WTF

The Pleasures of Life without Social Media

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

The fact of the matter is that we do not need the Internet, we do not need social media, and we certainly do not need “smart phones”. What are you, a brain surgeon, that you always have to be available in case of an emergency call? Listen to what people say when they use these “essential” gadgets, as I listen to the hordes on campus—the most typical utterances are: “Hey, what’s up? Yeah I’m on the escalator. Ok, see ya later”. Impressive. Clearly, it’s money well spent. It is almost as if individuals have become afraid of a moment of silence, possibly because they intuitively fear discovering that inside, they are empty…

If you are a professor, you learn that the years (or decades) spent acquiring knowledge in a subject area, plus all the resources devoted to the task, not to mention the training that went into preparing you, are worthless: everybody else always knows better, with their deep knowledge gained on the fly. Anti-intellectualism does not just come from outside the university’s walls. You get lectured at by snarky graduate students with deep insecurities who fashion themselves as activists, called “stupid” by barely literate undergraduate students who misspell their protest signs, and are immediately denounced as “racist” for the mere act of disagreeing with one of these imbeciles.

HT to WordPress and the Fabius Maximus websites.

This is the best essay I’ve read in a long time.  Please take the time to read the entire essay and share with family and friends who actually possess critical thinking skills.

And I thought that Twitter as a porno platform was bad…

 

 

Condo association threatens eviction of tenant with support squirrel

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The matter has turned into a series of legal differences involving time frames based on when Brutis was discovered by the association and when Boylan notified the board of his support animal. If Boylan’s accusation of discrimination doesn’t work out, acceptable places where he could live with his pet squirrel are: a tree; a jar of almonds; college campuses; and of course, those restaurants that contain large barrels of shelled peanuts for customers waiting to be seated.

Source article here.

Local coverage video clip below.  Everyone take a side.  Go!

(slow news day?)

The Great College Loan Swindle

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America as a country has evolved in recent decades into a confederacy of widescale industrial scams. The biggest slices of our economic pie – sectors like health care, military production, banking, even commercial and residential real estate – have become crude income-redistribution schemes, often untethered from the market by subsidies or bailouts, with the richest companies benefiting from gamed or denuded regulatory systems that make profits almost as assured as taxes. Guaranteed-profit scams – that’s the last thing America makes with any level of consistent competence.

Going to college doesn’t guarantee a good job, far from it, but the data show that not going dooms most young people to an increasingly shallow pool of the very crappiest, lowest-paying jobs. There’s a lot of stick, but not much carrot, in the education game.

An interesting point of view and well worth reading.  Click here for the full Rolling Stone article.

 

The Fragile Generation – Reason.com

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Must read.  HT naked capitalism.

Source: The Fragile Generation – Reason.com

We’ve had the best of intentions, of course. But efforts to protect our children may be backfiring. When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened. Yet modern child-rearing practices and laws seem all but designed to cultivate this lack of preparedness. There’s the fear that everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them. And there’s a newer belief that has been spreading through higher education that words and ideas themselves can be traumatizing.

How did we come to think a generation of kids can’t handle the basic challenges of growing up?

A few years ago, Boston College psychology professor emeritus Peter Gray was invited by the head of counseling services at a major university to a conference on “the decline in resilience among students.” The organizer said that emergency counseling calls had doubled in the last five years. What’s more, callers were seeking help coping with everyday problems, such as arguments with a roommate. Two students had dialed in because they’d found a mouse in their apartment. They also called the police, who came and set a mousetrap. And that’s not to mention the sensitivity around grades. To some students, a B is the end of the world. (To some parents, too.)

To be or not to be (a tree)

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This post is neither an endorsement nor a specific request.  With all of the things I have to think about I now have to decide whether or not I want to be a tree after death.

Memo to Self and To Do List Adds

  1. Decide whether or not to become a tree.
  2. Revise will.
  3. Inform spouse and children of my wishes.
  4. Review advance health care directive to see if it includes watering instructions.

Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones – WIRED

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Source: Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them | WIRED

Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts. But we have three technology companies who have this system that frankly they don’t even have control over—with newsfeeds and recommended videos and whatever they put in front of you—which is governing what people do with their time and what they’re looking at.

I’ll be the first to admit I spend a lot of time online.  But I pretty much avoid most social media sites.  Stopped using FaceBorg.  Instagram to catch the occasional post from one of the kids.  A little Twitter for news.  LinkedIn rarely.  It wasn’t hard for me to recognize mass brainwashing.  Not to mention addiction.

One of my more popular posts was a link to this Atlantic article.

But many of you never clicked through to read the article.  I do hope you take the time to read this Wired article.  It will make you think long and hard about your use of technology.

Think about what would happen if you shut off some of these apps that keep dinging you for attention?  This happens.