To consider your online reputation as worth defending only encourages others to take perverse pleasure in denigrating it.
This is not the fault of social media; it does not divide us or make us worse.
The capitalist system we are in plays out as subversive competition on social media. Enjoyment through dissidence is encouraged, where trolling builds a reputation by destruction, which converts the troll into a king, who then must be subverted or torn down in turn.
In short, to consider the online self as an extension of your reputation (worth defending) is the trap into which we must not fall.
Tag: order
- Theme: Growth
Feedback from Systemic Distortion
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1–2 minutesThe problem with relying on feedback is that it interprets the event and modifies it into an "abstract" (simplified) form.
Feedback systems are "negative governors" that moderate "positive energy" to attain an equilibrium, but when feedback is distorted, your corrections are distorted.The key to destabilizing a system is not a direct attack but warping and weakening the means to sustain it.
Warping mediating abstractions (such as values or morals) also works on humans. Our social norms are crowdsourced, distort the norms and the values destabilize society.
- Theme: Systems
Reaching for extremes
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1–2 minutesIt is not one thing that causes somebody to go to extremes.
To retroactively attempt to assign blame to one event (one facet of culture or media) releases the rest of society from the persistent, low-grade traumatization that unravels people.Once it is systemically accepted to permit poisons as "normal," we can blame the victim.
And we must remember: most poisons offer dark pleasures, increasing the risk of dark actions.
- Theme: Systems
Freedom: trading order for chaos
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1–2 minutesTo give up order for chaos is to escape.
Our urge for freedom drives us from sanity (acceptance of normative order) towards psychopathy.
If all actions have a purpose (a motivating goal or utility, even if subliminal) then the rewards of psychosis are a less constrained individualism. - Theme: Self
The greater good
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1–2 minutesTo zoom out and see the larger picture over the long term is to abstract the individuals into system components.
Our current ideology, focused on the value of individuals, is at odds with the classic authoritarian willingness to sacrifice to progress.
Now progress must come through the demands of individuals: we must be slyly persuaded to believe in the “good” of the larger picture, subordinating ourselves into cogs determined to make more cogs.
- Theme: Culture
The cybernetic creative
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1–2 minutesCarl Jung speaks of the “daimon” of creatives, and the difficulty of balancing intense energies.
The daimon is not necessarily a demon, but a muse that compels. Ignored or frustrated the pent-up energy builds as anxiety and is often countered with self medicating in an attempt to feel normal.
Like any cybernetic system, positive energies must be regulated (released regularly) lest a tragic explosion occur.
- Theme: Self
numbness to life
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1–2 minutesWhen life is too good or rich for too long, we experience a complete flattening.
At the extremes, it is anhedonia: the inability to feel pleasure.
While pressures perpetually increase, humans function in cycles (or seasons), not in ever-escalating trajectories. Withdrawal from "the good" is necessary to reset and enable yourself to experience joy. - Theme: Growth
Disruption through embodied inversion
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1–2 minutesWhen you’re fed up and want to break the system, introduce and perform what is lacking.
Our current capital-driven system praises intelligence and polite compromise.
To counter it, you can manifest an inversion tactic that embodies disenfranchised values (for instance) by effectuating emotional irrationalities and unwavering integrity.