This is something that frustrates me.
For my entire life, although not daily these days, I have been judged on the colour of my skin , with the passing judgements nearly always negative. Judgement itself is not the problem, because we are humans with a developed prefrontal cortex, which means we are made to judge. It is what is being judged that is the problem though, because for most things that matter, skin colour is not a very good indicator of anything.
But it is of course not just skin colour that is judged, there are a whole lot of irrelevant attributes that people use to judge others and label themselves with. All of the identity labels people subscribe themselves to, are bullshit. Being gay doesn't make you special. Nor does being non-binary. They are just labels attached to your behaviours and preferences. And for that matter, as someone who loves women, being a woman doesn't make you special either. But this doesn't mean a gay, non-binary, woman, man, left, right, this, that and whatever can't be special, it is just that in order to be special, one has to do something special.
Yet, if we look at the public discourse, the majority of what people argue about is irrelevant, or tied to personal preferences that one wants to impose on the other, or take away from the other as the case may be. And the majority of people subscribe to these various narratives about equality and inequality based on ridiculous, irrelevant, useless traits that people don't choose, like skin colour, or sex. Arguing over gender labels is stupid.
But all of this isn't what frustrates me, because this is average human nature. Humans are pretty bloody stupid in my opinion - and I am a human too. What frustrates me is that we have been conditioned to argue on these trivialities, making them seem far, far more important than they actually are, instead of spending our time and energy fixing the problems that actually matter. The problems that if fixed, makes everyone's lives better, no matter what they want to call themselves.
And if people took a step back and used a modicum of the vast amount of brainpower we have evolved to have, even the biggest idiot would be able to see that all of this public discourse narrative, is engineered* to keep us busy, while the mechanisms of control keep churning, keep crushing, more and more value from us - while the things that matter to us, fall by the wayside or left for "later".
With later being when all the social arguments over irrelevancies are over.
See the problem?
What we are arguing about so strongly is useless, a lie we have been told that turn all of us against everyone else, across a myriad battle lines. But, it is all on the surface. All the things that need to be done though, aren't getting done, because they lay beneath the surface, in the mechanisms and systems, the levers and gears that are grinding on below.
And it annoys me.
I can't even talk to a lot of people these days, without having that sense of ridiculousness come to the surface, because what they want to spend their energy on, is so unimaginative, so aligned with the engineered narrative, so useless. I know, that sounds like I am an asshole, and perhaps I am, but I still talk to them about the things they are interested in anyway, at least to some degree. But, I am a firm believer in,
"If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you"
Yet, people are constantly looking to reduce the challenge, reduce the cognitive load to the point there is almost no load at all. But this process weakens us by making less load seem more challenging, so it ends up being a race to the cognitive bottom.
Mindlessness.
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolving a prefrontal cortex, only to not use it so that it will start to shrink again and perhaps one day, we can return to the single-cell organisms from which we came from. Even if we were all single-celled organisms, we could probably still find something useless to argue about.
Below the surface is a lot of machinery that is designed to control us. And those mechanisms are aligned to our human behaviours, and they know our preferences perhaps even before we do. Perhaps Instagram should do an "out of the closet" experiment, because I am pretty sure that with what they can predict through usage, they will be able to get a pretty accurate reading.
Do you think they aren't doing it already?
And it just becomes more data fuel to through onto the surface bonfire, for all the users to be manipulated into spending their time, while the machines of wealth generation and population control churn on underneath.
But, here we are, and most people will not spend too much time thinking about any of this, let alone changing their behaviours in their daily life to start getting serious about living, rather than serious about labelling. People will keep arguing wrongs and rights on the surface, while nothing changes below.
It doesn't change below, because it isn't challenged.
Think about it.
Taraz
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Social media on Web2 seems to incentivise the superficial as a knee-jerk response. Sex, skin color, or perceived political position. After all, if you disagree with me, you must be a stereotype of that other party, since there is only a binary choice.
I seem to get this most from the "progressives" who insist everything outside politics is a diverse spectrum, and they like to dismiss criticism because I'm a "straight white male" who can be disregarded due to my immutable characteristics. I find it strange that the people who espouse the ideas of equality I support use racism and sexism in their ad hominem responses instead of even acknowledging any other valid arguments could exist. Ideological diversity cannot be tolerated by people who claim to endorse every other kind.
The MAGA crowd is far from blameless, though, often leaping to the conclusion I'm some kind of degenerate communist who wants to see a crime wave sweep across the nation for suggesting laws could be bad and law enforcement can be unjust. I find this especially shocking because many of these same people would cheer when I opposed political overreach during COVID.
And then there's the conspiracy world. The earth is flat. The moon is a hologram. The moon landing was faked. Everything that happens across the world is part of an intricate choreographed plan by THEM. You know, THEY run the world. Who? Jews/Jesuits/Masons/Illumunati/SOMEBODY!
It's a perverse tribalism seeking excuses to other other people if they don't fit. There has to be a scapegoat. Difference is dangerous. Tribalism is perverting community. Closed-mindedness masquerades as principle.
But what the fuck do I know. I'm a privileged white male
The irony, eh?
Difference is dangerous, yet the entire premise of identity today is based on differentiation based on useless surface and irrelevant traits.
Pride is a sin, but let's find ever finer slices of labels to be proud about.
I am a disadvantaged brown male. We're both fucked.
If you believe in conspiracy theories, well, here's one: Most of the useless but polarizing, controversial, things that pop up in the news daily, are engineered by corrupt world leaders to take people's attention from things that really matter.
If a serious matter that concern our well-being comes up and is being debated by everyone, something that puts the politicians in a tight spot, soon a celebrity does one stupid thing, or stupid celebrity rivalries pop up, and boom, attention is diverted.
One way to control someone is to control what they hear or see. Because the sensory information is what drives them to act. And the politicians have mastered this so well.
Until we begin to think for ourselves and see through their veil-thin cunning, we will remain in the cages they've put us in.
I get the frustration with sensational news, but blaming every distracting headline on “corrupt world leaders” feels like an oversimplification. Media companies chase attention because it sells, not necessarily because politicians are pulling the strings every time a celebrity does something ridiculous. Sometimes it’s just algorithms feeding people what gets the most clicks.
It is a symbiotic relationship. They use each other.
I don't think that is a theory, it is just the way it is. The media is designed to leverage the surface layer, and the leaders use the media to keep the machinery running below.
You know lighter skin color is a genetic mutation as we moved further north. It was beneficial in areas with less sunlight.
My skin is clearly white but a slightly darker shade than most Russian or Ukrainian people. So that was frequently pointed out to me, even by my wife 😀
But you know what the reality is? The only color that really matters is Green: $
Did it come with penis size assumptions?
For now, though I am not sure for how much longer ;D
LOL, substitute the color of your future projected currency :)
We have a saying here, "Smart people don't argue". Because it turns out that the things we argue about the most are irrelevant. This kind of argument is most commonly seen in our region in various tea stalls where some lazy people sit all day and argue about various irrelevant things and sometimes even fight. Nowadays, our nature has become like this and we cannot judge what is right and we think that winning our own arguments is the real thing and we think that we are much more pure but we are actually stupid.
Spot on
I think it happens everywhere in the world, maybe not always at a tea stall. People who spend all their time doing nothing of consequence.
Absolutely spot-on. Most of the online discourse today feels engineered to keep people distracted and emotional instead of focused and impactful, especially on twitter, ive seen it occur many times. Sometimes politician in my country even pay these influencers to push irrelevant narrative. The real levers of change are buried under layers of noise. Until more people start looking beyond the surface, things stay exactly the same.
It is the modern-day gladiator match, using spectators as the sport.
I don't think you're an asshole. I agree with you that much of what we see on TV and read about is designed to divide us by talking about things that really don't matter.
What matters is helping others, stopping injustice and evil, ensuring people are treated kindly and fair, working together, and living in community with each other. We don't have to agree on everything to live in harmony with each other, but we do need to set aside differences of opinion in things that don't help anyone, and focus on doing what's right.
!BBH
!PIZZA
!ALIVE
You just don't know me well enough yet!
We don't even have to agree on what is right, we just have to do what is right by everyone.
Haha, maybe I don't know you well enough, but I highly doubt you're an unredeemable, terrible person. 😜
Yes, thank you! I couldn't have said that last part better myself!
!BBH
!PIZZA
That line, “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you,” is something I wish more people lived by. The world has become so comfortable with mental shortcuts that any form of real thinking feels like stress. We scroll, we react, we argue, but we rarely reflect. And this lack of reflection makes us easy to manage. The scary part is we don’t even notice it happening. Your post is a good reminder to stop letting convenience shrink our minds.
And even when we do, most will just move on with their daily habits anyway.
Few people have a deeper level of thinking. The amount of information a person must absorb and analyze is too great. Most people find it easier to trust the words of authorities.
I don't think what they must is too great, I think what they want is too great. It doesn't take much information or thought to do the right thing.
$PIZZA slices delivered:
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I think the ongoing arguments about identity labels often distract from important conversations regarding societal problems.
What you said about labels really hit me. We cling to them like trophies, but they don’t actually build anything meaningful. It’s our actions, not our identities, that create change. I think people hold onto labels because it’s easier, no challenge, no growth, no real risk. But life doesn’t move when we play safe. I wish more people cared about what they do instead of what they call themselves.
It is getting the feeling of being special, without having to be special. Lame.
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I think we are at the point where it is just a massive misdirect. We are arguing and wasting our time with the things they want us to so that we can't see what is really happening.
Watching people argue over tiny labels while bigger systems keep rolling makes the whole thing look off. Surface chatter gets loud and everything deeper gets ignored
Things just work out for people who seems to always smile, or laugh, and thus an arguement comes alive for them, and right on their behalf. These days, I see judgement is based on 'expectation of return' . So, the judgement exists around the fallen leaves, not the fruits. No one is anyone fruit, but until and unless one is things are different.
Cheers