When Is Enough, Enough?

I don’t write much anymore. It’s not for a lack of things to say, to be sure, but rather I find myself yet again questioning the merit of any of it. Not just my thoughts, but my potential impact, the degree of relevancy readers may derive- any of it.

I... I think it’s largely pointless. Yes, even this meaningless missive that scant few will read. But I’m bored, and undoubtedly some few will be, too, and so we shall examine these whimsical and not necessarily sequential thoughts of mine.

On Form and Nature: the form of a thing isn’t necessarily the nature of a thing, and it is the nature of a thing that is the greater. Form gives birth to function, and function is necessary, but nature cannot be disguised.

And so it is with astroturfers online, the so called narrative control army being fielded by various interests to and fro. Their form is that of people who simply want to be a part of the conversation but their nature is one of duplicity and self interest above all. One needs only pay attention to their framing of conversation and the direction their words take you to identify them. In short, you will know them by their rhetoric.

While a lengthy discourse is well warranted on the topic, it would take me a significant amount of time to write up a fully exhaustive series on the myriad methods and techniques of astroturfing. Maybe at a later date, but it behooves the savvy reader to research such things on their own, as one is able and want. The techniques of online manipulation, censorship, misdirection, and mis/disinformation is truly staggering. Unprecedented in modern history, to be sure. Our own “government” waging a propaganda war on its “own” citizens.

There is a deep sickness that has taken root in this country, one that was allowed to fester grow all but unchallenged. One who’s removal the current system would never survive, and we’d be all the better for it.

I do not claim to see a day or time when such a transformation might happen, or, indeed, if such ever will. I see a sickness of the spirit of humanity pervasive everywhere. There is no aspect of our nation, of our cultures, of our lives that this sickness hasn’t impacted. It is there, at work, shaping us from the moment of our birth and our parents strive to shield us from it as much as they can, but alas... it is there. We have forgotten what it means to be human. Not through any fault of our own, but through social engineers, the system is now a negative feedback loop- self perpetuating.

It can end. It can be ended. But I don’t know if it ever will, and that thought chills me to my core.