How Much Does Technology Control You?
Asking for a friend. But have you ever truly thought about it? Technology in the modern world has been weaponized to affect everything you see, hear, and believe and then tells you how to interpret it. It started decades ago within the industrial media complex when people still believed that apparatus to be a truthful institution of journalism. Most of us know better these days, although millions are still hypnotized by it. And if it’s not in the newsroom, it’s on late night TV, comedy sketches, sitcoms, music videos, film, advertising commercials, even videogames. Anything you consume can be touched by it. True escapism becomes more difficult by the day if you can’t simply shut off your TV or phone.
That’s why I have a very strict doctrine as to what I allow myself to consume if I consume anything at all. Corporate media is one of the biggest shock and awe organizations we have in the west. It has the crippling effects on the mind that typically lead to depression, despair, helplessness, etc. It’s extremely unhealthy to consume and in my opinion, mental cancer. It’s bite sized pieces of various degrees of fact, laced primarily with bias and misinformation. That’s how it’s designed. People argue in online comments that their media bias is better than your media bias. This somehow makes them correct, and you incorrect which is incredibly strange. Loyalties to one corp or another have materialized in the cyber landscape.
Clown world is a thing for the simple fact that if you’re not on the outside of the tent looking in, you’re part of the circus. The media is so powerful, it’s made lifelong friends, family, and acquaintances cease speaking to one another for holding some random opinion over another. That opinion becomes gospel. It’s had the very real outcome of people siding with the state over their own loved ones. This is something that if mentioned just two decades ago, people would’ve called you insane. That insanity is now reality, all run by clever algorithms to keep you clicking so advertisers can get richer.
Ultimately, despite what Gilded Pendulum does, which is sell powerful tech solutions for businesses to make their lives easier, one thing we don’t do is sell invasive technology that diminishes your ability to think and create. Much of my digital musings as I call them, are often times cautionary tales about tech, not necessarily how great it is. The majority of what I myself sell here is Unified Communications in the form of phone deals. I also dabble in cybersecurity and other things, but nothing that I feel is mentally harmful to my clients like social media certainly is. It’s no surprise that all the big tech CEO’s don’t let their children even use it, but they want you on it daily.
Many people think that the greatest weapons of mass destruction are all sitting in a missile silo somewhere waiting to be launched, but it’s not. The greatest weapon of mass destruction is likely sitting in your pocket right now, waiting for you to power on the screen and consume content. Many are addicted to this device called a smartphone. It beckons to them constantly. It sends out an audible notification to release dopamine in your brain, “I got a text message or a reply to something I posted on twitter!” Or if you use things like TikTok, it destroys your ability to focus or concentrate longterm while constantly presenting you with non-sensical lunacy daily, which then normalizes that spectacle in your brain as a typical daily occurence. Sadly, that may not be far from the truth.
What is Real? What Is a Clever Algorithm?
So I urge anyone reading this, do yourself and your family a big favor and disconnect. Don’t allow smartphones or tablets at the dinner table. Force everyone to unplug every night a few hours before bed. Don’t look for the latest news story or trending video. None of that matters, it never did. It’s simply there to keep you engaged, sap your motivation, and keep your mind dormant and full of garbage you don’t need. I use my smartphone for business, education, and investments. That’s literally it. I know what it is, and I know what it can become if I let it. You can get lost in the abyss behind the screen.
Stay safe and be healthy. Experience life, don’t become hypnotized by someone else’s Instagram. Most of what you’re looking at is probably fake or rented to build followers. Become the hero in your own movie. Build the life you want, not what your TV or tablet says you should be. Build your empire, create your own positive daily narrative, don’t accept mediocrity, and dare to create. Think outside the box and stay foolish. Never lose your sense of wonderment. When you separate yourself from your digital screens, you’ll find the world is still an amazing place to experience. I hope you take advantage of it all.
Lastly, I greatly look forward to the decentralized web. I hope it will cease being a big corporate landscape of static websites with no creativity, to a vibrant presentation platform much like the web of the early 2000s. Far less censored and much more free to open conversation. Your private data is your own and not the property of a data merchants. If people are going to consume web content, I hope this is the environment they can do it in.
As a wise man once said, “The Internet needs a new renaissance.”
Indeed it does.
