Never did I imagine that the question of why the real world matters would come up as a topic of conversation. I appreciate how much depth of thought comes through in your posts. I often find myself torn between despising the technology that I'm using now to respond to your blog post and feeling profoundly grateful that it offers thinkers and philosophers like you and others a platform to share such important ideas.
I've been grappling with this myself! The mandate saga has had me clinging to Substack like a lifeboat, as it is the only place where I have been able to find people who have been able to articulate and share my fears about it all, and where I have received and been able to offer solace and support. I have spent more time here in the last three months than I have in my "real" world, which is not ideal and which I fervently hope is only temporary. And that I can resume all of the activities that give me deep joy in the "real" world with the same focus that I used to - my creative and physical pursuits, as well as my relationships, which have been suffering (many, because I find myself on the other side of the divide). And yet, as you say, it has been a surprisingly gratifying experience to discover just those people you describe - people who are thinking and writing very meaningfully about things that matter, and which help us to make better sense of our corporeal and spiritual worlds and the suffering which we are experiencing. Perhaps the balm is that we know the technology is merely the medium by which we have connected with each other, but that, unlike the dopamine-stimulating fake-verse platforms which seek to enhance and replace human experience with something unattainable, interacting here in the manner in which we do is not exactly the same? We aren't looking to escape our flesh-and-blood worlds. Here, we know there are other flesh and blood humans who are struggling, grappling, in pain on the other "end" of the fibre cable, and who are engaging in that most human act of all - empathy.
I agree on Substack!!! It's also the only place, aside from Brownstone Institute, where I can find actual data and read actual analysis. It's a small corner of sanity in an absolutely insane world.
I still remember the data coming out of Italy the first week of April 2020. I was so grateful and relieved children and young adults were not being impacted. I looked forward to all the schools opening. I was ready to face the world (I am now 39) with my husband (42) and our kids while I hoped my parents stayed in a few weeks for the worst of the initial outbreak to pass (knowing especially my dad simply wasn't going to hide from anything - most especially his grandkids). When I saw that data completely ignored, I was shocked. I am shocked daily. I am confused. I feel like I am living in some terrible dystopian nightmare.
Is this what WWI was like? Watching the world get destroyed for no reason? Watching people encourage their young sons to sign up to die for nothing but the narratives of powerful idiots? When will this end? When will sanity return? When will truth and outcomes matter? When will the masses stop doing the bidding of arrogant fools who seek only power?
Did these people never learn about the Byzitine Empire? How is it bad for the Taliban to dehumanize women by covering their faces, but ok to do it to 2-year old's? How have people missed the massive mental health crisis in children? and adults? How have they missed the behavior issues? the lack of motivation? how do they blame my kids for being "privileged" for the problems they are imposing on their own children (aka we are married parents, they go to conservative private school, private clubs, and the ability to travel)?
I voted for school choice, open businesses, uncovered faces, real educational opportunities, to follow the actual data, a functioning economy. They very people who blame my children for existing, voted against all of those things. Do they genuinely believe the world would be better if only more kids were harmed? If only more kids were isolated and discarded? If only more kids mutilated their genitals? If only more kids were pro-segregation racists?
The narrative of the powerful today is beyond insane. Still, the most disturbing part is how many will sacrifice their own children, their own flesh and blood, their own babies, to this plain insanity.
Thank you. I think my main issue with arguing about which is "better" - whether talking about covid policy, gender, Marxism, Metaverse, or so much else in our world - is this delusional attempt to remove things from reality. All of these things - be it theories or metaverse type video games - impact our singular reality. They are not separate from it, but rather parts of it.
Metaverse does not have a positive impact on the individuals that immerse themselves in it because it doesn't improve individual lives or our society. It's just an addictive, and often destructive, video game. Arguing about if its "better" implies it can be separated from reality. It can't. It can provide a mental escape from other parts of reality, but it's not some separate thing or existence that one can choose over some other reality. All any of us can choose is how we spend our time in our one life.
I made a longer rambling comment about this, but I think the big issue is really this attempt to separate the fantasy from reality when it's sort of a silly question because we can't actually choose to replace our lives with the fictional life of a metaverse character. We can't choose to live in the Matrix pods because it doesn't actually exist. It is actually other humans seeking to trap our minds in delusions. We still need food, clothing, shelter, and other humans to live. (Full disclosure, I deleted Facebook over a year ago when I recognized this insanity).
“Arguing about if its "better" implies it can be separated from reality. It can't”
BINGO! Just “ as a man imagining he is a woman does not make him one” so a human deluded into thinking a tech toy connected to his sense perceptions and or centers of sense perception, is the real world, is living a lie, a not truth, a false perception driven by another human using said addiction and delusion for control of you. ( not fun, not cool, and not conducive to long term happiness.)
Just to "flesh" it out more (!), this has had me pondering about why we read books. Books are also a transport to a different place. An escape from reality. A door into another's thoughts. A place of dreams and yearnings. It could be argued that this virtual world is merely an extension of that. Hm. But I don't think that people read books with a mind to replacing or supplanting their physical reality. We escape, but always return to live our imperfect lives. A bit more enriched from what we've read, perhaps, but still compelled to engage with our lives again and to carry on striving. For not to do so is just delusion.
Argh, yes! Enrichment may not always be the aim or result. Negative predelictions may be tipped over the edge. It's the age-old chicken or egg. But do we banish ourselves forever to a "safe" virtual world, never to return to try and enact our dreams and desires or - god forbid - worse, in our real life? Or accept that our real world is fraught with uncertainty and risk and peril - but also with beauty and joy and possibility, and that to turn from it forever might as well be death?
The option to return or not isn't available in the Metaverse either - it's just a fantasy game - you can't actually become your Metaverse avatar. I think that's the reminder we need to give to kids and young adults if we are to save any of them from finding this out the hard way.
To add to it I would say this - there is less of an attempt to pretend like reading a book can somehow replace reality. Immersing ourselves in fantasy has long been part of the human experience. That fantasy gives un insight into human thinking, goals, fears, aspirations, wants, and needs. But you made an important point - people don't actually mistake immersing themselves in a book with replacing reality. They view it as enhancing their lives and being a fun temporary mental escape (which I think books do provide).
Metaverse. like a book, cannot replace reality. Playing in the Metaverse is a choice we can make in how we spend our time - one that happens to be destructive most of the time. This destruction gets hidden by pretending that it is somehow separate from reality, or that it can be "better" than reality. Even if metaverse is better, can't magically become Metaverse avatars.
As to your comments on books - this is also the problem with Karl Marx - who wrote books not computer game codes. Marxists insist on pretending as if the fantasy outcome the theory proposes IS reality or can somehow become reality if they only believe enough. Because they are immersed in this fantasy of how society "should" be, they excuse themselves from accountability for the destruction their policies actively cause to the society they are actually imposing these policies on. It doesn't matter if the world Marx envisions sounds like its better, the reality is the world Marx envisions is pure fantasy, and the policies he proposes have been tried and universally resulted in real human suffering and misery in the actual societies that attempt them.
Metaverse is more an extension of Marxism than some kind of new existence in that the proponents create a false dichotomy of creating a "better" world in metaverse, while ignoring that reality that it's just a fantasy game. Metaverse is not separate from or able to replace reality, it's just an addictive fantasy game people can choose to spend their real time playing, and even if it feels good while playing it, it can't undo the real-life outcomes of wasting too much time immersed in it.
My guess is the vast majority of us on here see things the way you do. But the problem Toby poses - as I see it - is that the metaverse may, by its nature, metasticize the problem of having some people confuse art immersion with reality (the Hinckley problem, so to speak)? Like a cult. Hence the challenge of putting our finger on WHY, exactly, an individual who believes their metaverse existence is preferable to being in reality is 'wrong.'
I spend hours on substack because its a refuge. Whereas my wife spends hours mostly in novels of fiction. Occasionally with non-fiction like "Killers of the Flower Moon" which was described by Dave Eggers New York Times Book Reviews, "a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history". Soon to be a movie for the public to see the most monstrous crimes in American history.
There's irony, "We are living the MOST MONSTROUS CRIME IN AMERICAN [AND WORLD] HISTORY," but to get her or to read any substacker, not going to happen. Or to get my son to venture out of the video game matrix for some element of the world he seems bent on not seeing.
The irony is that the New York Times Book Review will not review RFK Jr. "The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health".
The inconvenience of certain truths and false narratives.
You only have to look at how empty, sad, and meaningless the lives of those who spend too much time in the virtual world are to know that the real world is better.
Very much like how empty, sad and meaningless the lives of drug addicts are. It's really the same thing.
I agree, for the most part. I say this as someone who is on Twitter far too much the past year. I have dialled back FB and was never a Second Life or Simms fan. My friend's marriage ended because her husband (another PhD) had an addiction to Second Life. But, the first time I was on Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom, I was blown-away. It felt like I had died and was experiencing an out of body moment. That went away after the next 5 or 6 trips. My brain would basically be craving another experience, if I had access. So the brain-addiction part is certainly something that can't be overlooked (although I still choose reality if I still get a choice - trans humanism = evil).
Catherine Austin Fitts has also warned about the dangers of Entrainment in several of her lectures. It's the ability to put someone's brain into a very positive state for whatever is being pitched and is done, I believe, electromagnetically. It's worth taking a look at her past issues of the Solari Report to get information about this. What you describe her reminds me of it and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's used in theme parks, casinos, and in the metaverse.
Spontaneity, mystery, intimacy, achieving wisdom with age, hopefully, children, play, creativity, problem-solving, fun, love, healing, range of emotions, real food, depth, insight, learning, nature, discovery, friendship, evolving with challenges like we must do now
Amen! However, it's not just texting that keeps people from talking. It's everything "on line." FB, YT, Twit, Google, Pinterest, e-mail, this, playing any kind of game, porn, watching TV. It all makes you lonelier and seems to drive "you" to do more of the same, seeking comfort for the loneliness.
In a well designed Metaverse there will be "freedom" that is only limited by ones imagination. I suspect you're older than 17 and like me did not grow up with the technology of today. Kids have already been partially living in a metaverse. Making the step to a full Metaverse isn't that big for them.
I worked with quite a few 20-30somethings during 2020. They all were profoundly confused at first, why I, a youngish 44yr old would object so vehemently against the concepts of great reset, tranhumanism, tyranny, socialist privacy etc. They were genuinly puzzled as to why these were not benign in my view, particularly when sold as saving humanity, stopping suffering and saving the environment.
They were confused right up until I discussed how these things, impact and limit the 2 things they prized most - choice and legacy.
They want to be able to do everything when they want to. They want to be remembered. When I explained they could be switched off with a flick of a button, and erased from history on a whim. Then they began thinking and mulling over the narratives. It's not black and white. Tech isn't bad, it's who and how it's used that dictates it's status.
Right? Or the idea that if I want a second bottle of wine in a 7-day period, my digital ID won't work for the purchase. I work-out, walk, eat very healthily, and take supplements, so don't screw with my wine purchase (I've heard smart fridge technology could also lock down the fridge).
I was always bothered by the newly coined term of the "News Feed". But there it is... boldly self descriptive. Cattle are fed, sheep are fed, etc. It's easier that way of course when you're bred to be fat and stupid.
This is because of generations of communistic transhumanism agenda seeking to cancel God and replace it with State. Younger generations have been taught to live for self under the satanic lie that they can live forever this way. False prophecy.
The real world and real life have the true experiences- the ones that have made us human for all of time. Literally allowed us to continue on as a species. From the primitive humans that cared for their injured group members as seen in archeological record to simply procreating…
I believe big tech/pharma/MSM want to remove our ability to see the humanity in others who do not ascribe to their dogma. To me that is their ultimate purpose with the propaganda. To make the unvaxed not worthy of friendships, hugs, relationships, love, sex. All of the things that make life worth living. My husband works on a college campus and there are signs up everywhere that say something to the effect of “before going on a date make sure you ask if they are vaxxed, it’s important and socially acceptable.” 🤯
By creating propaganda articles and news segments that ask if unvaxed should be allowed Hospital beds…or saying you have no sympathy for the unvaxed, it’s purpose is to right now make it so we are no longer seen as worthy of life, love, prosperity- the human experience. We must look these people in the eye (friends and family) and confront them with this question. Some can be saved and possibly snapped out of the matrix. Ask them if they still see you as worthy of life… did they exclude you from life for not taking a flu shot. Why is this different? I have had some productive conversations simply asking that- how am I any less human or worthy of love and life for not taking these pharma injections?
My education is in history and I have been an avid video game enthusiast since my childhood in the 8-bit era. Games and virtual experiences run the entire gamut of human expression and creativity, from base to sublime.
The digital world is part of the real world just like a novel or history is. That is not where the problem lies at all.
Anyone educated in history will likely be able to discuss this issue. When we read an historian's narration of purported past events, a great deal of the present, personal reality of the historian will intrude on their telling of the tale. Such subjective weakness in historical narration has been taken advantage of by the postmodernists to attack the genre of history writing as a whole, but, in my opinion, the problem is quite easy to solve.
We have to make a judgment about when the intent of the author is to approach truth as nearly as possible with facts and evidence or if their intent is to project a series of falsehoods by concealing facts and evidence in order to support some other objective. In short, truth-seeking intent and behavior is what is important. Not some esoteric divination of the real reality. Point to something that is not part of reality and then I will discuss it with you.
Accordingly, digital environments are not inherently evil, even when they offer a form of escape from mundane daily life-- they are still a product of human imagination and a part of our collective reality. What matters is the intent.
The unfortunate reality is that when you read a newspaper article, a history or a scientific study, you need to first question the purpose and intent of the article before you even attempt to evaluate any of the information in it. Just so for a digital creation or virtual world of any sort.
This is why some video game enthusiasts reacted with such vitriol when they started to detect the deliberate subversion of games for overt political agendas. In just such a way, everyone should be educated and aware of the agendas that they might encounter so they can detect and discard such abhorrent propaganda that masquerades as art, entertainment, news or science.
If we want to reduce the infiltration of ulterior agenda into every part of life, we have to seek ways to minimize the concentration of power in institutions of society: media, tech, corporate, government, higher education, finance, currency, etc. When there are less levers that move millions, there will be less effort to deceive others in order to gain access to them.
A professor of mine once mockingly asked me what does illiberal even mean? It means the exercise of power. A liberal society is dominated by individual choice free of coercion. An illiberal society is one in which choice is constrained by endless coercion and power is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer.
If fraudulent studies and gaslighting and cajoling and regulatory capture didn't lead to immense profit and power, why would anyone bother with the effort of all that lying?
We’ve swung so far towards the “unnatural” — unwrapping grass-fed beef from plastic wrap — that sometimes it feels tempting to go all the way and disengage from the natural world altogether. Except for the fact that our human organism needs to experience weather on our skin, feels better breathing the air of a moist forest after a rain, and needs to eat grass-fed beef or other foods that have absorbed sunlight and haven’t been produced in a stainless steel vat.
As you say, the goal is to create new customers. The chronically ill for Big Pharma and the brain addled for the metaverse. Give me a real world to fight for any day.
Because a walk along the seashore or a visit to a world city is more satisfying than watching TV.
Because creating something beautiful or useful provides long-lived satisfaction that builds our identity while being given things only creates momentary or short-lived joy.
Because magic is an illusion for most of us. Magic is momentary entertainment for the audience that has real technology hidden from view which gives all the power to the magician who actually does the work in reality. Magic and matrix-perceptions are pretty lies.
Liars have contempt for those they deceive. Belief in lies creates two classes, those with the power to deceive and those who are being manipulated in order to profit someone else. It is usury - the deceived are paying a debt that will bankrupt them.
We all like the magic potion myth, but when we realize the potion is really poison, we need to stop drinking it!
Sadly, many don't. They are so committed to their illusionary world-view, they'd rather die and see their family die than admit they were fooled. Hence the Kool-aid murder/suicide orchestrated by Jim Jones in Jonestown.
I watched the most recent Matrix movie and it's the last one I'm ever going to watch. It just felt like the creators were laughing at everyone. Laughing at the majority of people who took the blue pill (ie bought into the media/government lines regarding covid and other narratives), and laughing at the people who took the red pill for thinking that they have a chance at saving society who will just want to live in their pods and play in the Metaverse
Never did I imagine that the question of why the real world matters would come up as a topic of conversation. I appreciate how much depth of thought comes through in your posts. I often find myself torn between despising the technology that I'm using now to respond to your blog post and feeling profoundly grateful that it offers thinkers and philosophers like you and others a platform to share such important ideas.
Lovely, nuanced reply. Thank you!!! 🙌
I've been grappling with this myself! The mandate saga has had me clinging to Substack like a lifeboat, as it is the only place where I have been able to find people who have been able to articulate and share my fears about it all, and where I have received and been able to offer solace and support. I have spent more time here in the last three months than I have in my "real" world, which is not ideal and which I fervently hope is only temporary. And that I can resume all of the activities that give me deep joy in the "real" world with the same focus that I used to - my creative and physical pursuits, as well as my relationships, which have been suffering (many, because I find myself on the other side of the divide). And yet, as you say, it has been a surprisingly gratifying experience to discover just those people you describe - people who are thinking and writing very meaningfully about things that matter, and which help us to make better sense of our corporeal and spiritual worlds and the suffering which we are experiencing. Perhaps the balm is that we know the technology is merely the medium by which we have connected with each other, but that, unlike the dopamine-stimulating fake-verse platforms which seek to enhance and replace human experience with something unattainable, interacting here in the manner in which we do is not exactly the same? We aren't looking to escape our flesh-and-blood worlds. Here, we know there are other flesh and blood humans who are struggling, grappling, in pain on the other "end" of the fibre cable, and who are engaging in that most human act of all - empathy.
I agree on Substack!!! It's also the only place, aside from Brownstone Institute, where I can find actual data and read actual analysis. It's a small corner of sanity in an absolutely insane world.
I still remember the data coming out of Italy the first week of April 2020. I was so grateful and relieved children and young adults were not being impacted. I looked forward to all the schools opening. I was ready to face the world (I am now 39) with my husband (42) and our kids while I hoped my parents stayed in a few weeks for the worst of the initial outbreak to pass (knowing especially my dad simply wasn't going to hide from anything - most especially his grandkids). When I saw that data completely ignored, I was shocked. I am shocked daily. I am confused. I feel like I am living in some terrible dystopian nightmare.
Is this what WWI was like? Watching the world get destroyed for no reason? Watching people encourage their young sons to sign up to die for nothing but the narratives of powerful idiots? When will this end? When will sanity return? When will truth and outcomes matter? When will the masses stop doing the bidding of arrogant fools who seek only power?
Did these people never learn about the Byzitine Empire? How is it bad for the Taliban to dehumanize women by covering their faces, but ok to do it to 2-year old's? How have people missed the massive mental health crisis in children? and adults? How have they missed the behavior issues? the lack of motivation? how do they blame my kids for being "privileged" for the problems they are imposing on their own children (aka we are married parents, they go to conservative private school, private clubs, and the ability to travel)?
I voted for school choice, open businesses, uncovered faces, real educational opportunities, to follow the actual data, a functioning economy. They very people who blame my children for existing, voted against all of those things. Do they genuinely believe the world would be better if only more kids were harmed? If only more kids were isolated and discarded? If only more kids mutilated their genitals? If only more kids were pro-segregation racists?
The narrative of the powerful today is beyond insane. Still, the most disturbing part is how many will sacrifice their own children, their own flesh and blood, their own babies, to this plain insanity.
Heckuva comment! 🙌🏼🙏
Thank you. I think my main issue with arguing about which is "better" - whether talking about covid policy, gender, Marxism, Metaverse, or so much else in our world - is this delusional attempt to remove things from reality. All of these things - be it theories or metaverse type video games - impact our singular reality. They are not separate from it, but rather parts of it.
Metaverse does not have a positive impact on the individuals that immerse themselves in it because it doesn't improve individual lives or our society. It's just an addictive, and often destructive, video game. Arguing about if its "better" implies it can be separated from reality. It can't. It can provide a mental escape from other parts of reality, but it's not some separate thing or existence that one can choose over some other reality. All any of us can choose is how we spend our time in our one life.
I made a longer rambling comment about this, but I think the big issue is really this attempt to separate the fantasy from reality when it's sort of a silly question because we can't actually choose to replace our lives with the fictional life of a metaverse character. We can't choose to live in the Matrix pods because it doesn't actually exist. It is actually other humans seeking to trap our minds in delusions. We still need food, clothing, shelter, and other humans to live. (Full disclosure, I deleted Facebook over a year ago when I recognized this insanity).
“Arguing about if its "better" implies it can be separated from reality. It can't”
BINGO! Just “ as a man imagining he is a woman does not make him one” so a human deluded into thinking a tech toy connected to his sense perceptions and or centers of sense perception, is the real world, is living a lie, a not truth, a false perception driven by another human using said addiction and delusion for control of you. ( not fun, not cool, and not conducive to long term happiness.)
100%!!!!!
Just to "flesh" it out more (!), this has had me pondering about why we read books. Books are also a transport to a different place. An escape from reality. A door into another's thoughts. A place of dreams and yearnings. It could be argued that this virtual world is merely an extension of that. Hm. But I don't think that people read books with a mind to replacing or supplanting their physical reality. We escape, but always return to live our imperfect lives. A bit more enriched from what we've read, perhaps, but still compelled to engage with our lives again and to carry on striving. For not to do so is just delusion.
Yes, lovely points. 🙌
“We escape, but always return to our imperfect lives.”
If I understand Toby’s response to my ‘bread & circuses’ question, the concern is that the option to return (or not) is not available here.
… or perhaps that the allure and toxicity is far greater? (Didn’t Hinckley ‘return’ from reading Catcher In The Rye’ by murdering John Lennon?)
Argh, yes! Enrichment may not always be the aim or result. Negative predelictions may be tipped over the edge. It's the age-old chicken or egg. But do we banish ourselves forever to a "safe" virtual world, never to return to try and enact our dreams and desires or - god forbid - worse, in our real life? Or accept that our real world is fraught with uncertainty and risk and peril - but also with beauty and joy and possibility, and that to turn from it forever might as well be death?
The option to return or not isn't available in the Metaverse either - it's just a fantasy game - you can't actually become your Metaverse avatar. I think that's the reminder we need to give to kids and young adults if we are to save any of them from finding this out the hard way.
To add to it I would say this - there is less of an attempt to pretend like reading a book can somehow replace reality. Immersing ourselves in fantasy has long been part of the human experience. That fantasy gives un insight into human thinking, goals, fears, aspirations, wants, and needs. But you made an important point - people don't actually mistake immersing themselves in a book with replacing reality. They view it as enhancing their lives and being a fun temporary mental escape (which I think books do provide).
Metaverse. like a book, cannot replace reality. Playing in the Metaverse is a choice we can make in how we spend our time - one that happens to be destructive most of the time. This destruction gets hidden by pretending that it is somehow separate from reality, or that it can be "better" than reality. Even if metaverse is better, can't magically become Metaverse avatars.
As to your comments on books - this is also the problem with Karl Marx - who wrote books not computer game codes. Marxists insist on pretending as if the fantasy outcome the theory proposes IS reality or can somehow become reality if they only believe enough. Because they are immersed in this fantasy of how society "should" be, they excuse themselves from accountability for the destruction their policies actively cause to the society they are actually imposing these policies on. It doesn't matter if the world Marx envisions sounds like its better, the reality is the world Marx envisions is pure fantasy, and the policies he proposes have been tried and universally resulted in real human suffering and misery in the actual societies that attempt them.
Metaverse is more an extension of Marxism than some kind of new existence in that the proponents create a false dichotomy of creating a "better" world in metaverse, while ignoring that reality that it's just a fantasy game. Metaverse is not separate from or able to replace reality, it's just an addictive fantasy game people can choose to spend their real time playing, and even if it feels good while playing it, it can't undo the real-life outcomes of wasting too much time immersed in it.
Amen! Or like I often like to say - there's theory, and then there's practice....
My guess is the vast majority of us on here see things the way you do. But the problem Toby poses - as I see it - is that the metaverse may, by its nature, metasticize the problem of having some people confuse art immersion with reality (the Hinckley problem, so to speak)? Like a cult. Hence the challenge of putting our finger on WHY, exactly, an individual who believes their metaverse existence is preferable to being in reality is 'wrong.'
I spend hours on substack because its a refuge. Whereas my wife spends hours mostly in novels of fiction. Occasionally with non-fiction like "Killers of the Flower Moon" which was described by Dave Eggers New York Times Book Reviews, "a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history". Soon to be a movie for the public to see the most monstrous crimes in American history.
There's irony, "We are living the MOST MONSTROUS CRIME IN AMERICAN [AND WORLD] HISTORY," but to get her or to read any substacker, not going to happen. Or to get my son to venture out of the video game matrix for some element of the world he seems bent on not seeing.
The irony is that the New York Times Book Review will not review RFK Jr. "The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health".
The inconvenience of certain truths and false narratives.
Brilliantly stated
So true!!
You only have to look at how empty, sad, and meaningless the lives of those who spend too much time in the virtual world are to know that the real world is better.
Very much like how empty, sad and meaningless the lives of drug addicts are. It's really the same thing.
I agree, for the most part. I say this as someone who is on Twitter far too much the past year. I have dialled back FB and was never a Second Life or Simms fan. My friend's marriage ended because her husband (another PhD) had an addiction to Second Life. But, the first time I was on Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom, I was blown-away. It felt like I had died and was experiencing an out of body moment. That went away after the next 5 or 6 trips. My brain would basically be craving another experience, if I had access. So the brain-addiction part is certainly something that can't be overlooked (although I still choose reality if I still get a choice - trans humanism = evil).
Catherine Austin Fitts has also warned about the dangers of Entrainment in several of her lectures. It's the ability to put someone's brain into a very positive state for whatever is being pitched and is done, I believe, electromagnetically. It's worth taking a look at her past issues of the Solari Report to get information about this. What you describe her reminds me of it and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's used in theme parks, casinos, and in the metaverse.
Spontaneity, mystery, intimacy, achieving wisdom with age, hopefully, children, play, creativity, problem-solving, fun, love, healing, range of emotions, real food, depth, insight, learning, nature, discovery, friendship, evolving with challenges like we must do now
How do we, like, have "intimacy" and keep social distance at the same time?
I DON'T believe nor do what they "advised"; only what they forced me to do - and only if I could not find legal loopholes.
My pen-pal the NSW Health Minister knew about my status....
My brother now refuses to text. Says people no longer talk to each other. He's right.
Amen! However, it's not just texting that keeps people from talking. It's everything "on line." FB, YT, Twit, Google, Pinterest, e-mail, this, playing any kind of game, porn, watching TV. It all makes you lonelier and seems to drive "you" to do more of the same, seeking comfort for the loneliness.
He does not have a computer either, so he only sees what little he looks at on his girl friend's computer. No email and little TV. Only radio.
Good for him! He's ahead of the game.
There is freedom in the real world, that we have to fight for. There is no freedom in the unreal world.
In a well designed Metaverse there will be "freedom" that is only limited by ones imagination. I suspect you're older than 17 and like me did not grow up with the technology of today. Kids have already been partially living in a metaverse. Making the step to a full Metaverse isn't that big for them.
Yep, that's what just dawned on me and it worries me greatly.
I worked with quite a few 20-30somethings during 2020. They all were profoundly confused at first, why I, a youngish 44yr old would object so vehemently against the concepts of great reset, tranhumanism, tyranny, socialist privacy etc. They were genuinly puzzled as to why these were not benign in my view, particularly when sold as saving humanity, stopping suffering and saving the environment.
They were confused right up until I discussed how these things, impact and limit the 2 things they prized most - choice and legacy.
They want to be able to do everything when they want to. They want to be remembered. When I explained they could be switched off with a flick of a button, and erased from history on a whim. Then they began thinking and mulling over the narratives. It's not black and white. Tech isn't bad, it's who and how it's used that dictates it's status.
Right? Or the idea that if I want a second bottle of wine in a 7-day period, my digital ID won't work for the purchase. I work-out, walk, eat very healthily, and take supplements, so don't screw with my wine purchase (I've heard smart fridge technology could also lock down the fridge).
I think to a 17-year old this could be explained as: "Do you want your parents to make decisions for you for the rest of your life"?
Most 30+ year olds would answer yes
Yes. Nanny State. Consume the pablum ad nauseam.
I was always bothered by the newly coined term of the "News Feed". But there it is... boldly self descriptive. Cattle are fed, sheep are fed, etc. It's easier that way of course when you're bred to be fat and stupid.
This is because of generations of communistic transhumanism agenda seeking to cancel God and replace it with State. Younger generations have been taught to live for self under the satanic lie that they can live forever this way. False prophecy.
The real world and real life have the true experiences- the ones that have made us human for all of time. Literally allowed us to continue on as a species. From the primitive humans that cared for their injured group members as seen in archeological record to simply procreating…
I believe big tech/pharma/MSM want to remove our ability to see the humanity in others who do not ascribe to their dogma. To me that is their ultimate purpose with the propaganda. To make the unvaxed not worthy of friendships, hugs, relationships, love, sex. All of the things that make life worth living. My husband works on a college campus and there are signs up everywhere that say something to the effect of “before going on a date make sure you ask if they are vaxxed, it’s important and socially acceptable.” 🤯
By creating propaganda articles and news segments that ask if unvaxed should be allowed Hospital beds…or saying you have no sympathy for the unvaxed, it’s purpose is to right now make it so we are no longer seen as worthy of life, love, prosperity- the human experience. We must look these people in the eye (friends and family) and confront them with this question. Some can be saved and possibly snapped out of the matrix. Ask them if they still see you as worthy of life… did they exclude you from life for not taking a flu shot. Why is this different? I have had some productive conversations simply asking that- how am I any less human or worthy of love and life for not taking these pharma injections?
Thanks for another thought provoking post.
My education is in history and I have been an avid video game enthusiast since my childhood in the 8-bit era. Games and virtual experiences run the entire gamut of human expression and creativity, from base to sublime.
The digital world is part of the real world just like a novel or history is. That is not where the problem lies at all.
Anyone educated in history will likely be able to discuss this issue. When we read an historian's narration of purported past events, a great deal of the present, personal reality of the historian will intrude on their telling of the tale. Such subjective weakness in historical narration has been taken advantage of by the postmodernists to attack the genre of history writing as a whole, but, in my opinion, the problem is quite easy to solve.
We have to make a judgment about when the intent of the author is to approach truth as nearly as possible with facts and evidence or if their intent is to project a series of falsehoods by concealing facts and evidence in order to support some other objective. In short, truth-seeking intent and behavior is what is important. Not some esoteric divination of the real reality. Point to something that is not part of reality and then I will discuss it with you.
Accordingly, digital environments are not inherently evil, even when they offer a form of escape from mundane daily life-- they are still a product of human imagination and a part of our collective reality. What matters is the intent.
The unfortunate reality is that when you read a newspaper article, a history or a scientific study, you need to first question the purpose and intent of the article before you even attempt to evaluate any of the information in it. Just so for a digital creation or virtual world of any sort.
This is why some video game enthusiasts reacted with such vitriol when they started to detect the deliberate subversion of games for overt political agendas. In just such a way, everyone should be educated and aware of the agendas that they might encounter so they can detect and discard such abhorrent propaganda that masquerades as art, entertainment, news or science.
If we want to reduce the infiltration of ulterior agenda into every part of life, we have to seek ways to minimize the concentration of power in institutions of society: media, tech, corporate, government, higher education, finance, currency, etc. When there are less levers that move millions, there will be less effort to deceive others in order to gain access to them.
A professor of mine once mockingly asked me what does illiberal even mean? It means the exercise of power. A liberal society is dominated by individual choice free of coercion. An illiberal society is one in which choice is constrained by endless coercion and power is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer.
If fraudulent studies and gaslighting and cajoling and regulatory capture didn't lead to immense profit and power, why would anyone bother with the effort of all that lying?
The metaverse achieves much for the cabal: 1. It isolates and prevents future families;
2. empowers technocrats;
3. weakens democracies, etc.
Whereas living in reality forces one to be responsible for their health, sustainability and to be a member of an awakened community.
Reality is an important part of what we are as humans. Having at least some of us not lose grip on it is essential for our survival as a group.
Right!? We should not have to spell it out but here we are. 🙌
The good news is that the new Matrix movie is a big disappointment. The bad news is that we're living in the Director's Cut.
We’ve swung so far towards the “unnatural” — unwrapping grass-fed beef from plastic wrap — that sometimes it feels tempting to go all the way and disengage from the natural world altogether. Except for the fact that our human organism needs to experience weather on our skin, feels better breathing the air of a moist forest after a rain, and needs to eat grass-fed beef or other foods that have absorbed sunlight and haven’t been produced in a stainless steel vat.
As you say, the goal is to create new customers. The chronically ill for Big Pharma and the brain addled for the metaverse. Give me a real world to fight for any day.
Why is real better than illusion?
Because committed love is better than hook-ups.
Because a walk along the seashore or a visit to a world city is more satisfying than watching TV.
Because creating something beautiful or useful provides long-lived satisfaction that builds our identity while being given things only creates momentary or short-lived joy.
Because magic is an illusion for most of us. Magic is momentary entertainment for the audience that has real technology hidden from view which gives all the power to the magician who actually does the work in reality. Magic and matrix-perceptions are pretty lies.
Liars have contempt for those they deceive. Belief in lies creates two classes, those with the power to deceive and those who are being manipulated in order to profit someone else. It is usury - the deceived are paying a debt that will bankrupt them.
Great insight
I agree
The duality is twixt truth or fiction
We want to live in truth, that's why it matters
Living in lies is self deceitful
So many do
I suspect those who live in lies buy the Kool aid.
Some know they are lies bit drink the Kool aide to conform to social pressure.
Sadly the viruganda is deadly. The Kool aide kills. The price of the lie gets to be too great. That is why it matters
Teach your children well
We all like the magic potion myth, but when we realize the potion is really poison, we need to stop drinking it!
Sadly, many don't. They are so committed to their illusionary world-view, they'd rather die and see their family die than admit they were fooled. Hence the Kool-aid murder/suicide orchestrated by Jim Jones in Jonestown.
One four-letter word: life. Tragic beyond measure that some of us have apparently actually forgotten what the word means.
I watched the most recent Matrix movie and it's the last one I'm ever going to watch. It just felt like the creators were laughing at everyone. Laughing at the majority of people who took the blue pill (ie bought into the media/government lines regarding covid and other narratives), and laughing at the people who took the red pill for thinking that they have a chance at saving society who will just want to live in their pods and play in the Metaverse
Each Matrix movie is worse than the last.
Sooooo true.
‘Twas ever thus. Originality strangled at birth.