In the current Orwellian, Trumpistani, Post-BREXIT, Post-Truth, Post-Satire, Post-Apocalyptic socio-political cultural landscape, it is vital right now that we netizens of all backgrounds and persuasions engage in rational, truthful discussion with each other – as difficult as this can often be.

Humanity has been gifted the most awesome communications tool ever created, but thus far we have been using it mostly to share pictures of cats and other funny but pointless memes…

meme

/miːm/

noun

noun: meme; plural noun: memes

1. 1.

   an element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
2. 2.

   an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

Memes (especially funny ones) are powerful.

The internet offered us all the ability to express ourselves with unprecedented nuance, which we were woefully underprepared for. This new technology has revealed an overwhelming plethora of beliefs, ideas and perspectives, challenging everything we thought we knew about the human condition.

Hence cat pics, trolls, meme wars and now, ‘Fake News’…the latest phase of the establishment resisting our rising consciousness.

The difficult conversations which need to happen right now are being made yet more difficult by the phenomenon of ‘ideological echo chambers’. Harmonious group of people developing tunnel vision by virtue of social media marketing algorithms. 

Overall awareness suffers when people have a narrow information base. The longer we spend in our safe little bubbles reinforcing our beliefs about the nature of reality, the harder the conversations which we urgently need to have outside those bubbles become; the more entrenched and dogmatic we become in our beliefs and the more we resist engaging in anything but vitriolic expressions of fear and hatred towards those who would dare disagree with us.

As Adam Curtis puts it, people have come to thinking that the point of it all is to simply agree or disagree with things.  So, we either hide in our ‘safe spaces’, or argue with people who disagree with us, within prescribed parameters of a controlled debate.

Constantly.

Meanwhile, multiple apocalyptic, extinction level crises are still converging.

***If you’d rather keep your head in the sand, stop reading now***

Continue reading Seize The Memes of Production!