I asked myself this question and found my answer to be outstandingly clear. To be an American is to be barraged with advertising, bombarded with bills, and battered by taxes. Everyone feels exhausted and inundated with a never ending to-do list, but end up looking at our phones for hours. We all suffer from phone addiction, which is dopamine rollercoaster and an assault of rage bait, doomsday news cycles, and porn. It all culminates into a feeling of feeling like were all slowly circling down the drain.

About a year ago I decided to actively limit my time on my phone. I started with taking breaks from social media. After a few months of not accessing it at all, I noticed a huge difference. Now I cant go back. Social media is just one source though. You want to watch anything on the internet or on tv, it’s muddled with cheap content and absolutely no substance. I’ve really reached a resentment for this “profit above all” mentality, and I believe it has permeated into almost all corners of our digital lives. The nature of these platforms are a vehicle to easily objectify and dehumanise our fellow humans. Good looks always make money because they grab attention. So we find women as our best marketing tools but at the cost of being minimised as products. Marketing has advanced so much that you literally can’t avoid advertisements.

My phone is a direct link to influences and my accessibility to advertisers and digital profiteers. Now anyone can monetize my attention. My time is essentially sold to Tik-Tok or YouTube and my data is farmed and leached by every domain I enter. The app for my car even accesses my photos for some reason. Terms and conditions are my official consent and I usually choose not to know the full violation of my privacy.

I have so much respect for the foundations America was built upon. Our constitution was created with the best of intentions. Our economy is a mix of capitalism and socialism in a very effective blend. The culture does allow more freedom than most. It is a privilege we have opportunities to make money.
I live comfortably so it almost feels ungrateful to point out issues. The internet has everything for us, so is is truly bad? can I truly resent a place that can hold infinite options and information?. I do believe in nuance to ideas. It’s not that we don’t have freedom, but that the need for profits are pushing the boundaries of what makes us thrive as a society. If I want to use my phone then my privacy and my time are now at major risks because they have become commodified but not in a way where I make any material gain. I do resent the limitless lengths that marketing and media will go to.

The marketing of the American dream has made us lose touch and become incredibly shallow. It has us focused on this carrot up ahead – the promise that we can attain happiness through money or status, alternatively we are threatened with living a life of no merit. This American dream feels more like a hamster wheel, and we foot the bill for becoming driven by greed to a dizzying degree. Influencers are a career made by literally by influencing us to buy products. The rich are gifted things, and paid to sell it to us at full price. Are we seen as just a conduit for cash?

I do feel as if money has muddied the waters, and promises freedom for business and commerce, but directly conflicts with the bedrock of what freedom is. Our capital based system influences us and perpetuates a hierarchal structure. Hierarchies are directly oppositional to freedom. I don’t believe we are capable as humans to not create these social structures but the danger is in the extremes- and if we allow unbridled greed we allow corruption to flourish. Corruption feels widespread across industries and the political sphere.
I do believe the opposite of capitalism does not work. I do not aim to make an argument of communism vs capitalism. We obviously have found success in our economies structure and it’s not truly evil- but maybe that humans seem to have patterned behavior of needing to hoard wealth, and to create structures than perpetuate unequal wealth- seen time and time again.

I do believe this video is worth watching. I don’t idolise socialism and demonise capitalism, but rather too much of an extreme can have drawbacks. I found it interesting that he said the 1980’s were the shift into a more capitalistic structure. The workforce turning into consumers.

Noam Chomsky is a controversial person to quote currently. He is known as an acclaimed professor, author, political activist, social critic, philosopher. His opinions on manufactured consent have been very famous. I do not think you need to be a conspiracy theorist to see this as a possibility. Media is a vessel to influence culture and the public, but it is not a clear lens or expression of the world.

Noam Chomsky had some old emails with Epstein released recently. It involved discussions on how to deal with the media after Epstein was convicted of rape. I have attached the article outlining his conversations because I think they clearly highlight his real distaste is for the media, but not for the media influencing and coercing the public. He is happy to influence and push a narrative that he thinks is better.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9ykjlyv50o

There’s also a huge factor about health when it comes to being online. All philosophical discussions aside, it is also just incredibly bad for our brains.

Studies over the years are showing data of how truly damaging it is for our attention, memory, processing capacity, and it is not just figuratively addictive. It feels akin to a drug and apparently it truly is. Our habits shape our lives as well, and habitual phone use is training our minds to crave constant stimulation.

People make it their job to keep us hooked. It is incredibly hard to fight addictive urges and I constantly fight with myself to stay off my phone and not watch tv. ”

I do believe that it is not too difficult for educated people to understand how to bio-hack our prehistoric brains. Our brains and bodies are generally studied enough to know its faulty habits.

The Danger vs Empathy dynamic of the brain.

Your brain is constantly balancing two major survival systems:

• Threat & self-protection system
• Social bonding & empathy system Community and empathy are evolutionary for survival

Empathy, moral reasoning, and perspective-taking rely heavily on the:

• prefrontal cortex
• medial prefrontal cortex
• anterior cingulate cortex

These areas help you:

• Understand others’ feelings
• Inhibit aggression
• Make compassionate decisions

  Under threat the Amygdala activation can over-ride  these regions.

Think about how effective it is to create a bias by painting a group of people as violent, depraved, and a danger to you. With strong enough messaging and fear you can have the threat over take any feeling of empathy. This is helpful for a soldier in battle, but that feature can be hacked very easily. You can see the use of this propaganda model before almost any war.

Intent and focus can drive humanity to greatness, wherever the intent is it will flourish. I just wish for days where positive impact outweighs greed.

I do believe that our minds are fallible, our realities are relative, and our time is precious.

I do not make claims to never use the internet as a platform, and I do not condemn American culture. I condemn the bad actors- and the goal based mindsets that are created when forming a company. The ends do not justify the means. I do think I will create boundaries for how I interact within it. We live in an environment where I can use my free will, and choose platforms like this- to express my thoughts and my free speech.
I do see the irony of using this platform to speak about the dangers of the internet. But we have reached a point where this is the way to have your voice expressed.