Us? Being Programmed? NM

Friday, December 29th, 2017

Please email me directly [icon above] for “autographed” International shipping rates or multiple orders.

Since we now have a Home in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a beautiful and interesting State we have started exploring, I have created a new website “The New Mexico Roads”. A Travel Journal. check it out.

The Photos? “Three Rivers Petroglyphs”… the Birth of Social Media pages…

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“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”

I have often received comments thanking me for my wisdom and always been thrown off by such which one should take as a "compliment". That is because, and especially these days, wisdom is a good thing. I have a habit of shortchanging myself. Humbleness is a huge aspect of Life I revere. However if so, what wisdom? If anything I would call it honesty. As to me, I thrive for honesty which at times actually upsets others while being too blunt even if I refrain myself quite often and stay quiet. Especially lately. Well, sometimes! I have not changed much these past 14 years since Lance has left us. The only aspect has been realizing that not everything is black and white. I have started looking into the gray areas of this Life of ours and yours. One might also be better off more often than not by not saying anything… a bit hard at times.

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I think this whole honesty and wisdom "thing" has to do with one’s conscience and awareness including and mainly assuming the responsibility of our actions whether ending up right or wrong. I sense lately people being right but their words and action cause much wrong and division amongst us. A very to me sad fact while putting aside and forgetting the core, the meaning of our presence here which is so short and called "Life". I lost some Friends lately due to their political influences on others, their stubbornness not seeing that even if they are right, they are causing so much harm within this present current labeled "society".

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So you are right… I am wrong…. or you are wrong and I am right… and so what? Can’t we still love each other? hold hands? cuddle? Are the righteousness or the wrong  have penetrated us to the point that it has instated hate and dislike for each other? Or is it that I am too naive and should accept that it is okay for others to hate me not because I don’t think like them but because I just don’t have an opinion as also because I refuse to spend my last years energy toward a current I cannot diverge this or that way. Let’s face it, we might think we are in control but truly we are not.

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There is a certain I don’t care attitude I will admit I have. It is I feel the one wrong maybe not so wise aspect of my life, but then again I look at it as my true vacation from Life! I know that if everyone lived as I do, politically if nothing else, the World would be chaos. But… Isn’t it already? Why not try to enjoy those remaining years. As I will be turning 70 soon I have no clue how many, whatever I will be allowed. I know the drill too well. Lance was only given 26 years. The more my time is passing by, the more I feel 26 years were so few. I have lived myself almost three times that amount. Where is the fairness? How can I care about the futility surrounding us?

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And then I stumble on an interesting article:
Former Facebook and Twitter Executives: “You Don’t Realize It But You Are Being Programmed”
Now… that finally is wisdom, honesty and assuming responsibility. 100%.

This is the year everyone—including founding executives—began publicly questioning the impact of social media on our lives.
I in advance apologize for some of the language they used, which however emphasize their strong points, and again I “myself” do fall in the gray area as I still use at times Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

As I quote:
Last month,
Facebook’s first president Sean Parker opened up about his regrets over helping create social media as we know it today. “I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because of the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other,” Parker said. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice president of user growth, also recently expressed his concerns. During a recent public discussion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Palihapitiya—who worked at Facebook from 2005 to 2011—told the audience, “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

Some of his comments seem to echo Parker’s concern [emphasis ours/mine]. Parker has said that social media creates “a social-validation feedback loop by giving people “a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever.”

Just days after Parker made those comments, Palihapitiya told the Stanford audience, “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” Palihapitiya said. “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem—this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”

It’s as if Parker and Palihapitiya got together at a bar that week to work out their inner demons. When the host asked Palihapitiya if he was doing any soul searching in regards to his role in building Facebook, he responded: “I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds—even though we feigned this whole line of, like, there probably aren’t any bad unintended consequences. I think in the back, deep, deep recesses of, we kind of knew something bad could happen. But I think the way we defined it was not like this.”

He went on to explain what “this” is:

So we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundation of how people behave by and between each other. And I don’t have a good solution. My solution is I just don’t use these tools anymore. I haven’t for years.

Speaking more broadly on the subject of social media, Palihapitiya said he doesn’t use social media because he “innately didn’t want to get programmed.” As for his kids: “They’re not allowed to use it”

Then he got even more fired up: “Your behaviors—you don’t realize it but you are being programmed. It was unintentional, but now you gotta decide how much you are willing to give up, how much of your intellectual independence,” he told the students in the crowd. “And don’t think, ‘Oh yeah, not me, I’m fucking genius, I’m at Stanford.’ You’re probably the most likely to  “fucking fall for it. ‘Cause you are fucking check-boxing your whole Goddamn life.”

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In the meantime I am enjoying “real” Social Media while meeting others on the streets of Alamogordo and the roads taken surrounding us…

Stay well, Ara and Spirit.

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2 Responses to “Us? Being Programmed? NM”

  1. Michael L Lloyd Says:

    I’ve thought this for many years. I have a very fleeting connection with unsocial media. I check on friends (the friend’s that I’ve hugged, shook hands with, worked with, etc) and family. I hope the articles go viral and people begin to understand what has happened to them. There is too much discourse over the tiniest of things that truly don’t matter. I’m glad I found my way back to your blog Ara. It’s brought some focus back to my life. Blessings to you and Spirit

    Mike

  2. Ara & Spirit Says:

    Well, you know, for the few years I have left as I have no idea how long I will live, priorities, honesty, real people… all have made way into my Life and taken Center Stage.
    Stop by sometime…
    Have a great day, Ara and Spirit

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