Overwhelmed by the planetary crisis and don’t know where to start?
You are not alone, many struggle with where to start, and that often means doing nothing at all.
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humanity first
Can we save social media? Should we?
It feels like every time I speak to someone, they tell me they’re stepping away from social media. The reasons? It’s not bringing them joy or connection anymore, so why stay around? They are finding posts kitschy, tedious, egotistical, or downright boring. AI isn’t helping either, because it’s just adding more meaningless content into feeds and people have had enough. It begs the question; can we save social media? Should we? My passion for social media has always been tied to this simple fact – social media was the democratization of information, which meant a handful of rich publishers didn’t own the information airwaves anymore, and we could have our own voice, our own ability to influence and be part of the discourse. But in the last 10 years it’s all gone downhill. It started with us raging at each other, which helped the technology companies work out this is where money could be made, and then traditional media, who didn’t know how to make money anymore in a social world, jumped into clickbait too, as it’s the only way they could work out how to make money. The result? There is no safe place to go anymore, no place for easy access to solid information, and here we are in a giant shit show. When we started raging at each other it was small, but now, negative emotions are the driving force online. No wonder good people are saying enough of that. Perhaps it’s a good thing, an end to the chapter where humanity failed completely? A global ‘Townsquare’ is obviously not in our interest. But is that the correct way to look at it? As we watch it’s death spiral, with algorithms in control, we are left with a machine driving the social discourse, not in our favour. The most ironic bit, with AI now firmly in the mix, the very companies who own social media and drove it into the slop it is today, are also the same companies behind AI – does that alarm you? It alarms me and we are embracing it and them wholeheartedly. Why? We’re not all stupid, are we? We continue to give these men more power and control over our lives, and the very benefit I used to sing from the rafters – the democratization of information – has been completely eradicated, with the Techbros fully in control of our information, and therefore our lives. They have no editorial guardrails they must abide by either, so profit is all that drives them. And we happily go along…. To understand this situation in much more depth, please read this article, Welcome to slop world: how the hostile internet is driving us crazy – it’s bang on! There are a lot of take-aways from this article – “Today’s internet isn’t really designed for us, but rather to elicit certain responses from us, responses which are hostile to human flourishing.” And another: “To be online today means navigating an environment whose design feels adversarial, manipulative; it means wading through toxic slop to get to the thing you want. It’s a recipe for cynicism, discontent and dysfunction, wholly in conflict with the democratising impulses that supposedly drove the internet’s development.” Hint, that’s not a good evolution for us. BTW if you’re not already, follow Carole Cadwalladr – she’s fighting for all of us, but we have to get behind her and support her: Springtime for Hitler – by Carole Cadwalladr. Let’s get serious about AI in this mix Expanding on the AI topic, this article in Fast Company got my attention too – If you use AI to write me that note, don’t expect me to read it. I know a lot of people completely agree with this, but like I’ve been for the last decade – a lonely voice calling on leaders to be social leaders, participating with integrity, as part of the giving economy, serving their audience versus their own egos – I wonder if they feel like anyone is listening now? AI written content feels off. It’s not the em-dashes everyone is talking about (I have friends who actually use them, I don’t, because I’m too lazy to find and insert them, so if they appear, it’s Microsoft editing it in), no for me it’s the rhythm of the content. Two sentences per paragraph, the exact same length, and the same for the next para and the next. I can read it, but it doesn’t transform into information that lands in my brain. It’s the weirdest thing. I like this description when using AI to write your post for LinkedIn, “it’s like a steak transformed into mechanically processed meat.” Captures it, right? But it’s the bigger story of you write a post with AI help, the person responds to you with AI help, and on it goes… Think of all the energy and water being used to achieve absolutely nothing and who is learning anything here? Who’s using their brains? I deeply believe, if you don’t create something, you don’t know it. Are we all just going to leave the door open to have even less brain power than we have today? It’s bizarre to me. The writer concludes – “the truth, however, is if something isn’t worth you writing it, there’s about no way in hell it’s worth me reading it.” Amen! The problem now is volume! Everyone can achieve so much more, that means even more nonsense on social media, and we were already swamped before AI. Don’t you love how technology makes our lives better? Let’s get onto bot farms! This article: Bot farms invade social media to hijack popular sentiment is also in Fast Company. We are in Bot farm hell, where “you can numb the brain into believing just about anything.” Oh isn’t that excellent news? Bloody hell. This is how it works – “Bot farm amplification is being used to make ideas on social media seem more popular than they really are. A bot farm
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Do you know what being a whole human means?
If you value my opinion, I really want to encourage you to listen to this podcast – Transcend – with Scott Barry Kaufman. I discovered the You Are Not So Smart Podcast by David McRaney recently and love it.
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The problem with casual criticism and how it diminishes us all
I want to talk about something that’s bothering me a lot lately. This is not directed at anyone I’m having deeper, behind-the-scenes conversations with, it’s more of a general experience I want to talk about. And it’s about casual criticism. The stuff we put out there, without much thought, especially the impact it can have on others. I was at an event recently, and someone made a disparaging remark about something. It’s not important what they said, but it was an ugly little moment. Anyhoo, I was only an attendee, but I immediately felt hurt for those who had arranged this event. What if they heard these words? How would it make them feel? Would it stop them from doing something again? Would it crush them enough to diminish their spirit, passion, light? Potentially, and that is why I care about it so much. We cannot dim another’s light! It’s inexcusable to do that. Casual criticism is lazy and destructive. It’s also always from people who are not in the arena, doing the work. It’s also usually from people who have given up. Who don’t believe we can achieve wonders anymore. It’s SO easy to criticise another, especially if those people are doing good work. It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and rip it apart, pull it to shreds, diminish it’s value. Why do people need to do it? And more importantly, what does it really say about them? For those in the arena, please fight on regardless, no matter how much it hurts. I can definitely assure you I know the cost, and sometimes it’s unbearable. But we need you. Our children need you. The world needs you. Our future needs you. Flip it around too. Look at it as an opportunity to help other’s become better versions of themselves by showing them how it’s done. By showing them what belief looks like. By reminding them of the incredible results you can achieve when you believe enough! Because the only other option is to diminish ourselves. And to be honest, we all lose if we allow that to happen. Transformative change can only happen if those doing great work, do it regardless of this casual criticism. It would be so much easier if they didn’t have to contend with it though. Across the span of my life, I know it’s rare to have the mettle or the thick skin required to cope. But the bigger risk is, people are silenced. They don’t want to attract that shit. It breaks my heart. One of the reasons I wrote my next book, Uncommon Courage, is to talk about stuff like this. As the world has gotten angrier and meaner, those of us who are not angry and mean haven’t remained centered. We’ve been impacted by this anger and we have moved towards it, away from our core truth. Sure we might not be as extreme as those who are angriest, but we aren’t where we were before this all started to boil. Just look at your friends ripping each other apart on social media when they don’t agree with each other? The easiest way to think about this is Ying and Yang. Light and dark. And we have always needed both, because when we have both, we have balance. Right now, we are not in balance. We have all moved towards the dark a little bit or a lot. I think we can all understand how it’s happened. It’s hard not to be angry when there’s so much ugliness around us. It’s hard not to respond, to rile up, to bite back. But we have to work harder than those who are most negative. We have to work harder to stay in the light, even when it hurts like hell. If enough of us do it, we create a tipping point and we can get the balance back. Because do you know who wins if we don’t do this? Those horrible, angry people who are making us more horrible and angry. Ironic isn’t it? But that’s how it works, and because it’s always so intense, we don’t give ourselves the opportunity to see the bigger picture. We need to see this bigger picture, because if we don’t, what we’re fighting for is already lost. This last five years, which has been exacerbated by a pandemic, has had a HUGE impact in making all of us less loving, giving and beautiful. Our words are harsher, our criticism more cutting, our cynicism more unforgiving. But we don’t want to be that person, do we? I certainly don’t and I want to encourage everyone to mind your words, especially your criticism, and especially mind it towards those who are doing their hardest to make the world a better place. You might not believe what they’re doing is possible, but don’t stop them believing it’s possible! The only guarantee of creating a better future is for the craziest ideas to be driven by massive passion and a relentlessness that will ensure success. Let’s get behind it. Let’s support the crazy. And even if we don’t want to get behind it, just don’t criticize it. When you have a choice, always choose kindness. Yours, without the bollocks Andrea Thanks for supporting Without the Bollocks for all these years. I’m about to retire this brand, and move it to a new idea I’m building, called Uncommon Courage. It’s a book, podcast, blog, social media and more – where we talk about the big issues of our time. The Facebook Group hasn’t been launched yet, but you can follow me on Twitter here, Instagram here, YouTube here, and Facebook too – although this Facebook page will soon be retired! Here’s to making the world a better place xxxxx
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There are too many children crying, hurting and dying in this world. It needs to stop
A few years ago, I wrote a blog – The haunting moments of broken bones – following a particularly brutal evening, where for one hour,
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