I'm an Idiot Moving Forward Facebook and Social Media

in #life8 years ago

I'm an Idiot Moving Forward
If you read my earlier posts, I am having some problems, but feel like a bit of an idiot posting them here, at the same time, maybe it helped me a bit.

I had a bit of a win at the accountant the other day which has allowed my wife and I to eliminate one of our debts. So we are cash flow positive and can afford meals, yay. Having this time has allowed me to do two things. One, come up with a solid plan for our future, two, have a think in what direction I am going to go with this posting nonsense. I didn't really know what to expect this platform to be like and probably should have looked in to it a bit.

There are a few things that concern me happening here in Australia and across the globe really and perhaps I would like to report on them from time to time to raise awareness of them. Traditional media has done a lot of damage to society in the name of social justice and in the name of our respective governments. We are a trusting bunch down under too, after all why would they lie to us? I have noticed some resistance here but it is definitely not mainstream thinking. I think that Americans have a healthy dose of skepticism of their government, where we would almost protect them to some degree. Sure we like to take the piss out of them on a superficial level, but at the end of the day we still vote em in and continue our week. I noticed a change though at our last elections and during the observation of the trump campaign. Even to the point where we are starting to say "hang on a minute enough is enough, what the hell is going on here".

Some of the topics I want to address here, are as follows:

  1. Rise of socialism and Marxism here in Australia.
  2. Curtailing of Free Speech.
  3. Media, and how it distracts and obfuscates the nation.
  4. Australian/World politics with respect to its effect on Australia.
  5. Psychology of people choosing safety over freedom.

I am, by know means an expert on any of these above, what I just want to provide another source of information and hopefully learn a lot to from others posting their opinions and thoughts.

Facebook and Social Media
This is just going to be my opinion, here goes:
I personally hate social media and don't use it. The reasons for this are they compiling a ridiculous amount of information about you over such a long time they can almost no what you are thinking, and what do you get for it? Some oxytocin when somebody likes you dinner photo. Dumb. I think most people have progressed to the stage where they are using the likes of facebook to show how much their life is better than yours, or marketing some bullshit to you and their friends (a bit disingenuous but hey). Unfortunately it is a great tool for organising groups for an event and staying in touch with people overseas, so I see why people use it. However it is a raw deal for the users, and they are making a packet off of you.

I would imagine most people here already agree, however there is no real alternatives for you in terms of socialising. I would think that most will still have your accounts, maybe use them less. It just surprises me that the attitude is, "We want to socialise, we don't care about our privacy, just let us socialise". Losing your privacy is losing your freedom, I can't understand why people want to give this away. I notice a bit of shift from face book, the number youtube videos critical of facebook seems to be a bit of a trend.

Really all I need it to do is:
Allow me to IM my friends and organise events, anything else is garbage. For IM on my phone I use "Signal".

Let me know what you guys think below, do you really need social media to stay in touch with your friends, and if so what would you want the platform to look like? Is privacy important to you? I think some sort of peer to peer tool for this task would be good for me, let me know if you know of any?

LB

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Lol. I think it is funny how just moments ago, I left facebook for this platform. I have been getting tired of Facebook for years. I joined back in 06...when it was just for college students. It was fun and exciting then. Now it has become nothing but a tool for corporations to promote their crap against our will.

Its like everyone on there is doing things just for the attention...then when you try to talk about real world events...you cannot even have a serious discussions about real world events without being labled "tin hatted" or "conspiracy nut case"...any way I hope to hear more about your point of view.

Ha ha agree, people should get back to the real world. Before its too late!!!, haha na jokes. What worries me is when some of these conspiracies turn out to be true. This platform is my first attempt at social media, so wish me luck.

Some good stuff here.

I personally still use facebook, reluctantly. I don't really post anything, and only use the messenger and groups features because that is just the status quo for doing those things. And it is regrettable that that's the case, because privacy is definitely lacking on most mainstream social networks.

I used to think there would be some chance of an 'awakening' to the ridiculous power these organisations have, but I now think, though non-zero, that chance is much lower, since people actually seem to value convenience and latent entertainment over privacy.

The GNU project has GNU social, which is a decentralised platform aiming to be twitter-like, but I was never a user of twitter in the first place and it hasn't really achieved the critical mass required to be well used.

If you can get your friends to use IM, that's neat, but I know that my friends can't be bothered; they'd rather use facebook messenger, and I think that until people have their values set straight (with privacy higher-valued), we will be stuck with ever-growing social network monopolies. I'd love to be proven wrong.

I'm getting on a bit so most people think I must just be too old. I have noticed that at uni (I am a mature age student, that's code for unemployed) everyone wants to contact me through FB, I just refuse. Yeah the monopolies are my concern, all you have to do is merge them with government and voila! 1984. Thanks for your comment.

I use signal as well. Good option, but none of my friends/family use it, so nothing is encrypted. Also, it won't allow you to screenshot, which can be annoying. Still, I can see why the feature is there.

Just works in place of the default message app, I only have a few close people who use it.