The Beautiful Panic.com

The all encompassing battle for influence has been raging since one monkey told the other to fuck off. Social media has put it’s much revered power in the hands of everyone. Evolving the fight at warp speed. Is it too much, too soon; or exactly how it’s supposed to go?

I have this half-baked theory. Fuck half-baked, this shit is still raw. It is a narrative of the evolution of the internet and it’s effect on the world. (mainly America)

The theory:
The general public, through the internet, might have contracted a new psychological virus known as “Artificial” Intelligence.(Just humor me.) A disease where people can theoretically know it all,(thanks to their phones) and as a consequence; behave like they have nothing to learn from anyone they don’t respect or aspire to be like.

This digitaly created psychological disease. A parasite that makes us question our institutions highest truths, and thus threatening to bring down governments and economies all over the world. Has done all of this, only a decade after it was disseminated across the globe. It’s billions of interconnected seeds sprouting into flowers of contempt and anger towards the system. This is what happened, right? Maybe it was the weed or something. Anyway.

I started thinking of it’s current effect on our society. My thoughts, like everything else in this essay, are wild generalizations. Psychotic leaps to conclusions that seemingly have no connection with the subject. Yet I persist in this deluded search for a grand narrative in a haystack of unconnected and indecipherable events. Events that might or might not have any connection.

So as fruitless as it may be, I ask myself; How have smart phones contributed to the chaos affecting our global society today? Consider what was popular in our digital playground just a couple of decades ago. The internet was so young, everybody wanted to connect. Be friends. “Will you be my Myspace friend?!” Like a bunch of kids in kindergarten.

Around the world, the youth(25 and under) quickly became the largest portion of inhabitants on the net. (and still are) When this happened, it became obsessed with sex, money, violence, and death.(in my opinion)

At the beginning of the last decade, the population of users exploded. Politics became the internet’s new toy. But the youth is not able to calmly debate. To respect the necessity of some of the old ways as they scrutinize them. They hold the old political, societal, or economic point of view as evil. They want action. They want it now. Even if it breaks the toy. In a system built on making sweeping changes as difficult as possible, we want reform as quickly as McDonald’s hands us a hamburger.

Or was it a foreign government, disguised as the right or the left? Starting shit to destroy this and any other country that they can. I personally think that they would go after the young tastemakers. Design divisive viral campaigns that would attract artists and athletes. The people who influence the young and impulsive.

Either way, racial frictions and radical political ideologies have also found a place in this new generation. The adversarial groups involved in these issues followed. Rebranding themselves with new names and hashtags.

These fringe groups of the past recognized the power in our “new brains” and infected it with their forgotten ideas. Because they were forgotten, they seemed fresh. Or maybe they were simply attracted to the sosh media like everyone else and couldn’t help but post there radicalisms.

These forces have grown like tumors from inside the “brain” in our pockets, into our society. The influencers of the past have followed the river of mass influence, from print, to radio, to television; all the way to it’s new location… Twitter.

All the old institutions entered the chat. The place that was obsessed with connecting everyone was infiltrated by a divisive force. Recruiting and fighting it out in this new digital battlefield against familiar and unfamiliar foes. Liberals vs. Conservatives vs. The extreme left vs. The extreme right. A fatal four-way for the soul of world.

None of these groups would have wasted a second on the internet three decades ago. Now they live on the web. Bringing their divisive rhetoric into our smart phone dimension. A Pandora’s box, with the Pandora app in it, playing “I’d like to change the world” in the background.

After we settle into our two brain society. We might realize that this is a better version of our democracy. One where the extremes have a seat at the table. I believe there’s a danger in regressing towards the institutions ruling in obscurity. Opening the door to the paranoid schizo mob and allowing them in the decision making will keep the old rulers in check.

I’m not advocating violence. I’m simply suggesting that radical groups on either side shouldn’t be completely ignored. I don’t agree with silencing any group, no matter how bat-shit crazy the members are. Because of the expedient nature of our new technology. If we normalize the censorship of these groups. The new heads of communication could silence anyone they see fit to silence. If they become corrupt, they will use this power to censor anyone trying to expose them.(Sound familiar?)

Hopefully the majority of the content will begin to reflect a more empathetic society. It will begin to distribute wisdom. It will make fashionable, spirited debate. Install compassionate disagreement as a trait in our young ones. Not judge people on their faults, no matter how repulsive or insane they may be.

We cannot afford to go back to state sponsored truths. We must have the shit-show of false information out there and let the public decide what the truth is. If we are destined to fall under the freedom to choose your own facts; then so be it. We cannot regulate truth, a consensus must be organically reached on what is true, and the opposing views should be around to build their case.

If y’all don’t like it, suck a dick.