Surprising how little people have learned given 25 years of free access to information via internet. ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) adopted TCP/IP in 1983; once NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) was decommissioned in 1995, last restriction to commercial traffic disappeared. Ever since, persuasion and profit have mostly driven factual exchanges. Eternal tease of telling you how to get it, why you need it, but not what you need to know screams scam, though works upon the unwary every time. Get bored and exhausted reading articles seeded with so-called facts only to be propositioned by some businessman greedy for another payday. Like any other tool, cash or data can be used for evil or good.
Historian Sophia Rosenfeld also said, “The Internet is particularly important because of its reach and because of the algorithmic way in which it promotes what’s popular rather than what’s true. It creates a culture of untruth, probably, that other forms of publishing can’t easily.” Advertisers look to exploit situations based on prevailing trends that social media reveals. Show any interest in anything whatever, and your mailbox will fill faster than you can delete irrelevant input.
Basic logic has never been taught. Empty promises and logical fallacies dominate choices. For perspective, see Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (2008). Historically, important facts were carefully withheld, whether by guilds, who jealously guarded lucrative skills, or monarchies, who feared revolutionary anarchies. At intervals, authors sought to rectify this knowledge gap. Voltaire’s circle published encyclopedias revealing how to do trades. The Whole Earth Catalog ambitiously collected what it deemed necessary for do-it-yourself sufficiency and global sustainability. Mistakes and snafus are inevitable, probably necessary, for learning to occur. Profitability often relies on waste.
Stuff never changes. Idle gossip and ingrained prejudices still predominate, then talk of past events. Future plans and new ideas only appeal to a small minority of already gifted, and then often as image props, not serious concerns. Observations are slivers of life, what exists in a moment that can be perceived, including concepts, feelings, measurements, memories, patterns, smells, sounds and touches. What many would prefer instead of facts are prophecies. Who wouldn't want to know for sure, so brace for the inevitable? The hopelessly doomed, junkies, ne'er-do-wells, parasites, prisoners, and walking dead who account for probably a quarter or more of population just don’t care, never did, rely upon dole, handouts, and other people’s efforts.
Spare us your words. Most are just attempts to bilk, hoodwink and steal. Don't need what you're so eager to sell. People adamantly rationalize poor decisions; to admit a mistake is to reveal own gullibility or ignorance. Many doing likewise is how crooks keep congressional seats and tyrants grip on power. Ideals of individuality mean taking personal responsibility, not such an agreeable proposal for many.
Easiest thing any writer can do is predict doom and provoke conflagrations that mushroom. Dystopian stories abound. Risking apocalypse and tempting fate, they’ve plopped LNG domes and nuclear power plants right next to population centers. Could have located them at remote nodes on edge of grid, but that’s where private estates of the powerful are. Any accident could prove catastrophic. Getting humans to cooperate on a shared mission means imagining alternatives to greed and sloth and understanding what keeps ideals aloft. Improbable? Optimism has always been irrational and seldom rewarded unless warranted. However difficult reasoning may be, it beats assuming, blindly obeying, and capitulating to crowds. You're granted rights to believe whatever you want, but you have to pick your fights. Some aren't worth waging.
Can't tolerate abuse of office, armed insurgency, conservative bullying, consumer fraud, criminal conspiracy, identity theft, mass shootings, minority discrimination, mob violence, power hegemony, or thoughtless policy. They demand immediate amendment and indictment. But, otherwise, why sweat someone else's lifestyle?
For the most part, people forgive heinous abominations and prosecute venial sins. They allow murderous results and squabble over imagined insults. They don't properly prioritize because government, institutions, and news media condense crucial issues and present alongside trivialities, so minimize importance. Plus anything too complicated is hard to indict. Without infotainment, ratings would suffer, and share of advertisement fees decrease. Some stories never get told, because they'd detract from earnings of those who buy ad time. For examples, direct link between soft drinks and Type II diabetes, distracted driving collisions and deaths due to smartphone use, dozens of cancers and respiratory diseases related to petroleum use, and other issues industry doesn't want disclosed. Not only advertising time but national policies are bought by profitable corporations, particularly automotive, financial, insurance, medical, petroleum, pharmaceutical, utility, and weapon. Trillions from treasury were misspent on stuff nation didn't want and nobody really needed, while innovations were suppressed and stupid choices fostered on behalf of exclusive interests.
Never want to tout beauty or benefits of what you cherish, because greedy and needy will swoop in to exploit and trash it. Will always be a lot easier and safer to belittle and denigrate, lest you'll be accused of bad taste and lame choices. Anyway, when you survey surrounding culture and landscape there's really very little to recommend. Blacktop is boring, roads usually lined with strip malls, toxic expanses, and ugly wastelands.
Spent months compiling lists of public places. Parks prove residents want to improve ambiance of environments which they deem less than appealing or healthy. Pretty obvious they've got no control over business or private properties, only minor influence over mutually owned spaces. Planting trees seems to assuage their rage, but pleases arborists with commerce maintaining and trimming. So who pays? You guessed it.
What’s out there to enjoy? Not enough vistas of neatly kept farms or shorelines still exist. Quaint villages with nostalgic architecture don’t receive deserved maintenance. Winding narrow lanes through overhanging forests are disappearing. Brookside bungalows you’d see on Christmas cards may be mere facets of memories and figments of imagination ever since poles with drooping wires and sign pollution befouled landscapes. What have you done to preserve anything worth seeing? Once cash, funds, gifts or taxes are given, you have zero chance to recoup.
Midwinter brings blues, depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and scores of maladies remembered in melancholic songs. Cusp of a new year inspires hopeful resolutions to better oneself. “Art should improve your life, and who you are. It should lead to emotional and spiritual growth. Otherwise, why have it?” protested Billy Childish. But why suffer through self improvement when nobody values what you do? Because what one accomplishes against own expectations is all it matters. Readers will find and respect it. If one claims bicycling rates as a form of praying, then can’t disavow magic realism and mystic spiritualism. Never needed an otherworldly reason to improve self or trade fairly in any season.
