“I think I’m addicted to social media.”
This descent to madness was gradual. What started with “How much harm can this do? Let me spend a few more minutes on it” turned into “I’d rather be on YouTube than hang out with her, she can’t possibly be more interesting than all these clips on my ‘Watch Later’ list”.
That toxic thought spread its tentacles to the other parts of my life too until everything I used to love and enjoy — reading that fed my brain, conversations that fed my soul, exercise that fed my body — were laid by…
A couple of days ago I read an article on how “optimization” is creeping into every aspect of our lives. The article states:
“Everywhere from digital nomad gurus to the false prophets of productivity, we are taught how to optimize every aspect of our existence. You can find carefully scripted routines for your mornings, your sex life, and your bowel movements. There is no aspect of human life that you couldn’t be doing better.”
This culture of optimization has given birth to a most ridiculous metric — the number of books you can read in a period of time.
I…
There are broadly two ways you can convince someone you’re knowledgeable about a particular field.
- Create confusion. Usually done when you liberally use the field’s jargon to the point where they don’t know what you’re talking about but the confidence in your voice leads them to assume you do.
- Create understanding. Boiling down the complexities of your field to a language they can understand and by doing so, igniting their awe and curiosity until the passion in your voice convinces them you’re an expert.
While both methods may achieve your desired outcome of being seen as an intellectual in their eyes, only one of them leaves a lasting impression.
“Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification” — Martin H. Fischer
Many of us spend upwards of 6 hours online either for work or play. Let’s assume that during these 6 hours we consume a minimum of 20 pieces of content an hour whether it’s videos, photos, articles, statuses or comments.
20 pieces an hour across 6 hours is 120 pieces a day. Across a week that’s 840. Across a month that’s 3,650. And across a year that’s 43,800.
And that’s just based on my conservative estimate.
Regardless, that’s 43,800 times your mind can be influenced in various ways. Just as a movie can make you feel the pain or happiness…
In the days of old, there lived the seers.
Men and women who were gifted in the art of turning a tarot card, looking deep into a crystal ball, stirring wet tea leaves in a cup, or throwing twigs on the ground, to tap into the collective conscious of the Universe, look into the past, read the signs of the present, all in order to forecast the future.
Those who got it right and predicted the advancing of the enemy or the birth of a heir were rewarded with riches. …
Fake news is a ridiculously profitable industry.
Why?
Because the margins are incredible! You don’t need a team of well-connected journalists spending too much time fact checking before publishing. You don’t need highly-paid editors ensuring compliance to basic morality and media ethics. And you certainly don’t need to bother with quality over quantity.
All you need is a simple blog/website, a Facebook page or Twitter account to distribute and promote your articles, and a bunch of pseudo-journalists blessed with a fake-news-writing ability. An ability that is quite easy to develop.
Stefan Jaro
There’s always insight at an intersection.
