that that becomes the only
politics that matter to you because
they're the only ones that are real and
it's where you're getting your meaning
and where it's easiest to get your
meaning and it leads you to like I said
that that paralysis of analysis because
since there's no action behind it since
you're not doing anything you're not
seeing your theories tested in any
meaningful way they're not being
challenged and changed by contact with
reality"
"you will never get anywhere you you will
you will find yourself on a hamster
wheel but you will never even notice it
because you will still have conflict you
will still have enemies you will still
have fights that will feeble to you in
every respect like actual politics being
exerted but you have not done anything
you have not changed anything and more
importantly most importantly you have
not built anything with anyone else
which is literally what politics is
great and then yeah but and then it
leads to gossip witch hunts trivia
nonsense bullshit some you know the
elevation of it basically just all sorts..."
No, I do not fully agree - but I know the feeling!
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