There is a legitimate concern that I have seen popping up all over the place lately, the dreaded information bubble. There is a growing realization that we only see what is put in front of us, and the result is a biased view of the entire world. The promise of the Information Super Highway was an interconnected communication era. People were going to have access to the vast stores of data. Towers of bunk would be burnt to ashes. The walls of ignorance and prejudice were to be reduced to rubble. At last truth would reign supreme. Intellects would merge into a communal cyber mind as boundaries fell like so many spent autumn leaves facing the winds of change. Freedom would sprout around the globe like spring daisies shooting up from the tundra thawing after the death of a darker age.
Although we have seen some sluggish movement in that direction, increasingly our world is tailored to us. Our daily ration of data is sorted, filtered, processed, and prepackaged for our convenient consumption by an algorithm inside of a shiny industrial server. The news rooms play to demographics, factoring in what someone of your race, gender, nationality, religious view, and political affiliation would want to hear about the world. Politicians have gerrymandered and jerry rigged the map to the point that most nations come off as paranoid schizophrenic suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Same page. It isn't even safe to put these people in the same room. We are becoming so polarized that we can't even agree with ourselves.
Marketing surveys, tracking bots, focus groups, "assisted" web search results, cookie supported targeted marketing, all with the sole purpose of telling you what someone else wants you to hear so that their agenda can be advanced.
And what do "we the people" do? We consume. Wholesale. We accept the picture of reality painted for us by a class of greedy grinning yes men. Their nodding bobble heads and blank eyes hypnotize as we sign a blank check, leveraging the future against current creature comforts. We keep our heads down, and our guards up. We don't buy slaves anymore, but third world slave made goods are a-ok. Straight off the freight ships, they come direct to our local economy crushing big box store as we point the finger at our neighbor's excess, and squabble over who should most feel the burden of our few pennies saved.
I can hear the rebuttal from the most deeply entranced of our once noble ranks, "But what would you have us do?"
Invest. Wholeheartedly and with wild reckless abandon, we need to invest in everything that really matters. Commit money, time, effort, supplies, or just under utilized thought to anything in your sphere of influence that actually might produce some sliver of benefit to the greater good. Check in on someone else's well being. Support local trade. Clean up a roadside. Better yet, don't throw your trash out to begin with. Get out and exercise. Grow something. Spend the extra coin on something that will last more than a week. That's how to save in the long run versus shopping at planned-obsolescence-co. Make something useful. Let's teach our kids something new today. Support them in learning a practical skill. Hell, go nuts and learn something ourselves. Educate the masses!
Most of us have, at our fingertips, a device that provides access to a near infinite amount of information about anything and everything. What do we do with it? We google and ogle boobs, cats, and celebrity gossip. I now fully comprehend the phrase WTF. Any down moment could be instantly redirected from complete pointless loss to the ignition of that blinding flash of insight that tears you out of the youtube addled delirium, and sets your feet on the path to changing the flow of the space time continuum! Hello, McFly, anybody home?
Find a cause, a purpose, some meaning, and then commit. Be the spouse, parent, boss, or employee that you would want to have with you in the foxhole. None of us can make the world what it needs to be, but we can work out our own bugs. If all the little gears start spinning together, just think of what this massive cognitive machine cold do. Right now, go spend five minutes being productive. Fight apathy. Reject mediocrity. Look over the screen, and observe what is going on around you. I promise the celebrity feline with the nice rack will be here when you get back, and we will all have that much nicer a place to call home. Let's all head out together, awake, refreshed, and driven.
