The absurdity of Donald Trump

[Griff]

^this

It is only a tool. I used to imagine our government like a pendulum sensible voters pulling us back from too far left or too far right. Now a shit-ton of sensible people are on the sidelines and main street goes unrepresented while banking and other corporate interests have their way with the lawmaking and public purse. It pisses everyone* off and a certain percentage of pissed off people are willing to lay the anger off on folks who've only recently begun to make cultural inroads.

*not everyone

[Glinda]

Originally Posted by Griff

^this

It is only a tool. I used to imagine our government like a pendulum sensible voters pulling us back from too far left or too far right. Now a shit-ton of sensible people are on the sidelines and main street goes unrepresented while banking and other corporate interests have their way with the lawmaking and public purse.

Just like the government, the Internet is also a (potentially destructive) tool.

For most of my career, I've concerned myself with intense historical research. Pre-Internet, life was hell. There were libraries of course, but not every library had every book, so accurate and thorough research was a bitch. Post-Internet, I'm astounded every day by the incredible wealth of information and data I'm able to access, study, and put to use in the furtherance of my career (and my global awareness).

Unfortunately, it seems like 97% of our populace has become hopelessly addicted to using the incredible power of the Internet (and its enormous banks of information and documentation) to notify the planet that the guy in line in front of them at Starbucks this morning just farted.

As a nation, it feels like we've abdicated ourselves to the *ooh, sparkly!* no attention span, hive-mind, brain-numbing, ego-boosting properties of social media. This "Twitter-hypnosis" (so to speak) leads the mindless and easily led to accepting/believing the blasé lies shouted by a con-man president, and ignoring the unrestrained grab/break-it-while-you-can greed running rampant throughout our government and its institutions. In short, I feel like our supposedly educated and independent first-world populace has willingly embraced the insanely politicised Internet zombification, because thinking for oneself is too fuckin' hard.

I despair that there's any return from this. Realistically, I have about 10 years left on this earth. I'm glad I'm old, FFS.

Jesus.