FACEBOOK 'Unfriending' : One of the Best Things About It

Let us accept as a valid opening proposition that Facebook is an artificial social milieu. It is, in fact,  a media creation not based on genuine friendships but on virtual acceptances of virtual "friends" who entreat you to "friend" them once you sign up. I took a long time before signing up, for several reasons, including that I suspected it of being a colossal time waster, as well as imposing cumbersome social burdens -  i.e. in trying to 'regulate' the differing personalities that posted on your home page.

Former FB user Sara Scribner - who broke her addiction after several years - described it to a tee:

"It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."

 Hmmmmm... Southern Baptists, rap-rockers, 90s bohemia, public education, i.e. teachers  - sounds like an explosive social mix to me. One that one would hardly confect in any real life social situation. You would be more likely  - if having a party - to invite one subset to that - say the rockers and bohemians - and let the Southern Baptists,  conservatives arrive at another, This way you avoid likely social confrontations, verbal clashes - not to mention fights!

This is what Scribner meant when she said in life she "entered each space separately" - while on Facebook all the personalities and their assorted postings are tossed together simultaneously  like Calaloo - a West Indian concoction with multiple different veggies all in one pot. Sometimes, as in making a soup, they don't all cook to the same degree and the person that consumes it gets a violent reaction. I saw this once while on a Peace Corps training exercise in St. Lucia in 1972.

Because of this dangerously overlapping pseudo- social setting and peculiarity, as Scribner also noted, it became more and more difficult to manage or reconcile upsets between virtual personalities coming from divergent backgrounds. In my case, what wifey and I noted were a spate of sudden attacks - with scurrilous depictions - of Obama (associated with a "Presidential seal" using a Skunk emblem instead of a bald eagle - because he's born from a white mom and black Kenyan  dad.)

I posted a response to  the offenders (relatives in OK)   - under the skunk photo - after my wife responded with "I HATE It!"   I said the depiction was clearly racist and also offended many liberal friends sharing the same page, as well as relatives of ours from the Caribbean. I also said that I too had issues and bones of contention with Obama but I have made the case against him without resort to racist images or "jokes".  I said one could disagree with Obama and some of his policies without being disagreeable. This brought the terse response to "Lighten up!" that it was basically "a joke", and I was wrong for taking it so seriously. I think not, because none of our family and other friends viewed it as jokey but as an insult also to their own mixed racial backgrounds.

But this sort of failure of perception is typical when people who generally inhabit little red state enclaves suddenly exhibit those predilections in a public home space - as on FB.

After this altercation, the respondents,  especially one,  decided to launch into a full scale 'war' on liberals with multiple assorted pics of drug users, Jane Fonda in Vietnam, attacks on troops, cursing, protests, begging for money.....whatever......each accompanied by a semi-coherent rant. Finally, I got tired of it and informed the miscreant that the public (home) page of Facebook - shared by many friends - wasn't the place to have this out, but we could do it via email. I especially noted his whines concerning "liberals don't know what they're talking about" and "liberals have a problem with the REAL history of the world and nation", including claims that "liberals were revising history". Referencing all this, I simply asked him to name any four or five specific examples of such liberal revisions or "problems" with the real history of the world.  He asserted there'd be no email exchange and if I wanted to learn more I could read Larry Schweikart's book '48 Liberal Lies About American History" as he "didn't have the time or the patience to try to educate the ignorant".

As I didn't want to extend or foul up a FB page which wasn't the place for such contretemps, I did a number of blog postings - after his wise ass Schweikart response, and then another after he extolled the radical conservative media troll, Michael Savage. Eventually other blog ripostes were too much for him and he "unfriended" me on FB . (I did warn him not to set a virtual foot  on Brane Space if he didn't like robust liberal takedowns of radical conservo, nutso bilge.)

This, of course, saved me the trouble of doing it myself. Now, the home page is free and clear of the anti-liberal tripe, denigrating Obama images and anti-Obama hate harangues. Now, refreshingly,  the remaining FB friend community is more harmonious and homogeneous.

Is it because I am against 'free speech'? Not at all. What I am against is the abuse of it and in the wrong domains to the point it makes many other users, people uncomfortable. Also, the two cases of blog and Facebook are decidedly different  - a point I made to him when he barked in an email I should be doing responses on the FB Home page not on my blog.

But one has to actively search out a blog. Hence, if one accesses a blog - especially like mine - s/he knows in advance what he or she will get. I am not hiding my stances on anything, after all. A FB page is different because it allows instant general access to the pool of common 'friends'. Photos, imagery are immediately visible. The recipients are the many different users who you've friended or accepted friend requests from and most don't expect to see unseemly portrayals of black people in disgusting, photo-shopped depictions defiling their Home page when they come on to check info or new messages. It is an insult to them and everyone else.

In terms of this example, I merely present it to show that the unfriending tool of Facebook may well be the best feature of it. Now, although the friend universe is  decidedly less diverse, it is at least more peaceful  - and I can easily live with that!  It is perhaps more difficult to live with a fractured familial relationship but I put the blame squarely on the country's poisoned, polarized politics. The example illustrated here shows what transpires when people allow politics to trump blood relationships and possible amity-  including adopting the noble advice "agreeing to disagree' .

Was it actually "white privilege" that blinded my Okie relatives to the fact that what they were putting up was wrong? Good question! See also:

http://www.salon.com/2014/08/23/white_privilege_an_insidious_virus_thats_eating_america_from_within/

Vanity Fair Poll Shows Most Americans Remain Brainwashed Idiots

"America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat"- blogger writing on SmirkingChimp last July

"It is a fact that every democracy that's existed  has committed suicide." - John Adams


The recent Vanity Fair poll results on ethics, disclosed this morning on CBS Early Show, is enough to drive the true citizen into permanent depression. In one poll question, to do with Edward Snowden's ethics in disclosing NSA surveillance overreach, 54 percent asserted he was in the wrong, only 27 percent that he was right to do so. Meanwhile, even more atrocious, nearly one fifth of respondents (19%) said they "had never heard of Edward Snowden". That means a total of 54% + 19% = 73% of those polled are either dolts or brainwashed morons. That's essentially three-fourths of all Americans, assuming this sample is in any way representative, which I believe (from past polls) it is.

The VF hack who released the results on the air said it showed "Americans' opinions had evolved from when they first thought he was a hero."

No, that's not it at all. It shows these fools have been brainwashed by the steady,  anti-Snowden media portrayals and drumbeat! And the people were too damned dumb to see through it, and how their minds were being manipulated. Worse, a fifth of the morons were so detached from their responsibilities as citizens - to protect their 4th amendment rights - they didn't even know who Snowden was.  It boggles the rational mind to comprehend how a people who once valued liberty and had enough education to see through vapid media PR, now can't tell their asses from holes in the ground

Sickening! Do the people of this nation even deserve their civil liberties? I doubt it.

If we take common sense for granted in this sampled population (and that is not a foregone conclusion by any means) then one would expect people who are reasonably educated to be aware that their privacy rights are bound up intimately with their 4th amendment rights - to be free of lawless search and seizure. As I noted in previous blogs to do with this issue, while the specific right to privacy isn’t specifically listed in the Constitution,  the Founders understood that as time went on new rights would emerge which they might not be able to think of (e.g. to health care), hence bundled these into the unenumerated rights under the 9th amendment..

We also expect them to be informed enough to grasp the extent of NSA's unconstitutional mass data collection. And hence to realize that if NSA can snatch their email address books, Google searches and content, web browsing histories, Twitter messages, and cell phone calls as well as all telephone call logs, they are in the condition described by Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, who described the NSA programs to the Guardian thusly:

"The Snowden revelations have made clear that there has been an intrusion on our right to privacy of unprecedented scope, yet the government is dismissing any complaints about our right to privacy as irrelevant."

Roth said: "I used to be a prosecutor – I used to put pen registers on people's phones, collecting the numbers that you dial – but I had to manually compile the numbers. It was very labor intensive, and hence self-limiting. Today, the computer can piece together your entire personal life in a matter of seconds."

These damned "Americans" who polled against Snowden make me want to puke. I also know they'd make my Revolutionary War ancestor Conrad Brumbaugh puke, and believe he'd wasted his blood fighting for independence and liberty. Why do it for a bunch of ninnies, sissies and parasites who'd give their freedom away for a song, just to feel "safe"?  They are a waste of space and remind me of the "good Germans" who looked the other way as their friends and neighbors were trotted into camps for criticizing Hitler, the Third Reich or harboring Jews. Those "good Germans", after WWII. had to be dragged into the concentration camps to be shown first hand what their passive compliance engendered during Hitler's reign.

So really, Americans ought to be getting on their damned knees and THANKING Snowden for revealing what he has about the disgusting trampling of their 4th amendment rights.

Sadly, this farce shows how easily people in this country can be led by the nose, and I warrant it's mainly because they don't read enough. They don't read history, don't read economics or politics, or even the news. They certainly don't go to the next level in separating what's sold them via PR, from facts. No, it's easier to stay mired in the vapid, solipsistic virtual "friend" world of Facebook, or Twitter.

They remind me of the same buffoons and passive nincompoops who willingly allowed their polling to be gamed and "moved" via media propaganda back in 2003 - ultimately allowing Bush Jr. to launch the Iraq War, and our congress critters to meekly agree (so terrified were they of the polling).

These "Americans" are a disgrace, and don't warrant the appellation of citizen!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tom-engelhardt/57357/the-fourth-branch-the-rise-to-power-of-the-national-security-state

Einstein's 2nd Worst Fear: Techno-Addicted Humans Mutating Into Dummies

Those who may have had the chance to read some of Einstein's letters as well as essays (e.g. 'Why I Am A Socialist') may also have come across his two main fears: 1) that his work in special relativity to do with the inertia of energy would lead to use of atomic weapons, and 2) that humans would become collectively stupid because of the overuse of technology. (As embodied in the photo below)

That is,  Einstein feared that our dependence on technology would one day surpass the capacity for actual human interaction, leading to a generation of "idiots". I fear that day has already arrived - indeed long since, and I submit a number of photos to bear this out. First, however, it is important to insert a "control' photo showing how normal interaction is supposed to look - say at a dinner. This was actually a dinner hosted in Barbados by my wife and me for family and friends


The image says it all.  You see the people, including yours truly, my niece Trudi and her hubby actively engaged with each other - not zoned out like drugged zomboids on some nefarious form of crack embodied in a smart phone or cell.  Now, compare that with the image below - also of a dinner which supposedly gathered together friends and family.


I mean, good god, how pathetic is that compared with the earlier image? You tell me! All the participants look like goobers with faces buried in their little personal devices, or like "idiots" to use Einstein's parlance. Why are they even there together? They could as well all be by their lonesome selves at separate tables. They aren't interacting other than with their techie devices. They aren't conversing or exchanging ideas. They are effectively dead heads!

This is actually a couple out for their anniversary. WTF are they doing?  Are they chatting with each other? Hell no! They're so immersed in their dumb smart phones they likely are barely aware of the presence of the other. They embody the idiocy Einstein feared when technology surpasses our ability to interact. Yet we see this wherever we go! Certainly wifey and I have. Couples at tables at places like Village Inn, or Olive Garden, locked in their own world - oblivious to anyone around them. Or whole families seated at table each with eyes glued to their own devices.

To top it off take a look at this one:

Kids at a beach outing more invested in their devices than in the nature surrounding them.

Have we all become addicted to technology to the point of leaving our interactions with others out or minimizing them? You tell me. Then, if you believe we haven't, just try to do without Facebook (or Instagram) for the next 99 days, as a Dutch challenge has invited millions to do, e.g. see my post:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-challenge-can-you-go-99-days-without.html

 I warrant too many of you can't. And let's bear in mind that "relating to someone" on FB is not relating in the true sense, not like a phone call, say. Or better, being there to talk to them in person.

A Challenge: Can You Go 99 Days Without Facebook?

The blog post header refers to an experiment, or perhaps more accurately, a mission, proposed by the Dutch group '99 Days of Freedom' - to  see if Facebook users can break off from its use for 99 whole days, or just over three months. They warrant the users will be a lot happier, but need to have people carry out the proposed mission to see.

Most of us not living under rocks have already heard or read of the Facebook -conducted experiment  in which the social media site conducted an "emotional manipulation" investigation on 689,000 unknowing users. Evidently, at assorted odd times, FB inserted negative news stories on the users' news pages to see if they elicited negative emotional reactions. This was kind of dopey since it's already well known that media can shape our thinking - for good or ill - depending on the stuff we allow into our cranium. Thus, if we watch only FOX and listen to Limbaugh,  our brains will likely be distorted and accept nonsense few other literate citizens would, such as that:  "Saddam caused 9/11" or "Obama is a terrorist sympathizer" or "Obama lacks a legitimate birth certificate".

As for Facebook, it has its social uses but can also be somewhat of a burden, and the content on most of it is nowhere near the more in -depth material found on most blogs. Basically, people can throw up whatever they want including images of kitties beating doggies, lizards crapping on flowers, or even obnoxious pseudo-political content which I'd prefer not to describe. But those are a few reasons I spend little time on Facebook, other than to make the occasional connections with family -who find FB more convenient to use than email. (It's true that some bloggers too put junk political stuff on their blogs, as well as outrageous images, but they're not likely to be taken seriously and have few followers.)

Facebook has also been maligned on account of  breeding into users a "single-minded attachment or obsession which has contributed to an artificial,  solipsistic view of the world" (cf. Mark Bauerlein, 'The Dumbest Generation'). Thus, instead of being a channel of information and knowledge consolidation, the monitor screen becomes a mirror of the users’ own limited selves and under-developed psyches. That Facebook would insinuate itself into a life to the extent of excluding so much else in the world is not surprising, and Bauerlein shows how this is done by blocking out all unwanted material on one's FB pages.  Author Sara Scribner  herself noted (salon.com piece)  that while she first joined to share family photos it gradually descended into random, driven 'rummaging' and time wasting. As she put it:

"We know the pattern by now. That initial rush arrives with the first “like,” comment, or share. Then it becomes a habit. Instead of reading a book or the newspaper, I would troll through my friends’ pictures or comments, jumping from one stray, random idea to another. I was feeling fragmented, even a bit wasted, by the end of my daily FB journey."

Adding to the preceding are the encumbering (and often discomfiting) social burdens imposed,  a phenomenon of interjected -interlinked differing social milieus and often clashing personas that needed to be reconciled. As she described it:

"I had to switch roles often on Facebook. Students at the school where I work would friend me, and then I would have to alter my comments"

This effect emerges because one's "friend" universe is often populated by radically different people and types. So, for example, how do you navigate your FB world if one half is made up of religious or very conservative family members, and the other half made up of very liberal and non-religious (other) family members, and friends?  Well, you have to tread carefully because it can be a literal minefield, especially when a hyper-liberal friend happens to see what s/he regards as an offensive comment from a conservative family member.  So you're constantly having to steer clear of 'oil mixing with water' situations or whatever.

Sara Scribner herself describes it thusly:

"It’s not easy to make all these projected selves cohere: My friends and family include folks from Southern evangelical Christianity, from the rap/rock critic subculture, from ’90s bohemia, from mommy-land, from the public-education universe. My guess is that most people on social media have some variation of this problem. In life, I entered each space separately; on Facebook, it all happened simultaneously."

But that's another reason I use FB infrequently: first, because the odds are high I'm liable to run into comments or images I don't like - so I won't be compelled to "like" them or be outraged by them enough to respond, and second, there's too little dimension for more complex expression of thought, which a blog post allows. Truth be told, for communication purposes - especially on important issues-  I actually find email much superior.

And all that brings us to this new Facebook experiment, or should I say - on Facebook, In this case, a Dutch group ('99 Days of Freedom')  is asking users of FB to see if they can go 99 whole days without once bringing it up on one's computer, liking anything, or posting any pictures or comments. The group is interested in finding out if people would be happier without Facebook. (I suspect many people would be happier if they just limited their FB use. I mean 2 hours a day ought to be enough for anyone.)

So far, according to the Washington Post, over 100,000 users have signed on to the freedom pledge.

Meanwhile, Sara Scribner was able to totally go 'cold turkey' after seeing how much time she was wasting. The fact that she could do it shows perhaps anyone else can, if they set their mind to it!