The View from Behing the Fuel Tanks
Pretty provocative title for piece, hey? Kind of makes you think--hey, this guy may have something big to say about the common plight of the working stiff in the age of the Cyber-Predator, right? Well, as it turns out, maybe I do, perhaps I just do. You be the judge.
It's commonly known that the internet (written uncapitalized now) and social media, in general, are fabricated out of whole cloth by the propaganda arm of the trilateral commission in order to draw our attention from the real issues that threaten our very way of life. That our fixation on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are the equivalent to the free balloons and gladiatorial combat with promotions such as free autographed trident night at the coliseum, that the Roman Senate used to sedate their population, leaving them (the senate and general staff) free to make big money deals the Gauls and fake moon landings on public murals.
Fast forward 2000 years and look what we have, just look. I'm not really trying to make any specific point here. Actually, the media makes the point without me. All that crap about the social media threatening our way of life is just bullshit. It's obvious that social media IS our very way of life. It's what we prefer in place of the older way. In the western world, we prefer dealing with avatars and tropes to people. Much cleaner and less, well, complicated.
One of the larger dilemmas we have now is the realization that contact sports like football and NASCAR are inherently dangerous, and yet there just too important to stop. Imagine that paradox. Put yourself back into the bleachers at your first time watching gladiators in a Roman coliseum. There are music and flags and guys in cool armor and marching around and then there's fight in the middle of the ring where everyone can see. Wow, it's exciting and a little sickening too, and then after 15 minutes of spirited action, one of the guys breaks the other guy's shoulder with a huge hammer blow from dull sword. The injured man drops his weapon and the other guy knocks him down and jams the sword point right through the guy's neck. Blood spurts and you think "Holy Shit", and look around you. Not only is no one throwing up in disgust, everyone is cheering and waving and buying hotdogs. Meanwhile, the roadies are clearing away the remains of the opening act in preparation for really good stuff. You think to yourself, this is different, but maybe next time I'll bring the kids, they like balloons.
So OK, now we pay people big bucks to muscle up and spend their entire lives perfecting the skills of tackling, blocking and generally smashing into others hard enough to make the highlight reels, and this is, in fact, a really bad idea because real live people were never meant to do that. But, and here's the real problem for us, it's just too much fun for us to watch "other" people kill themselves as a sport.
You see the problem. It's something for our weekend or a get-together. We plan time off around this activity. We gather with snacks, alcohol sometimes, clothing that shows our proclivities, and watch a drawn out game of destruction between 2 groups of overly physically-qualified "athletes" try to seriously injure each other. We replay the best of the best injuries. We argue over who was injured the worst and who was the best at injuring others. We all stand for a moment and wobble on our feet when they carry someone off, out of respect for their sacrifice. We argue with each other and say that repeated collisions and concussions are not a problem, the brain likes to be sloshed back and forth, or that it's just the price of the game.
We'll spend millions, ten of millions, whatever it takes, to try to create a helmet that protects the brains during these collisions. Like that will solve the problems associated with inherently dangerous sports.
Our society values violence and safety. Our society is actively schizophrenic.
Well, I've beaten that to death.
More later.
***
Originally Published on Rising-Gorge on 6/12/2016
It's commonly known that the internet (written uncapitalized now) and social media, in general, are fabricated out of whole cloth by the propaganda arm of the trilateral commission in order to draw our attention from the real issues that threaten our very way of life. That our fixation on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are the equivalent to the free balloons and gladiatorial combat with promotions such as free autographed trident night at the coliseum, that the Roman Senate used to sedate their population, leaving them (the senate and general staff) free to make big money deals the Gauls and fake moon landings on public murals.Fast forward 2000 years and look what we have, just look. I'm not really trying to make any specific point here. Actually, the media makes the point without me. All that crap about the social media threatening our way of life is just bullshit. It's obvious that social media IS our very way of life. It's what we prefer in place of the older way. In the western world, we prefer dealing with avatars and tropes to people. Much cleaner and less, well, complicated.
One of the larger dilemmas we have now is the realization that contact sports like football and NASCAR are inherently dangerous, and yet there just too important to stop. Imagine that paradox. Put yourself back into the bleachers at your first time watching gladiators in a Roman coliseum. There are music and flags and guys in cool armor and marching around and then there's fight in the middle of the ring where everyone can see. Wow, it's exciting and a little sickening too, and then after 15 minutes of spirited action, one of the guys breaks the other guy's shoulder with a huge hammer blow from dull sword. The injured man drops his weapon and the other guy knocks him down and jams the sword point right through the guy's neck. Blood spurts and you think "Holy Shit", and look around you. Not only is no one throwing up in disgust, everyone is cheering and waving and buying hotdogs. Meanwhile, the roadies are clearing away the remains of the opening act in preparation for really good stuff. You think to yourself, this is different, but maybe next time I'll bring the kids, they like balloons.
So OK, now we pay people big bucks to muscle up and spend their entire lives perfecting the skills of tackling, blocking and generally smashing into others hard enough to make the highlight reels, and this is, in fact, a really bad idea because real live people were never meant to do that. But, and here's the real problem for us, it's just too much fun for us to watch "other" people kill themselves as a sport.
You see the problem. It's something for our weekend or a get-together. We plan time off around this activity. We gather with snacks, alcohol sometimes, clothing that shows our proclivities, and watch a drawn out game of destruction between 2 groups of overly physically-qualified "athletes" try to seriously injure each other. We replay the best of the best injuries. We argue over who was injured the worst and who was the best at injuring others. We all stand for a moment and wobble on our feet when they carry someone off, out of respect for their sacrifice. We argue with each other and say that repeated collisions and concussions are not a problem, the brain likes to be sloshed back and forth, or that it's just the price of the game.
We'll spend millions, ten of millions, whatever it takes, to try to create a helmet that protects the brains during these collisions. Like that will solve the problems associated with inherently dangerous sports.
Our society values violence and safety. Our society is actively schizophrenic.
Well, I've beaten that to death.
More later.
***
Originally Published on Rising-Gorge on 6/12/2016
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