My Head Hurts
I'm close. Really, really close. Social media has reached the point where it feels like it's sticking rusty forks in my brain. I mean, I can deal with some of it; Instagram is pretty safe, although I'll allow that I'm probably biased, as that's where I post my poetry (despite having had my first ever post deletion today). Tumblr, I'm not on a lot, and maybe I need to change that, although I dunno.
But somewhere in the no-man's-land that loves between Facebook and Twitter, I can feel my soul dying one post at a time. I feel like I'm in the crossfire of bullshit and misinformation, and my brain cells just can't take it anymore.
And yeah, I know, it's an election year, and this one is a super divisive one, on top of all the other shit that 2020 has thrown at us. Insane shit is going on, and all I can think about is Gandalf's advice to Frodo about how people who live to see dark times wish they didn't have to. But still.
I swear, I wish I had a time machine. I do, just a one-time use time machine. I know what I would do with it, too. I'd use it to go back when the internet was just getting started. I'd take back all I knew about fact checking and parsing sources and what not, and sell it to the early pioneers by assuring them that this'll make them billionaires in the next decade or so, and, fingers crossed, it would cut the bullshit and nonsense by at least half, hopefully more.
And maybe, just maybe, establish some kind of control that automatically removed anything that butchers the native language because, fuck, I can't stand that shit. But I'll allow that that's the grammar Nazi in me coming out, so I'll let that one pass.
But in all seriousness, if there had been a system in place for years that automatically fact checked statements and either deleted them automatically or provided the correct, researched response, we wouldn't be dealing with the slew of false information that inundates us by the minute.
None of the "you're censoring me, First Amendment, First Amendment" nonsense; we might actually have learned the fact that the First Amendment only guarantees that the government can't tell you what you can or can't say; it doesn't guarantee that you're free from repercussions from what you say; it doesn't mean that being called out for spreading bullshit is not censorship, it's correcting a false narrative. In other words, it short circuits your ability to lie effectively. Even if what you're saying isn't an intentional lie, because you're just repeating what you've heard, but it's still a falsehood, and correcting a falsehood with fact is not in any way limiting your freedom of speech. If anything, it's offering you an opportunity to learn from your mistake.
It would also cut out the ability to spread false information as truth in the first place. No more QAnon, it wouldn't even have been a thing. No more spinning an idea or an ideology as being a terrorist organization. And granted, it's Facebook and Twitter, which of course means they would still be shooting bullshit from the trenches, but they would be shooting blanks.
And, let's face it, if fact technology had been implemented from the get-go when the interwebz were up and coming, we wouldn't have Donald fucking Trump in the White House, and as beautiful a thing as that would be, it didn't need to be said, it just felt good to say it.
I think, honestly, that's what kills my heart and soul the most. The fact that bullshit flies at so many miles per ssecond. And trying to fact check one item takes so long that by the time you've found the correct information, you have ten other things you have to dig back into the archives to disprove. It's a perpetual game of catch-up, and there's no way to break even, let alone win. Hell, by the time you've managed to disprove some tidbit of horseshit, no one even remembers what you're talking about anyway.
I could go on with this, I really could. But I don't have a time machine, and I can't supply any ability to make the truth cool. And the truth is out there, no doubt; it's just a sad commentary on the fact that most people don't think it's worth looking for so they don't sound like fucking idiots 24/7.
I'm tired. And the bullet holes in my soul aren't healing, because the bullets are still flying. And it doesn't look like there's going to be a cease-fire any time soon.
I'm starting think alcoholism might be an acceptable answer after all.
But somewhere in the no-man's-land that loves between Facebook and Twitter, I can feel my soul dying one post at a time. I feel like I'm in the crossfire of bullshit and misinformation, and my brain cells just can't take it anymore.
And yeah, I know, it's an election year, and this one is a super divisive one, on top of all the other shit that 2020 has thrown at us. Insane shit is going on, and all I can think about is Gandalf's advice to Frodo about how people who live to see dark times wish they didn't have to. But still.
I swear, I wish I had a time machine. I do, just a one-time use time machine. I know what I would do with it, too. I'd use it to go back when the internet was just getting started. I'd take back all I knew about fact checking and parsing sources and what not, and sell it to the early pioneers by assuring them that this'll make them billionaires in the next decade or so, and, fingers crossed, it would cut the bullshit and nonsense by at least half, hopefully more.
And maybe, just maybe, establish some kind of control that automatically removed anything that butchers the native language because, fuck, I can't stand that shit. But I'll allow that that's the grammar Nazi in me coming out, so I'll let that one pass.
But in all seriousness, if there had been a system in place for years that automatically fact checked statements and either deleted them automatically or provided the correct, researched response, we wouldn't be dealing with the slew of false information that inundates us by the minute.
None of the "you're censoring me, First Amendment, First Amendment" nonsense; we might actually have learned the fact that the First Amendment only guarantees that the government can't tell you what you can or can't say; it doesn't guarantee that you're free from repercussions from what you say; it doesn't mean that being called out for spreading bullshit is not censorship, it's correcting a false narrative. In other words, it short circuits your ability to lie effectively. Even if what you're saying isn't an intentional lie, because you're just repeating what you've heard, but it's still a falsehood, and correcting a falsehood with fact is not in any way limiting your freedom of speech. If anything, it's offering you an opportunity to learn from your mistake.
It would also cut out the ability to spread false information as truth in the first place. No more QAnon, it wouldn't even have been a thing. No more spinning an idea or an ideology as being a terrorist organization. And granted, it's Facebook and Twitter, which of course means they would still be shooting bullshit from the trenches, but they would be shooting blanks.
And, let's face it, if fact technology had been implemented from the get-go when the interwebz were up and coming, we wouldn't have Donald fucking Trump in the White House, and as beautiful a thing as that would be, it didn't need to be said, it just felt good to say it.
I think, honestly, that's what kills my heart and soul the most. The fact that bullshit flies at so many miles per ssecond. And trying to fact check one item takes so long that by the time you've found the correct information, you have ten other things you have to dig back into the archives to disprove. It's a perpetual game of catch-up, and there's no way to break even, let alone win. Hell, by the time you've managed to disprove some tidbit of horseshit, no one even remembers what you're talking about anyway.
I could go on with this, I really could. But I don't have a time machine, and I can't supply any ability to make the truth cool. And the truth is out there, no doubt; it's just a sad commentary on the fact that most people don't think it's worth looking for so they don't sound like fucking idiots 24/7.
I'm tired. And the bullet holes in my soul aren't healing, because the bullets are still flying. And it doesn't look like there's going to be a cease-fire any time soon.
I'm starting think alcoholism might be an acceptable answer after all.