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One thing that does genuienly worry me about the modern world is how much "junk" information we are all exposed to. I want you to imagine your mind as a garden and information (words, videos, stories) as plants. Of course, you need good plants like flowers and trees, but you need to be very, very careful which plants you select. Because if you start putting just any old plant into your garden you'll find it will get chocked with weeds pretty quickly, and the whole thing will die. The same is true of information. Mindlessly scrolling through social media is essentially taking random seeds and constantly throwing them around your garden. The whole thing's going to die if you do that. The Norse had a very healthy attitude to words, in that they literally held them sacred and throwing around "junk" information was actually seen as a serious crime. I think people should consciously think through what they're going to read, or if they absolutely must, listen to, before they do it. Whatever you choose to read or think about, I think that at the very least people should make a conscious, thought through decision before they do that. I think it is very dangerous to allow algorithms or social media platforms determine what you think about. We all have a limited number of things we can read or listen to in our lives, we shouldn't be wasting them.

To quote Arthur Schopenhauer

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones — life is short.

(To anyone wondering, for the time being I have sadly dropped the "eccentric, whimsical yet somehow endearing" brony persona, and thankfully have shaken off the "END IS NIGH!" Preacher persona. I actually much, much prefer being the "whimsical brony", I honestly wish I could be like that all the time and frankly I think the world needs more people like that, not just me. But there are times when you have to be serious as well.)

A very healthy attitude?

If you made a comment about someone's character, even if it was true, this person would be allowed to penalize you or even get you outlawed. To the Norse, reputation was everything, not truth.

I'm also curious as to what you define specifically as "junk" information. Because I've noticed that whenever you've discussed what people should be staying away from, you tend to not expand on what people should be avoiding.

And yes, you have given the reason of "not wanting to direct them to these things" but to be honest, if you will not explain the difference between what people should consume vs. not consume, it's a bit pointless to make these statements. For example...

Person A: "Hey, stay away from this guy."

Person B: "Uh, what guy?"

Person A: "Can't tell you. I don't want you to seek him out."

Person B: "Then how am I supposed to avoid him?"

 

You see? Jesus Christ gave people clear examples of what was good vs. what was evil, and he understood that it would ultimately be up to humanity to decide what they wanted to do. By being vague about what exactly it is people should refrain from, you're not actually convincing anyone to stay away from it or making any type of impact.

1. Obviously, the Norse did not have a very healthy attitude on everything when it comes to making comments. But for the purposes of a discussion surrounding "taking words seriously" vs. "not taking them seriously", the analogy is absolutely apt.

2. The distinction between "choosing to read a book on a topic" vs. "mindlessly scrolling through social media" seems to me to be an extremely obvious and important one. Again, for the purposes of this discussion, I'm not going to get into debates with me arguing exactly what topics people should or should not consume. It's why I've completely logged out of all my other accounts on every other social network, so that the algorithm does not dictate what I think about.

 

As for "making any type of impact", oh believe me, I think I know how to make an impact on people. It's just that I really, really do not want to do it again. I made this post because I genuinely think it might help and if it doesn't have any effect on you, maybe you don't need it, but that doesn't mean that's true for everyone.

Any type of meaningful argument for or against something is going to have examples of what to be for/against.Otherwise it's not a discussion, it is a vague allusion. 
 

An yes, there is a difference between reading a book and mindlessly scrolling, but you also stated that people should be extremely selective about what they read, to the point where you posted a quote about not choosing to read books that are "bad" for you. But you're not explaining how or what it is that is the problem exactly. 
 

This is why people get annoyed, flutter. You made these long posts and statements that ultimately say nothing at all, then evade any type of clarification while acting as though these statements are going to change anyone's mind.

This is literally the EXACT thing you were doing while you were manic, and I'm not fully convinced that you aren't still.

See a psychiatrist flutter. Please.

If I'm upsetting people, I'll stop. I seem to be very good at doing that, lately.

We just want you to see a doctor and get better. I know you have real world commitments, but it should only take a few hours to book and attend an appointment.

This is a little funny because you seem to spend a LOT more time on the internet than most people here, and in ways that have not been healthy for you, Flutter.

I hope you're spending at least some of that time copying over your stories anyway. Sherb and Sent made all these exceptions to help you out with that using a very glitchy area of the site, and you seem to be just kind of spastically fucking around for entire days at a time.

"This is a little funny because you seem to spend a LOT more time on the internet than most people here, and in ways that have not been healthy for you, Flutter."

 

Indeed. So I think I probably understand what I'm talking about in this regard more than most.

 

"I hope you're spending at least some of that time copying over your stories anyway. Sherb and Sent made all these exceptions to help you out with that using a very glitchy area of the site, and you seem to be just kind of spastically fucking around for entire days at a time."

Believe it or not, I do have real world commitments. Making a few random forum posts is one thing, but once those real-world things are done (and they will be done soon), of course I will get around to the stories.

Ehhhh, I'm going to go with 'not', given how you spent the last couple of months not seeming to have intetacted much with reality.

>a few random forum posts

It was about 60 you made a couple of days ago.

Anyway, just in general I think your attempts at giving advice would go over a lot better if you had your own life a bit more together first. You're setting a terrible example right now by refusing to see a doctor, actually, and when you're over there going on about your unique, holistic, homebrew, personalized understanding of the history, science, religion, and philosophy, the problem with "and this is how you learn to be like me" is that, to be blunt, right now absolutely nobody wants that.

I wasn't expecting to have a full manic religious breakdown. It's not that I'm refusing to see a doctor, it's that I genuinely have real world commitments that I have been seriously neglecting due to the aforementioned breakdown.

 

" "and this is how you learn to be like me" is that, to be blunt, right now absolutely nobody wants that. "

Thank you for that, and I mean that very sincerely. Because after that manic breakdown I just had, I am trying quite hard to think about things that make me sad to try and cool everything down. And that is one of the things that actually does make me very sad, because the reason I can't interact with anyone in real life or online is that I know, deep down, that nobody really wants to be like me.

You're just going to keep making threads, and at this point the only responses you're going to get are from people who are

1) tired of this shit
2) tired of this shit but still trying to be vaguely nice or constructive about it

I don't know why you think this is something that can be put off. You do so much reading online but apparently just ignore anything about your own condition.Genuinely I hope you slip and shatter a femur or something at this point so you end up in front of a medical professional of some kind without any way to put it off or make excuses.

But I also know I'm literally wasting my time talking to you right now and that nothing anyone says will any impact. You even burned out Fresh's will to make big concerned effortposts pleading with you, that's impressive.

... That's not a bad thing. I highly doubt anybody wants to be like me either. I wouldn't want anybody to aspire to be like me. Most people are happy to just be themselves.

I know I'm being a bit sharp with everyone here, but this topic does really make me sad because I wasted some of my life doing this, and I really don't want to see it happen to anyone here.

I think people should choose topics for themselves that they are interested in, and rather than unconsciously subscribe to forums or online videos guided by algorithms to manipulate their interest, people should read books or at least look up these things manually rather than unconsciously listen or consume them.

Let me guess... You subscribed to a bunch of MLP fan forums and found nothing but porn?

I spend pretty much 0% of my time scrolling through social media, so I think I'm safe. ^_^

Uhh... I don't know. Depends what he means by "junk information". I mean, if he's talking about, "Obama is the anti-christ", "Covid isn't real", "Vaccines give you autism", "The world is flat", "Climate change is a hoax", "5G gives you cancer" and "The Sandy Hook school shooting never happened", then yeah, "junk information" is very much a real thing. :p

The works of Homer and other Satanic literature, which are dangerous, should be censored, and can drive people insane with overexposure!

The problem is that Flutter makes a lot of broadly generic statements here that people already generally agree with, but the specifics he's already shared are so bizarrely off kilter it makes it hard to take any of the rest of it seriously.

Statements like "mindlessly consuming social media is unhealthy" or just the general idea of not marinating in things that are toxic are not revolutionarily unique epiphanies that need to be urgently preached to save the community. Most people here don't do this to begin with and are capable of some degree of critical thinking. But the subtext is still "Careful exposing yourself to the products of an acoustic society! Oh, and nothing past 2020, try living in a parallel universe and viewing everything through the silly, whimsical lens of MLP: FiM to maintain sanity."

I mean, just look at the "if you absolutely MUST" as a caveat to listening to things in the OP. He's still unnerved about the dangerous disorganizing panic effect of hearing words spoken instead of reading them, that's not a thing for absolutely anyone else but it's still the underlying basis of any thread coming from him about types of information that should be avoided.

So we already know the actual things he's warning against here. But at the same time, if it's taken at face value as this general and generic "junk information and algorithms bad" type of thing, than I agree with Iris.

Is anything we disagree with junk? How do we know we disagree with it until we read it? And you don't have to accept something as fact or be swayed by it just because you read it either. Critical thinking is key there. Can't just be declaring things Satanic without even knowing what's in them.

Algorithms aren't "deciding" anything for you, you don't have to mindlessly click and consume unless "hey here's another popular thing with the same tags as the things you already like" looks like something that genuinely interests you. They can funnel people towards good things just as well as harmful ones, they're just a tool. Turning them off is fine too though and also not particularly unique, it's literally just clicking a checkbox that says not to use personalized info.

And again, I don't think most people here are as terminally online as Flutter has been or have experienced these helpless overwhelmed feelings that seem to be the source of a lot of the anxiety and general weirdness he's been spouting.

bruh

I guess people really can get desensitized to anything.

More like... "THE END IS NEIGH!"

I really liked this one.