Crypto, Anarchy and Contrarians: What Has The Internet Done to Personal Relations?
Last night I did extensive research on several coins including ICX, ADA, XLM and STEEM. All of them are predicted to increase this year, ICX and ADA by over 100%, but all of them, except STEEM are also predicted to drop significantly this month before increasing in the next 3 months.
I made a Facebook post this morning asking my friends, who are mostly anarchists and crypto enthusiasts what article I should write about on Steemit, since STEEM is the only coin poised to increase short term. The first comment that I got became a 10 comment reply thread attacking my personal decision to cash out half of my XLM before buying back in when it bottoms out. The person completely disregarded the original post and instead of offering help, decided to offer hurt. Or attempted to, anyway.
This seems to be a common theme on the internet in general. Someone will post something with good intentions and someone else will lash out about something which was not part of the original discussion. Why does this seem to be so common with anarchists though, in particular? Obviously, my sample population here is mostly anarchists, but I do have accounts on other platforms in which I don't discuss anarchy at all, and I have completely different issues with those people, but I'll talk about that later. One thing that is common across the board though, is people seeing other people on the internet as if they're not human.
One theory that I have, when it comes to anarchists is that a lot of them have trouble viewing the world as it is. They live in a fantasy world because all day long, every time something happens, we think to ourselves, "well, it wouldn't be like this in a free society." Instead of addressing the issue at hand. There more we learn, the more we uncover out eyes, the further we drift from reality. Now, I'm not saying that anarchy isn't plausible. I think it is. In the future, perhaps not the near future. Either that, or we'll all just kill ourselves arguing over race, gender, sexual orientation and identity, which by the way, if you're an anarchist you shouldn't care what others do unless it's actually hurting someone. If you can accept that someone wants to change their name and be called by that now, or even get married and now has a new last name, how much more difficult is it to call them by a pronoun you're not used to calling them? But, I digress.
Let me give you an example, recently, I've been posting about paying taxes (theft) because I have to right now, these things are on paper and being in prison will make it a bit more difficult for me to preach about anarchy. Without fail, every time I post about it, most recently being that I haven't gotten my W2 yet from my old job, some anarchist chimes in about how I shouldn't be paying taxes. Okay, yes, in an ideal world, I agree, but for now, until we have enough members, we have to work within the system. You're not helping me solve the issue at hand. I would say that 90% of my posts are either me asking for help or trying to help others by spreading information, whether it be about up and coming crypto, some jackass within the community you should watch out for or a company with poor business practices. Yet, at least half, if not more of the comments are people attacking me for what I've said, somehow turning it into my fault. Hey man, sorry for the tip. The worst part is, only 1% of them are actually trolling. Many anarchists have gotten so stuck in this regurgitative rhetoric that they can't answer a simple question.
This leads me to my next question: Is it just anarchists or have we as a society become so disconnected with reality and so reliant on Google for problem solving that we are losing the ability to assess a situation and solve a problem using the means which are readily available to us? Are we losing the ability to use critical thinking and deductive reasoning? Can we even process more than one sentence at a time, or do we only think in memes? Of course, these are generalized questions, because I've been to the Escape Room with a group of anarchists and I've seen first hand that a small group of people can work together as a team and solve puzzles without using Google. I fear, however, that the majority of people are losing whatever part of their brain that enables them to do this.
Now as I mentioned earlier, it seems to be particularly prevalent in anarchists and for obvious reasons, but this is more widespread. I often joke that people on the internet aren't real and yes, I'm guilty of occasionally treating them as such. As many of you know, I suffer from often severe anxiety. I have trouble going to a new restaurant sometimes if I have not gotten on Google Maps and scoped out the locations, if I can find pictures of the inside and locate the exits, that's even better. Since I smoke, going anywhere that I will be for a prolonged period of time and checking out smoking accommodations is also a cause of anxiety for me. The internet has helped me a lot in being able to connect with people without having the leave the comfort of my home. But has it also enabled me? Many of you know, I'm a cam model, which again, helps me by not having to leave the house to work, by not having to call up my employer and lie and say my stomach is upset and I can't come in, because in reality, I'm too depressed to get out of bed. I don't have to call out. I can do what I want. But I find myself often unable to work more than 20 hours a week now, because, well, it enables me. Now, in my defense, camming is not as easy as it looks, it's very physical, it's very tiring, I have to constantly be engaging people and holding their interest non stop for hours, there's very little downtime like there is with retail, although that's also a plus because the lulls in retail would often make me depressed. Let's be honest, everything has its ups and down/pros and cons, you just have to choose which thing pros you like the most and which cons you dislike the least.
In terms of my online presence when it comes to camming, I often encounter similar issues in terms of people not thinking people online are real, except it's a bit more obvious. Ask any cam model and they will tell you how annoying it is when someone enters your room and you greet them and they won't say anything. That's like 90% of people who enter the room. Now, granted, some may not speak English, okay, maybe they get a pass. But I'm inclined to think that's it's more than that. All cam sites I've seen have a bio section, which I'm not surprised if people don't read it, some do, but I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't if I was horny and ready to go. However, they often have a one sentence topic or headline, which you can see before you even enter the room. This goes back to my idea that the internet has shortened people's attention span and everything, no matter how short, is Tl;DR. The very first word in my headline is, "domme." Now, how many people in a 5 hour shift do you think come in and ask if I'm a sub or a domme? About 2. Upon entering the room, there is a short blurb next to my cam, above the chat which states that I do not break the site rules (obviously, I'm not trying to get fired) and the prices for certain acts allowed within the public chat according to the site rules. I block about 5 people a day on average for asking if I will do pissing, ageplay, or incest (all explicitly prohibited....I also won't personally do raceplay, but that's in my bio so sometimes I give them a pass if they didn't read that and just politely remind them) and asking for me to do things specifically listed under the tip menu with no tip. Are these just trolls or are these people really unable to read about one or two sentences? I understand that when blood is flowing away from your brain, these things may be more difficult, but I still think this is part of the larger problem as previously mentioned. Oh, and don't get me wrong, I love my job, I wish I'd taken the leap of faith and done it years ago, but every job has its frustrations sometimes.
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this. Have people always been so oblivious and so callous, have we always been so lazy and we're just noticing it more, the more people we're able to interact with online and the more technology that comes out, enabling us to do so, or is this a symptom of the digital world? I'd go as far as to say if we lived a hunter/gatherer type lifestyle, we wouldn't even suffer from ailments like anxiety and depression. Please, leave your thoughts in the comments below, and since this didn't seem to work too well on Facebook, let me know what you would like to hear me write about next!
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