Technology Culture

On social, it’s a fine line between idiot & genius

A general rule of thumb that has helped me maintain perspective is that, given enough time, you are either proven to be an idiot or a genius. A corollary to that law is that you will eventually reveal your true self on social media. 

This brutal reality applies to aging bloggers, Twitter gurus, and influencers. It doesn’t matter who you are, how many degrees you have accumulated, or how many books you have written. And this is even true for the seemingly invincible of them all — the billionaire. Even the richest man in the world isn’t immune from echoing his limitations. You will almost always reveal your limitations and eventually lose that special sheen. 

For eternity, we have seen success, and financial security as a shorthand for visionary and expert. Nothing echoes smarts louder than the number of zeros in a person’s net worth. Just as people wanted opinions

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Conflict Culture is making social Unsocial

people gathering on street during nighttime
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

This past week social media became a battleground for yet another death match between media and Silicon Valley. So much has been said, so I am going to abstain from adding any more to the mix. However, all that sound and fury took me down the memory lane — all the way back to the early nineties. 

Back then, I was a person with a limited amount of social connections in my newly adopted home. So, I often turn to television for distraction, especially during the day, when waiting for folks to call me back. It was then I came across the disgustingly distorted world of Jerry Springer, Montel, and Maury. These shows were and are still produced for a singular purpose — conflict as a source of entertainment and distraction. 

I quickly moved on from the moronity and swore off what can be called

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A Decade of Self-Control

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. 

Charles Dickens (1859)

The start of a new decade is a good enough reason to start afresh and shed the bad habits of the past ten years. The 2010s will (or should) go down as a decade where the growing confluence of human capabilities (or, perhaps more accurately, limitations) and technological progress led to situations that can politely be called complicated.

At the start of the

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