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Thursday, October 07, 2021

Self-Inflicted Hysteria

Glenn Greenwald brought our attention to this bit of madness.

The Republican party allegedly believes in limited government. No authoritarian on Earth has ever wanted limits to their power, by definition. Whoever wrote this failed to apply critical thinking to their hypothesis. Then again, that's not unusual these days.

See also: 2016 Election, accusations of Russian meddling in.

I've been blogging a lot in the last few years about the irrationality of our Elites, specifically how they don't know how things work. I won't beat that deceased equine here, but instead say that I understand why it has happened because it has happened to me as well.

I use lists on Twitter to gather accounts under general categories. Among others, I have a politics list and a sanity list. My politics list is an endorphin pumper and my sanity list is just what the name implies - non-political, full of charming and beautiful content.

I read every post in my politics list. I mean every post. I rarely visit the sanity list. I go to the politics list for the rush I get from outrage. I know I'm doing it, too.

I would suggest that our current state of mania, particularly the one on the progressive side, is driven by the bubbles we inhabit. The rush that I crave doesn't encourage critical thinking, it encourages shrieking.

I've been thinking about taking a month-long digital fast, a la Dave Rubin's August tradition. Big Tech censorship is real - this blog has been muted by Google and my hits are a third of what they were just 6 months ago. It's not like many people read it or can even find it. I'm wondering what would happen to my thinking and emotions if I took a long break. 

I figure I could modify the fast and only post photographic content, which would force me to become more creative with my camera and Photoshop. That, at least, would be productive. I feel like I've pulled all the threads of my "why is this happening?" curiosities. It's getting harder and harder to write in the morning because everything has begun to feel like a repeat.

What's life like after you stop sniffing outrage glue?

2 comments:

  1. "What's life like after you stop sniffing outrage glue?"

    Pretty nice, actually. I stopped listening to the radio in my car a couple of years ago, after my daughters complained about having to listen to "news" all the time. Instead, I loaded it up with music CDs (which they like a lot better), and I find it is a lot more pleasant and relaxing.

    I never got started on Facebook or Twitter.

    The only more-or-less politically-related blog I regularly read, is this one. Which is why I comment here fairly regularly, but not elsewhere - I'm not spread thin over dozens of "outrage blogs". To be honest, the main reason I still even come here is that I regard us as old blogging buddies.

    While I do spend quite a bit of time online, the majority of it is reading things on atlasobscura.com, and a selection of technical topics from www.sciencedaily.com

    I do see news items, but don't really search them out.

    I can see where "rage surfing" can get addictive, so I've intentionally worked on other interests to avoid getting sucked completely into it. And overall, I think I'm a lot happier for it.

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  2. I spent 10 minutes on a rant, that well, rambled.

    I'll just summarize. I wish I could be on some sort of social media, but the evil far far outweighs the good.

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