Most people on this side of the great divide have concluded that the time for fixing what is broken in America has passed. The historical processes that have been unleashed by past error will just have to run their course. What comes after will be whatever the winners of the great struggle create. What if that is not true and there is a window to stop this process? What things could we do to break this cycle of madness that seems to have gripped the American empire?
One thing that should be done right away for no other reason than to slow things down is shutting off the mobile phone system. Humans evolved to interact with one another in person, not through the virtual reality of the mobile device. Everywhere you go you see people walking around like zombies, glued to their phone. It is like the drug soma from the novel Brave New World. The difference is this drug puts people into a trance in which their senses are bombarded with data that irritate them.
One reason we have become an outrage culture is outrage is the only way to get attention from others. In a world where people are linked to a constant stream of images and bursts of text, getting noticed means being outlandish of outrageous within those data streams. On the other hand, being glued to the data stream leaves little room for real human interaction and even less room for real emotion. Large swaths of the population only feel human when they are outraged by the stream.
This would not be as difficult to do as you might think. The rulers could impose a dollar per minute tax on the service. Sure, the wireless firms would fight it, but the government has tanks and men with guns. Shoot enough wireless executives and the rest either run away or fall in line. The firm slap of authority is best conveyed against the wall of the prison, after a quick trial. It was not that long ago when mobile charges were prohibitive and very few people could afford a mobile phone.
Similarly, the big social media platforms have become a problem. They are nothing more than cauldrons of human misery now. Again, it was not so long ago when these platforms did not exist. If we got rid of Facebook and Twitter, the world does not change in any important ways. People would simply migrate back to small private groups on-line or go outside again. Turning off the big social platforms would have an immediate positive impact on the psyche of the public.
Shutting these down would be easier than limiting the mobile device. Enforcement of Section 230 along with new privacy laws that prohibit them from harvesting your activity on-line would shut them down in weeks. Once they are subject to the same laws as everyone else and they cannot steal from their users, their business model would collapse in a hurry. Small platforms would still exist, but as labors of love or as small businesses run by one or two people with a narrow interest.
Another rollback would have to be the cameras. If you are out in public and have a heart attack or you are attacked by a criminal, people pull out their phones and begin taking pics of your suffering. They rather hope you die so they can get a video that will go viral. Combined with the cameras put up by the government and business, all of us now live in a synopticon. This is a world where all of us are individually monitored by all of us, a mass of camera wielding ghouls.
The solution here is your image is yours and you own it. Anyone possessing your image or distributing your image without your express permission is no different than someone trafficking in stolen goods. If someone wants to post your bad day on-line, they need your permission. The platform hosting it needs your permission. Otherwise, they are liable for possessing your property without your permission. This would also apply to security cameras. They can be used only in a courtroom.
This is not a novel concept. Many states still have laws on the books, for example, against filming a public road. Movie companies used to need permission to use video of people walking down a street. Your image used to be your property. A big part of what ails us is we have allowed the ownership of your information to fall into the public domain. Everywhere you go someone is taking pictures of you and you have no control over what they do with those images.
What is being proposed here, in effect, is rolling back the last 25 years of technological and economic change that no one contemplated, debated, or voted on. This all just evolved quickly before anyone could contemplate the impact. A generation long real-world experiment has proven it was a bad idea. We have created a world of outraged shut-ins and snitches. The only thing everyone agrees upon is that everyone hates the world they experience, either in reality or through their device.
Would people riot in the streets if their phones suddenly became useful only in emergencies as a way to call for help? Would there be protest marches over the loss of Facebook and YouTube? Would Zoomers begin forming militias when they can no longer video every moment of their life with their phone? Obviously not, as these things did not happen over Covid. In fact, people would adapt and maybe regrow the backbone and spirit needed to protest such things.
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All good ideas, and much of the laws on the books.
Need power though.
did those muslim SS guys with fezs, have the silver “death’s head” too? now that would really rock the casbah!
Zman, I would say the marxists came up with the term “capitalist”, but that Adam Smith came up with the concept (or rather, the theory).
[…] What is being proposed here, in effect, is rolling back the last 25 years of technological and econo… This all just evolved quickly before anyone could contemplate the impact. A generation-long real-world experiment has proven it was a bad idea. We have created a world of outraged shut-ins and snitches. The only thing everyone agrees upon is that everyone hates the world they experience, either in reality or through their device. Would people riot in the streets if their phones suddenly became useful only in emergencies as a way to call for help? Would there be protest marches over… Read more »
Apparently, the unintended consequence of social media is the retrograde movement from individuality to tribalism. The social experiment meant to homogenize has balkanized. Of course, those noticing this phenomenon say it as though it is a bad thing, as one might expect from those looking through the lens of wokeness.
I’m late to this party, but it seems that nobody has analyzed the situation from a Biblical perspective. May I suggest a reading of Daniel, chapter 12 and The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 22 for a peek into our future. You can believe or reject these prophetic writings, but I strongly suggest it is now, “a time for choosing” (as a wise man once said) and urge that you choose wisely.
“Shoot enough wireless executives and the rest either run away or fall in line. “
But muh free market! Muh innovation?!
Wait, Zman, are you standing athwart history and shouting, “Stop!”?
From my cold, dead hands…
Addendum: My own conclusion is that social democratic capitalism is dead, so social credit media will very much remain part of our lives.
Dominion/Smartmatic-style companies now can control all elections, anywhere.
The Cloud overclass is united. The stratosphere superstructure of (((Architects))), overlapping Corporate NGOs, Chinese and foreign technicians, and Davos aristocrats were all in on 2020. Our social media Pandemic Election was a successful test run.
Go back? We’re off the map.
Zman — Semi OT but maybe not. Gina Carano is one of us. We need a way to step up and find something for her. Someone already on the list, maybe James Woods, Mel Gibson, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain.
I’d kick in crowdfunding $$ for a streaming series on some independent site.
There is money and opportunity to produce something outside the Corporate crap that Hollywood produces. And we MUST MUST MUST take care of our own.
We also need to do something for Ricky Vaughn as well.
We can make this happen. By exploiting the elites lack of trust and legitimacy. Zerohedge noted the other day that working people’s income since 1998 has declined 1% a year in Germany. No different here. Elites don’t deliver, are weird and icky, and mostly made up of Child Molestors if you look at Epstein’s pedo island guest list. So: “Disney makes your kids gay. It has subliminal messages that turn them gay.” Or for blacks “Cell phones make you infertile. Its part of a CIA plot to get rid of black people Farrakhan says so.” Or for young White women:… Read more »
Should note too that the “tax the Internet” idea is something that comes into a distant view every now and then. The next time some revenue starved commissar is eyeballing a $1/GB tax we should throw some logs on that fire.
Cell phone cameras aren’t going anywhere for better or worse. But I do think we can drop social media that is run by people that hate us. Get off facebook/instagram/whatsapp/twitter. This should be easy as there is no need to stay on these platforms as there are other options available. Move off google if possible (this means drop your gmail account, get off google chrome, drop google drive). If possible, drop amazon. And drop your cable package and get rid of ESPN/CNN/NBC etc. Cut these guys off from your money (while keeping more money for yourself). And while your kids… Read more »
Thanks to Sandmich, we have DeepCapture Byrne’s story of how the Kraken was lost and the election was thrown. Byrne gives us two hypothetical conclusions. The Zman’s thesis applies to both. 1. Covid was taken advantage of by the Left, coordinated with orchestrated with social media events such as Floyd riots and Jan. 6th. 2. China bio-nuked us and installed a puppet regime. “Because of the political discourse being constrained by Big Tech and authoritarian measures, within 10 years there will be prison camps in America built next to hospitals for the purpose of organ-harvesting from dissidents. By that time,… Read more »
The latter is unfortunately the more likely scenario.
There is just too much top-down coordination that I don’t think “the left” is capable of.
Whoa there Alzaebo
Didn’t you hear?
According to the MSM, China is an ally!
I’m getting off the train.
Next stop Willoughby.
Willoughby, next stop.
Am I the only old fart who remembers The Twilight Zone? Can we go back to the days when television produced at least a few really good shows?
I think that ship sailed, hit the iceberg, and went to the bottom, many, many tides ago, lol.
Glad there are still a few of us Ronin left to recall the when this country produced a plethora of good things, intelligent programming being merely one of the many.
Yes, I remember that Twilight Zone (in reruns, of course.) Serling’s later “Night Gallery” was sometimes interesting, but a pale shadow of his B&W days. Not sure why, perhaps he had more artistist control in TZ?
Luddite description came to my mind as well. I fully embrace the moniker, and proudly. The salient point Z-man made was that this “change” came about suddenly and without a general understanding or consensus of the people—simply because it was “technology”, it was deemed a good in and of itself. The aspect of human societal harm never was evaluated. Odd how we can embrace cell phones and social media, but condemn and ban smoking as an addiction and a health issue of broad societal concern. Or regulate food content wrt salt and fat and additives. Z’s point is similar to… Read more »
[…] Zman has an idea. […]
I disagree. Any movement we have going to counter the n-word loving in this country has been through cell phone cameras. Not to mention that body cams are getting bad cops fired left and right while also exposing our n-word problem. Cameras aren’t the problem. Although traffic ones are, as traffic laws need to be augmented with common sense, and cameras make those issues black and white. Cell phones and laptops at bars are a problem, and I’ve been part of that problem.
When I was growing up a half century ago, a nigger was a bad black person just like a kike was a bad jew, a spic was a bad Mexican, and a dago was a bad Italian. I’m half Italian BTW. Yes, those are fighting words when used in the first person and the ensuing fistfight was oft-times a learning & growing experience for both parties. It was liberals and Progressives who turned these words into universal political badges and made these colloquial descriptors into killing words. And our society is worse off because of it.
Watch Eastwood’s Gran Torino for a good depiction of how we’ve become entirely hysterical and immature when it comes to race and ethnicity. Race relations were actually better when everybody was a kike, wop, spade, limey, kraut, beaner, mick, pollack, etc. because everybody got the business. Nowadays it’s only YT.
Non white males are also extremely sensitive and thin Skinned when it comes to race. Non-white females are basically white supremacist, they all want to gobble Chad’s cock (ignore the virtue signalling).
But yeah it would be much better for race relations. Self segregation is becoming much more common. 20 years ago everyone got along in the lunchroom now ethnic groups sit together. Oh well a net plus for our side anyways
Also, white males sexual status actually goes up as we are fewer in number. In Toronto it’s getting to the point where you might as well be in Singapore or the Philippines for men.
Hypergamy + lack of sex causes a huge inferiority complex in non-white males. Even an ugly white guy can get a foreign gf here
Lots of comments about how TPTB won’t allow Zman’s rollback because the tech is too useful for surveillance. Perhaps his focus on legislating the privacy of data or regulating the behavior of social media providers is chimerical, but I take his point to be that culture trumps politics. What needs to be restored is culture that does not encourage people to commoditize their own lives for the sake of ease and entertainment. In other words, shut the damn mobile phone off, leave it at home and go have a face-to-face conversation with your neighbor. TPTB cannot (yet) force you to… Read more »
“In other words, shut the damn mobile phone off, leave it at home and go have a face-to-face conversation with your neighbor.”
Neighbors aren’t what they used to be:
https://www.the-sun.com/news/2275751/who-jeffrey-spaide-neighbors-james-lisa-goy-pennsylvania-shooting/
Welcome to your Low-Trust Society.
Maybe shut off your phone and read a book instead.
Here’s a book recommendation:
“I Am Legend”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Legend_(novel)
After all, it worked so admirably to convince everyone to stop watching television!
Never had Twitter.
Got rid of FB a few years ago. I admit, I went through a bit of withdrawal.
Currently I’m organizing mens weekends at my farm. The caveat is I mail invites to everyone. No emails.
I admit, it takes time and effort, but someone who responds in a like manner took the same time I did. It’s a small way to vet people.
There’s something special about getting an envelope and opening it to reveal a written page.
“Would Zoomers begin forming militias when they can no longer video every moment of their life with their phone? Obviously not, as these things did not happen over Covid.“ I’m not so certain about this. There was no pushback to being summarily locked up inside; no one was stopped from posting indoor shenanigans. In fact, the fake Black Plague hysteria has actually put even more of people’s lives online. Rather than curtailing online presence, now everyone spends half the day on Zoom. I’ve speculated that were an alien to arrive, wanting obedience from Western earthlings, instead of using death rays… Read more »
I think we missed the opportunity on this. The first hit is always free. If the gov passed privacy laws that essentially made big tech unable to trade privacy for likes, people would just pay. The selective use of the Constitution would make any such law be overturned. Just as “freedom of speech” means pornography OK and wrong think has no constitutional protection, they will lawyer the law into being unconstitutional and require your full name to use it.
I’d love to run an experiment where a very credible rumor gets started that, say, “Russian hackers” are going to nuke all the social media platforms 48 hours from now. What kind of reaction, what kind of preparations would emanate from your average person?
I maintain that there’s a way to cut, temporarily at least, the digital firehose badly enough to open many people’s eyes. A mere week without Big Tech and Big Media would be a startling revelation to many. There have to be pinch points that can be exploited.
The covid nonsense is very obviously our masters pushing in the opposite direction. No church, no bars, no friends in the office, no ability to meet people out in meatspace – so just you and your best friend, your phone.
I agree. On a couple financial web sites, I’ve attempted to debunk the “1% fatality rate” using simple skepticism. Here’s a cut & paste of a recent one. I will allow myself the liberty. I kick in $5 a month and I’m entitled 🙂 Allow me to give you a quick class in Skepticism 101. In the first place the vast majority of people who get Covid never get symptoms at all or only mild symptoms. They don’t show up in the statistics. Even among the population who gets tested the test has a very high error rate. Secondly there… Read more »
I’m afraid we’re already through the looking glass. However, I like Z-Man’s Luddite spirit. I hope it is something that, to a significant degree, animates Whiteland.
Luddite description came to my mind as well. I fully embrace the moniker, and proudly. The salient point Z-man made was that this “change” came about suddenly and without a general understanding or consensus of the people—simply because it was “technology”, it was deemed a good in and of itself. The aspect of human societal harm never was evaluated. Odd how we can embrace cell phones and social media, but condemn and ban smoking as an addiction and a health issue of broad societal concern. Or regulate food content wrt salt and fat and additives. Z’s point is similar to… Read more »
This will *never* happen top-down because TPTB benefit far too much from the status quo to even contemplate such a move. The only way it *could* happen would be bottom-up. A small group of dedicated, crafty individuals could start sabotaging the grid of this ‘lying matrix’. Individual acts of defiance could inspire others and eventually lead to a cascade effect that might bring this horrible dystopia down. I am, however, not at all sure about this. I feel like we keep underestimating (((them))). Is it possible they have a contingency plan for this move? Because it seems like a pretty… Read more »
Seems this is an opportunity to write some fiction about how to make the nodes of tech consumption fail prematurely. Perhaps some .22lr impacting antennas, power controllers, back up gennies, NOCs, etc.
The system appears very exposed to this non-writer.
All theory, of course! But a good science fiction writer, perhaps here or in the back rooms of meatspace, could wax poetic about simple ways to discourage content delivery.
James LaFond made a point on his blog some time ago that watching a city of drones walking while staring at their devices was akin to seeing slaves in active submission.
Great idea!
Now do Fentanyl and Public School indoctrination.
The day I gave myself over to the Borg was when I got rid of my landline. I’d throw this thing in the river but it’s my only means of communication – it’s a big price to pay for avoiding spam calls. Maybe the increasing ubiquitousness of those annoying interruptions was one way of forcing us on to these hand demons.
An interesting idea, to change the way in which the property right can be alienated. Here, you can sell your image, but you cannot sell it as part of a terms of service exchange, it can only be for specific cases. Same thing with your data, which we see in a small way with sites that allow you to decide which tracking cookies you will allow. Another interesting application of this sort is the distributist idea that you can’t sell your land — land here being a stand-in for family wealth. You could lease it for a certain period, but… Read more »
One could argue this issue is very similar to the gun problem – mobile phones and social media don’t hurt people, people using them do.
It’s not about technology, it’s about individual behavior.
It’s about which property rights are alienable and which are not. It is against the law, for example, to sell yourself into slavery even if you really want to. The idea that you cannot sell your image, except on a case-by-case basis is a very small change in how we think of that right. Same thing if we consider your data a piece of property you cannot sell except for limited times and purposes, and subject to renewal.
That kind of thinking might work if we actually had a functioning judicial system based upon a rule of law principle. But reality matters and should not be ignored. We just saw a few months ago that a presidential election was stolen via an overt in-your-face election fraud on an unprecedented and massive scale. The Supreme Court (highest court in the nation and the literal embodiment of the rule of law principle) took a pass and let the criminals run amok unchallenged. Why would they rise above their manifest corruption in order to remedy a much more minor legal issue?… Read more »
Sadly, the USA is already way down the chute to, at best, a banana republic. There are those who are above the law, and us commoners to whom the law applies. Of course, it’s always been that way to one degree or another. It’s just that it’s gotten much worse recently and shows no sign of stopping. Anarcho-tyranny is a variation of this, I think. Perversely, the traditional banana republic placed high priority on public law and order, while the USA seems to have discarded the conception of civil order in favor of individual rights for the “protected classes” only,… Read more »
Not at all. Unlike weaponry, social media and mobile phones do damage and even drive people to suicide. For young people it damages their emotional and cognitive development and turns them into addicts since social media is designed to induce serotonin hits in a person who engages in it. Worse it atomizes people and makes them feel alone when not on it. They forget there is a entire world around them they could interact with. And lets not forget addicting, those continual serotonin hits from using it makes it addictive as hell. In layman’s terms, instant gratification. Prior to social… Read more »
Yes to all of this. Now go one step deeper. Try using rational conversation with a young person in an attempt to make them aware of this danger and it’s harmful consequences. How successful will your words be? Only about 11% of drug addicts who go through with rehabilitation intervention succeed in fundamentally changing their behavior. This statistic has held firm over centuries despite the Big Government War on Drugs attempted solution. Now drop that young person into remotest reaches of Siberia and see if they still whine about their cell coverage after Day 3.
It’s dopamine hits, not serotonin, just to be precise.
Step #5 The Road Back The road back will be a slog, not a sprint. And it will be a journey of persistence and endurance for which few, if any, of the first wave will likely live to see the fruits of their labor. This mindset is crucial to success. We have become a damaged and dysfunctional species that lives in the moment and demands instant gratification. And there is no magic bullet with which to beat a cancerous tyranny ruling over a whiny and parasitic people. The first step back is to restore the robustness that our ancestors bestowed… Read more »
The panopticon state will create all sorts of consequences. On a convo with one of my directs last week she mentioned her BIL who just put in his 20 year papers with the NYPD. Loved his job, would have worked for 30, but after this summer and the realization that you are only one optically bad and highly edited encounter away from being fired and left pensionless decided it was not worth it. Got a new job in a small city dept in another state in a snap–as those department love to get guys with “big city” training and experience… Read more »
OT warning!
You mentioned panopticon? Well, that happens to be the name of one of my favorite metal albums (ISIS Panopticon, 2004)! Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlgARu0l1zI
Like the bard says:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
When I listen to panopticon
My neighbors do too
Once Pandora’s Box is opened it’s impossible to return it’s contents. Prohibition. Nukes. Darwin. Anti-social behavior, crime, loneliness, isolation, suicide, drug & alcohol abuse all aggravated by this lock down and the spread of totalitarianism. Most people would prefer to put down their phones and go bowling, play softball, take a date to the movies, Boy Scouts, YMCA, Loyal Order of the Raccoons, take in a baseball game, if they were allowed to.
“Most people would prefer to put down their phones and go bowling, play softball, take a date to the movies, Boy Scouts, YMCA, Loyal Order of the Raccoons, take in a baseball game, if they were allowed to.”
No, they wouldn’t. That’s projection.
If that is true, then it is the role of the community to enforce those objectively better choices, through force if necessary and prudent.
Allowing unlimited dissolution is not necessary for a people to be free.
O come on. You don’t really think a young man would rather kiss a girl and go on a real camping trip than vicariously experience those things on a smart phone? Go to a real concert? May as well be a brain in a vat.
More projection.
One of the biggest problems in the world since forever is that people cannot really imagine other people being that much different than they are.
“O come on. You don’t really think a young man would rather kiss a girl and go on a real camping trip than vicariously experience those things on a smart phone? Go to a real concert? May as well be a brain in a vat.”
How old are you? 85? 88? Higher?
You clearly haven’t interacted with anyone in their teens and 20’s for decades.
Another thing we can do is organize localized push-backs against the petty progressive tyranny of our neighbors by using the power of county authorities, principally the sheriff’s department and county commissioners. If these authorities don’t want to enforce the WuFlu mandates or gun restrictions, even in Blue states, the results can be very inspiring. See this article…
https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-constitutional-sanctuary-movement-begins-to-grow
Burma just banned social media. It can be done. They also have the best cheroots. Thinking of moving there.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/6/22269831/myanmar-orders-block-twitter-facebook-instagram-military-coup
Good luck with that…
I spent a couple weeks in Burma in 2002. There was literally no internet available, and it was wonderful. On the other hand, the paranoia was off the charts. I was hiking with a local at one point and asked him some basic questions about his opinion of the junta and, despite being in the woods, he literally looked over his shoulder before answering me.
I got to roll my own cheroot, too!
Great article, Mr. Z. I agree with Mr. Glenfilthie: it is a people problem. This is not an excuse, but for us corporate drones, my super phone is the way I access the internet during the day. This very blog is blocked on my work computer as hate speech (liberal blogs are OK). Liability for recording or disseminating a person’s image without their consent is already “the law” (your ticket stub at a sportsball event includes a waiver of that right). But along with all of the rights enshrined in the constitutions of the old Soviet Democratic People’s Republic and… Read more »
I have noticed myself getting on Twitter and Facebook less and less just like I notice myself watching sports ball less often. The half time show in the Super Bowl is an example, it was so repulsive that I just walked away and came back in the third quarter. I don’t think it’s possible to go as far as the Z wants without something major happening in our ruling structure but I do think many normal people will be so repulsed by where social media and media in general is going that we will self regulate ourselves to some degree… Read more »
I don’t really follow pop culture but it seemed that in the past, the Super Bowl halftime performer was so well-known that even I had at least heard of the person or group. This time, I was asking the people around me: “Who is this guy?” I had never even heard of this performer known as “The Weekend.” I don’t know if this guy is just not as famous as the usual halftime show act or if I’m even more out of touch with this kind of crap than in the past. Are celebrities becoming less important to the average… Read more »
I thought precisely the same. Glad to know I am not alone.
For consideration, no comment: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-Vai-4pnw
Since you already went there, further exploration…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vZpsTPTTQxM&feature=emb_title
Nice thought experiment, today, Z – what’s up for tomorrow; revoking women’s suffrage or repatriating Blacks to the Dark Continent? 😉 I am totally with you on the photo thing. I think it should be illegal to post or publish a photo or video anywhere without the subject’s permission. Of course, that will also never happen either; makes it harder for the snitchers. The mobile phones will go away eventually but not by legislation, the technology – and the rest of modern civilization – will collapse after the death of The Last White Man. Then again, the East Aisers can… Read more »
– what’s up for tomorrow; revoking women’s suffrage or repatriating Blacks to the Dark Continent?
I wish !!!
Even sending the coal burners to Africa and revoking colored suffrage would be a great first step.
How about IQ tests, with a minimum of ~120 to qualify? Or hell, let’s just go back to property ownership as a qualification to vote (i.e.,you must have a tangible stake in how society is managed). Although getting the ladies out of it would have the most beneficial and immediate effect.
And how will you institute these requirements? You already lost a country; and we’re all here spouting off using pseudonyms because you know why; how will you win a fight for an IQ test requirement for voting? Where are you going to take that little IQ fight – what specific office?
We lost; job one is to stay alive, keep our children alive – if they get it back, or their great grand children get it back, it will be a slow process, and in the meantime, we’re not going to be able to dictate the terms of the fight.
I think a better analogy is smartphones are like the one ring to rule them all. We can’t take our eyes off of it, it infects us with its malignancy, we search for it desperately If lost and when we use it we disappear from the real world and enter the ethereal realm of the wraiths, where the Eye of Sauron can directly see us with the greatest ease.
YES …!!!!! I had the same thought when watching LOTR recently. Funny, in that story and others of its ilk (Star Wars et al), the New Man sees themselves as the valiant little group fighting against a vast, evil and intractable injustice. Mordor. Yet, in reality they are the denizens of that evil place.
Music is another thing that needs changing, or going back to the early to mid 90s. Rock was still dominant in the culture and on radio, and it actually still sort of reflected genuine culture at the city level (even if you don’t like the stuff that came out of Seattle, it grew organically out of that time and place). Only a very small portion of people like the gruntings of the subnormal, promethazine-drinking black underclass. But it’s blasted everywhere now and it’s a soul-killing, soul-draining, dignity-robbing affront. I always remember what my friend told me about the night the… Read more »
Music is another way in which we’re atomized and isolated. Globohomo doesn’t want music that comes from somewhere. You mentioned the Seattle scene of the 90s, with Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, etc. A bit before that in the 80s, there was a scene in Minneapolis with the Replacements, Husker Du, the Suburbs, and Soul Asylum and others. At the same time, the Southeast was nurturing REM, the B52’s, the Db’s and more. And before that New York City had a scene that Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, etc. came from. I don’t know enough about popular music… Read more »
The Africanization of the country is probably most clear in terms of “culture,” or what passes for it. The garbage people–white people, no less–listen to, just floors me. It is mindless racket, not music.
I’ve been advocating for killing social media since I heard about the illegal facebook experiments trying to manipulate people moods (they could). I can do without the phone camera (generally shitty pictures), though it does come in handy sometimes for work, but I could plan ahead. 20 something years ago I went into a favorite dive bar of mine and someone was shooting an indie movie. I had to sign a waiver to go into the back room to shoot pool and ended up being background in an extended scene. I knowingly entered an agreement with another private entity to… Read more »
I have a 1 and half year old who loves to play smart phones, tablets, and laptops. She picked up the mechanics of it so fast! I have to pay attention to how much “screen” time she’s getting and do my best to get to read and play with her toys. It is my responsibility to teach my child the importance of socializing in real life instead of social media. While it would amazing to go backwards, I think the cat is out of the bag and its unlikely. There is too much money, power, and control in this technology… Read more »
You actually let her have access to these things at her age? Please don’t. Her brain is at such a critical stage in its formation and smart phones, etc., will mess up the wiring. All this technology will put her behind the eight ball cognitively. Give her an advantage over her peers and let her brain develop normally. Plenty of time later for her to become adept at the keyboard.
You’re a fool and an utterly irresponsible parent.
Why in God’s name are you letting a child at that age use such devices, that is insane. The titans of BigTech won’t even allow their kids to have a tablet until their early teens for a reason. To early and it screws with their emotional and cognitive development.
This is absolutely disgusting. Shame on you. Yeah, I said shame.
You know what would precipitate the removal of mobile phones, a total technological collapse. And coincidentally that would also get rid of birth control with take care of a lot of problems. After the Bronze Age collapse it was 400 years before the first cities formed again. That’s 20 Generations. I think about that a lot
Well, I just read that on my phone. A more appropriate analogy if it’s like the one ring to rule them all.
We can’t take her eyes off of it, it infects us with its malignancy, we search for it desperately If lost, and when you use it, you disappear from the real world and enter the ethereal realm of the wraiths, where the Eye of Sauron can directly see you with the greatest ease.
The ridiculousness of your proposals only further prove how the whole thing isn’t fixable.
Also, the fatal problems precede the invention of the smart phone. I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by banning them.
It should be quite clear how poisonous social media is, and how much large scale damage it has done. Saying we can’t shut off the crazy robot that’s destroying everyone’s sanity is a form of Stockholm syndrome. A few years ago several of the creators/early adopters of social media came out and said they were abandoning the platforms and refusing to let their kids use it. Some of them said they were reverting to flip phones. I’ve never owned a smartphone, and never been on social media. to have never engaged with that technology and see how much it has… Read more »
There is nothing that can be said about social media that cannot, and was not, said about television. There were a few loud (and logically airtight) voices crying in the wilderness for 50 years or so regarding the damage TV did to children, to education, to morality, to social cohesion. Neal Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’ springs most strongly to mind here, along with Jerry Mander’s ‘4 Arguments for the Elimination of Television.’ These men wrote books that simply could not be argued against, and they launched those books at a public that still used books to convey arguments and… Read more »
Because we can’t address the problems that precede the invention of social media+smartphones without first addressing social media+smartphones.
Well, then it’s over. How can we expect, when an election is stolen right in front of our faces, and the elites openly rub it right in our faces, that we have the power to turn back time, to take away social media and smartphones? We better find a way to win – or at least abide – in the world as it exists now; not how it existed thirty years ago. Remember the Africans, the American Indians – could they have kept their homelands and freedom if they could just take away the invading Europeans’ technology? Maybe, but that’s… Read more »
This suggestion will literally never happen. The corporate powers and governmental spy agencies love what they have wrought. It’s only going to get worse as sensors and various gizmos are inserted into you so that you mesh perfectly with the Internet of Things and don’t need to carry a device around.
We have lost. Whatever comes next will be a civilization created by people other than us and hostile to us.
Nonsense, unless you’re so weak you give up personal agency and let BigTech reduce you and your family to feedstock you have a choice.
GTFO. We don’t need your yellow-bellied defeatism around here.
“Yellow Bellied”. LOL. What is this an episode of Bonanza on broadcast tv in 1964?
You might not realize times have changed but a bunch of geezers sitting around talking about turning off the world’s biggest companies is beyond laughable. I mean we aren’t supposed to vote anymore, because it’s pointless, but we are somehow going to rally the world to turn off the internet?
What exactly is anyone trying to accomplish here?
This is what I’m talking about: “We have lost. Whatever comes next will be a civilization created by people other than us and hostile to us.”
If you want to jump off of the Tallahatchee Bridge, be my guest, but don’t try to talk the rest of us into joining you.
+1 on this comment.
There are lots of things that can be done better. The west is only now beginning to wake up. I am optimistic about the future!
Sure. We can’t even use our real names to express our opinions on a site where everyone agrees. I am not so optimistic.
My name really is Ben and I really am a layabout.
People who cut off social media rarely seem to regret it.
“I actually like that. You get to spend more time doing other things and more important things than burying my face in my phone,” Larson told reporters.
I deleted all the games off my phone about five years ago, after a very young niece repeatedly asked me if she could play a game on my phone at a family gathering. It clicked for me what a time waster it had become.
https://www.outkick.com/after-being-canceled-kyle-larson-learning-he-doesnt-miss-social-media/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1612982219
I never answer my mobile phone. I have no apps on it other than what came with it and Outlook. I use it for emergency calls and reading e-mail when I’m away from the office.
To be fair, you do vent often on Gab. The release is needed it seems.
I can tell Gab’s getting far more popular as he’s been pretty effective in kicking a hornet’s nest of conservative normies with some of his posts.
I treat Gab like the local pub. You can go there and blow off a little steam. The thing with gab is it is /ourguys/ and civic nationalists. No lefties. If it was flooded with lefties, then I’d kill my account. I have no interest in interacting with those people.
My relationship to my phone is much like yours, Z, but we’re around the same age and we grew through childhood, adolescence, and became adults without mobile phones or smart phones. Both my kids are around thirty, and though I never gave them a mobile device during their childhood, they don’t know a world before the internet and mobile comms. Neither of them are sunk into the craziness of the worse aspects of social media, but “going back” is not an option for them because it’s not “going back” – they were never there!
The only reason I have a sail soam is because one of my jobs required it. Otherwise, I’d still have only a landline. Needless to say, the only time I use the Satanic device is for employment purposes. Hate is not a strong enough word for how I feel about them.
Aaaaand I finally figured out what a sail foam is.
Same. I don’t give out the number, have no apps, and only answer if it’s my husband or children calling. Use it for texts with my family. Handy if there’s an emergency but otherwise it’s dead weight.
My cell is my only phone, but as I have the personality of a sea urchin, I don’t have to worry too much about daily interactions. 😈
I only have a flip phone. No internet, no games, no text, plus I have the ringer off because if I do get a robo text, it keeps buzzing until the battery wears out. I had a smart phone about 10 years ago and hated it.
However I am waiting for the day that flip phones are labeled racist…
An interesting development is Facebook banning all political content. They want to go back to moms posting what they made for dinner and other, more innocent things. It will be a good test to see if the genie can be put back in the bottle.
Of course, they will bend the rules as to what’s political, but given the flagrant bias before, this will at least even things out a little in theory.
Yeah, now that they’ve won, let’s stop talking politics – especially about how we won…
Smart move, even the tech titans keep those devices away from their children. They know full well they are addicting and emotionally damaging to young people.
There are a boatload of studies on just how damaging social media and instant gratification are to the proper development of children.
Oh come on. Yes, they would riot in the streets.
No they won’t, they will go into withdraw from not getting all those perpetual serotonin hits for a while and then get on with their lives.
Hell’s bells, Z. I am a Boomer and if you took my phone, I’d spit on my hands, hoist the black flag and slit YOUR throat! I am not addicted to my phone. I don’t twit or Bookface, I hardly ever talk on it or text. But I love the tools, the camera, the apps. I even have my bible on it. You are doing what the gun grabbers do. You blame the tools for the actions of their users. The other day on Blab I saw a good one. Some old biddy was on her knees out in the… Read more »
Yes!
Why not get rid of TV while you’re at it ? Or, hell, radio too maybe.
No it’s the internet, the social media, that has allowed a dissident movement to grow at all.
Zman hisself has written that his posts are sometimes an IQ test and he uses ladders with the warning labels removed. Our first perceptions are received though the amygdala but they are then sent upstairs for further analysis.
This is the main benefit. Race realism is becoming absolutely necessary thanks to low IQ joggers incriminating themselves on camera while committing acts of violence. Combine that with surveillance cameras of their heinous behavior and easy access to crime statistics by race, and i believe the next generation will be much more race aware.
There are endless videos of whites being beaten and killed by asphalt apes and so what? They do it with impunity because they know whitey won’t don squat unlike the Mexers who kill their asses. DR types talk as if it recruits whites to our side. and again so what? We don’t offer them anything like a alternative to being punching bags. to a bunch of stone age nogs. The reality is social media is corrosive as hell to society and people. There are endless studies on this, even the tech titans keep their kids away from this shit. and… Read more »
Upvote. Well said.
You are an aberration; a member of a vanishingly small group of people who can keep their self-integrity with God’s handheld lightbox. The fact remains that for most people, the cellphone has been a curse. And dollars to donuts the strength of this curse will increase in tandem with our overclass’ stranglehold.
Not so. The phone is a tool. That’s it. Hell, I can even use social media as a tool. When the tool stops working,I replace it just as you or anyone else would. Andrew Torba started up Gab and I love it. Even our esteemed blog host is using it. In time there will be viable alternatives to Google and Twit and Bookface, Alt tech to support banking, video – you name it. Think about it. Andrew Torba told 79 million people that they didn’t have to put up with Dorsey, Zuckerface and their legions of pink haired twinks, landwhales,… Read more »
This is a nice fantasy, but it’s not going to happen until a die-out event-collapse or a brutal military dictatorship forces it. Both of them are very unlikely.
You do realize it’s just matter of shutting down cell phone towers that are only protected by a chain link fence. BTW the police are also highly dependent on them for communication as well.
People are so oblivious to that our entire infrastructure is like a giant exposed nervous system.
Sure, but you are missing that we are not talking about some guerilla tactics. Besides, attacks on the infrastructure can be reversed, relatively easily, most of the time.
If we are talking about actual societal solutions, then this is simply not going to happen any time soon.
Short term, agree.
Ted Kaczyinski said it wasn’t possible to ban bad technology without getting rid of all technology, but Z’s proposal is worth a try.
Try, how? He is right and if put to a vote I would vote yes, run it up a flag pole and I will salute it. Just a philosophical exercise that we can for now plant in the minds of the like minded.
I am having a zoom meeting tomorrow with Zuckerberg, Fauci, Dorsey, and Kamala. I will run this by them.
If you gave an average Joe the Unibomber Manifesto to read without him knowing the context, chances are he would agree with 80+ percent of it.
For polite company, Bill Joy’s classic from 2000 is a good pre-Kaczynski appetizer. https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
Thank you for linking to that excellent piece!
Actually Zman’s post sounds to me a lot like Ted Kaczynski, with the added ideas of repealing section 230 and letting people own their data. And these two added ideas are the most cogent ones. Eliminating cars, computers, vaccines, mechanical looms and the like is all science-fiction fantasy with infinite slippery-slope unintended consequences. Zman and I are the same age, and we both have to beware of turning into the grumpy codger “who praises, with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this, and every country but his own.”
I don’t know if government will give up the surveillance powers they gain by having the population glued to their phones.
I also think our representatives are bought and paid for by by big tech and they will stay bought and paid for.
It’s probably not as simple as you think. The people who have the most data to analyze tend to be pretty boring. Does the government really benefit from knowing that a random Karen binge-watched Friends last weekend and is looking for a new bed for her kitten, or that Joe down the street wants a new truck? Most data is pretty banal and predictable, just like most people. The people the government wants to surveil most are generally good at avoiding surveillance. The dumb criminal crowd is easily surveiled…but never arrested. It’s pretty obvious that the Epiphany insurrection happened because… Read more »
Sure most data is boring—to you and me—but not to a super computer AI program analyzing a thousand relationships concerning your rather boring trip to the store and the bag of Fritos you bought, the quick stop at the gas station buying 5.15 gallons of gas for your 10 mpg truck, etc.
These programs are in use privately and by the government to find relationships that you, possessing only a puny human brain, can not even imagine. But what we can imagine is that the entities that possess this data we generate do not have our best interests in mind.