The Long-Tail of the Electric Sheep: the Social Media Divide.

I am off of Facebook.

I am off of Twitter.

I am off of Google+

I am off of Instagram.

Socially I am 100% off of these platforms - professionally, however, I use them to promote my brand and reach an audience that, until recently, I would never have been able to reach.

We see a preponderance of evidence that excessive time spent on social media can be a contributing factor of depression, and not just because you’re seeing all the depressing news in your feed that feeds on your inner self-loathing - It’s neurological.

That beep or buzz we get when we receive a text or notification from the magical device that lives in our pockets has trained us to have a positive emotional response to it. That response triggers dopamine in the brain - the hormone that makes us feel good. That “Good feeling” is completely artificial so when it leaves us we feel hollow and unfulfilled. Our technology has trained us in the same way that Pavlov trained his dog.

Your phone buzzes because someone responded or ‘liked’ you and that triggers an emotional response. That response is gone almost instantly and so we are left chasing the proverbial dragon down the long tail of the internet: posting more, interacting more, liking more, in the hopes that your internet community will reciprocate.

All the while retreating from the real world into the brilliant blue glow of our cell phone.

I had an interacting with an attendant at the gas station two days ago. They recently upgraded their credit card reader to include a chip reader for the newer cards. As I was working my way through the transaction I became frustrated that there were so many confirmations I needed to watch for on this new screen that I didn’t even have a second to look up and say hello to the human being that was standing in front of me. Finally I stopped, much I’m sure to the chagrin of the customers waiting behind me.

“Have you ever noticed the more advanced the technology gets, the less we have time to communicate with each other?” I asked.

She looked at me, a bit confused at first until I explained.

“I just spent a good thirty seconds in front of you with maybe glancing eye contact before I stood and stared at the machine that takes my money. We’re so worried about efficient transactions that the both of us barely took the time to acknowledge each other’s humanity.”

She laughed in astonishment, “Yeah, you’re right! I talk to so few of my customers now.”

Social media is doing the same thing.

There’s something called the “Long Tail.” This was originally coined by Amazon as a description of its algorithm: the computer code it uses to recommend new products to you. This theory basically describes the individual nature of human beings - that you may enjoy something that is popular but, based on your other likes and purchases it takes you down a road you may have never explored before but ultimately results in a product that is much more in tune with your actual likes and preferences.

In 2013, Facebook changed the way it displays posts from Most Recent to Top Stories: effectively changing its algorithm to from listing things chronologically to listing them based on personal interest. This change is great for business because it allows Facebook to promote posts that businesses pay for while burying posts that are not. It’s not specifically a bad practice, it was a business model decision.

Take into account now that this algorithm also shows you posts from our friends and people you follow based on the things you like and the links you post and soon you’ll find that the majority of people you interact with on Facebook share similar political beliefs and the few dissenters you see are easily dismissed as fringe elements. All the while retreating from dissenting opinion in real life. Retreating from family for having “backwards views,” retreating from social engagements in fear of someone saying “something wrong.” Soon we find that everyone who disagrees with us is Literally Hitler (please use the California, Valley Girl voice when saying that last part).

This experience at the gas station taught me a lot about perspective and I’ve been watching it a lot this week. I see my students more engaged with the fantasy on their phones, of the fake lives they and their friends lead, than the reality of the friends around them. They’ve just learned that people disagree online so why bring that into the real world.

So it becomes that the things we should be talking about face to face, our most intimate, personal, nuanced topics are discussed in 140 character tweets and conversation in reality, among the people we really care about and talk to on a daily basis is relegated to petty, nonsense, small talk about the weather or television.

Let me pause here a minute and stand up and say: I am guilty.

I am guilty of perpetuating this nonsense. I have done this with impunity all the while not even  watching as my real social circle shrank and collapsed into oblivion.

So now I’m off of it. My friends know if they want to get a hold of me they need to call or text me directly. If my fans or followers contact me it’s usually through my website or through email. The reality is that the people you know - you don’t know online.

Flash back to social media and we can see that these poor millennials who have lived their entire lives on social media are having an utter melt-down because now they have been exposed to a position that they’ve either never seen before or never taken seriously. And so they retreat into the long tail of their social media where they live in a dream world: the long tail of the electric sheep. They are isolated from their friends as, even when they’re standing side by side, they look only into the hypnotic light of their phone. They’re isolated from people they may otherwise find common ground with online if they hadn’t been trained in the art of knee-jerk reactions the victim Olympics.

They feel like their entire world is falling down around them and the reasoning is words.

We have spent four years utterly encapsulated in the long tail of our social media algorithms. When confronted with reality words feel like actions. And when words feel like actions it is taken upon the self of the offended to respond with actions.

So we see AntiFa. We see wave after wave hate crime hoaxes. We see people who truly believe that they are second class citizens because their media echo chamber has convinced them of their victimhood. We have a generation of people utterly alone and without empathy. If all you can see is your own victimhood you will NEVER empathize with another human being.

The conversation cannot continue on line because the lines have been drawn and tempers will continue to flare - talking with loved ones, friends and family, in the real world is the only way to bring conflict back to reasonable discussion. I am grateful to my wife who proposed the idea of getting off of social media so we could focus on our lives together and though we at the core have the same values, those are expressed through different lenses. If we can all get off the internet for a moment and talk to those around us we could put a chill on this social arms race.

The next time you see a post on social media that 'triggers' you - don't make a comment, make a phone call. Reconnect with why you're friends in the first place.

The Enemy of my Enemy

This is a message to my friends and the public in general.

I am a very conservative man. This has only become more true with the birth of my son. I grew up conservative, I discovered libertarianism and was eventually brainwashed in the school of Marxism at university. I have worn every hat there could be in the realm of political ideology but I have always come back to my conservative, liberty minded roots. I have realized with growing anxiety and frustration that; I must share the things that I know. They’re readily available to anybody who’s looking. That’s the problem though, nobody is looking. We’ve all picked our sides and hid in our corners waiting for the general election to be over so that we could get back on with our lives. If the point of American public education is to create an informed voter base, why are we all so eager to hide from that which is so important?

This is a message to Anti-Republican, Libertarian/Anarchists.

Your best chance at a Libertarian President was Ron Paul and the establishment stopped him. I campaigned for Ron Paul in the state of Nevada. I attended the local and state caucuses, taking time off from the three jobs I had at the time to fight for a candidate that had integrity, American values and Libertarian policies. I fought at the Nevada caucus in 2012 to get as many pro Ron Paul delegates as we could to the RNC and we did it.

In the end, it did us no good. Mitt Romney still received the presidential nomination – a conservative who in his private life was a pinnacle of virtue in the Mormon community, too scared of the political establishment and PC culture to show his real values, was incapable of giving the American people the values they so desperately needed to see for fear of political suicide.

The Republican party used these exact strategies against Donald Trump. They used every political maneuver available to them to keep him from the party nomination including wave after wave of establishment Republicans tossing their careers off a cliff like political lemmings to slander him after his nomination. He refused the keys of power offered up by the party leaders to keep his integrity and so they attack him for it. He finances his own campaign to make himself beholden to no-one but the American people and so they attack him for it. Big government and establishment rhetoric are the enemies, not Donald Trump.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

This is a message to Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

The reason Millennials and Generation X liked Bernie Sanders was because he spoke truth to power. He captured audiences because of his principals and his ideas – that people should be able to see a brighter future ahead of themselves. He saw that his democratic colleagues were not following through on their promises to the American people and he acknowledged the anger people felt as the result of shit rolling downhill.

While I fundamentally disagree with Bernie Sanders’s ideas about how to solve these issues we see in America today, I recognize his rebellious rhetoric and his understanding that investing in America is the only way to rebuild our great country – not wasting our time in foreign wars and destroying lobbying groups that have so allowed the United States senators to be bought and sold like commodities to the highest bidding commercial monstrosity.

Much like Ron Paul, however; Bernie’s campaign ultimately failed regardless of how mobilized his followers were. He was undermined by the collusion within the DNC to get Hillary Clinton the Nomination. This was made evident in the Podesta E-mails acquired by Wikileaks. These E-mails are horrifying evidence of corruption and deceit on a massive scale to blind the American public and remove the choice that they actually wanted. This was pinned on the shoulders of Debbie Wasserman Shultz, the then DNC chairwoman but the reality of Hillary’s involvement even on the campaign level should be enough to show the American public just how wicked this woman is. It is a complete and utter slap in the face of our democratic republic which we inherited from the blood of our ancestors. Bernie played his campaign legitimately but lost because Hillary had already bought the keys of power.

The enemy of my enemy is also my friend.

This is a message to CNN and the Mainstream Media.

The Podesta E-mails also showed us something we’ve known for a long time. The vast majority of you are shills for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. You are protected under the First Amendment of these United States. Your responsibility is to truth. The nature of politics is that no one person can be an expert and continue with their everyday life. We trusted you to be a guiding force in our lives while we used our precious time to work, be with our loved ones, and make a slice of the American dream for ourselves.

You have lost that privilege.

Alternative media: Twitter, YouTube, Podcasts, and Blogs have surpassed you in impressions, scope, and reach. The people can look for sources they trust instead of being force-fed friendly faced, worm-tongs.

Wherein Glenn Thrush admits he’s a hack and pleads with HRC campaign for approval before it’s published:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/17/politico-reporter-sends-story-to-hillary-aide-for-approval-admits-hes-a-hack/

The American people will never trust you again because, as what happens with competition, people have a choice now.

Hillary Clinton wants to remove that choice from you.

http://yournewswire.com/hillary-clinton-vows-to-shut-down-alternative-media/

When people say that the media attacks Donald Trump; that the first debate was three vs. one. Now the Media is saying He is out to get them.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-donald-trump-declared-threat-to-press-1476449591-htmlstory.html

The American people show a record low 6% trust in the media -  http://www.activistpost.com/2016/04/death-of-mainstream-media-6-percent-trust.html - while Gallup still puts it up closer to 30%, how could anyone take these accusations seriously? Podesta E-mails give us evidence of Media collusion with the Hillary campaign, Donald trump calls them out for their bias, yet somehow they think we’ll believe them when they try and play the victim?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

This is a message to the anti-war Left.

Where are you? Do you not see, before your eyes, the woman whose State Department destroyed the Libya then appeared on national television and laughed about it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y

And to so clearly have her goals revealed:

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6528. This is a woman who, along with her globalist allies within the European Union, created the instability that caused the refuge crisis that Europe is facing today.

I was with you in 2008 when Barrack Obama said he would bring our troops home. Yet, instead of following through on his anti-war platform he began indiscriminately using unmanned drones to bomb any gathering that intelligence showed had members in attendance with ties to al-Qaeda, slaughtering civilians, woman and children alike, with impunity; continuing to destabilize the region and; destroying any and all hope the people living there had of continuing on with a normal life.

Hillary Clinton wants war on a scale that we have only flirted with, in the history of the human race. Striving to control the air space over Aleppo will mean war with Russia. Not another cold war – a hot one. A war with two nuclear super powers where the stakes could mean the end of life on earth. She has already begun to pave the path to that war in the minds of the American people, claiming that Russia is behind the DNC email hacks with nothing but rhetoric to back up her claims.

All the while, Donald Trump believes we should be working together to defeat our common enemy, ISIS.

While Hillary Clinton received funding through the Clinton Foundation by the very people who fund ISIS: http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/10/hillary-in-leaked-email-saudi-arabia-and-qatar-are-funding-isis/ . This in light of the Clinton’s using their foundation for ‘Pay-to-play’ schemes: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/tag/clinton-foundation/ .

If you are against war and the growing global conflict that seems to grow ever closer each day, Hillary Clinton is your enemy. It doesn’t matter if you are a peace-loving hippy; a hardline Libertarian espousing the Non-Aggression Principle; a human rights activist; a Husband; a Wife; a Mother or a Father: don’t allow Hillary Clinton to let Aleppo be the place we fight over to destroy the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJZRvp6w4wc

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

To teachers and parents who continue to guide children in an effort to help them find a way to solve their conflicts with words and not violence. To conservatives who hide their opinions for fear of libel slander from social justice warriors calling you racist, sexist, homophobic, property destruction or even worse, physical assault due to your political beliefs; Hillary Clinton is your enemy.

Somehow, we have all arrived in an alternate reality where words have more weight than actions. Where once there was civil discourse now there is violence and it comes from Hillary Clinton’s supporters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJV41gS2c8M

This is a savage beating of a homeless woman. Beaten up by thugs for defending Donald Trump’s Star on the walk of fame after it was vandalized in the night. The thugs then go on to tell her that, “if you’re spreading hate, you get hate.” Words transmit ideas, and it is violence with which they will try and stop us. Hate is shown by action, not by words. Violence is the simple solution when you know the argument cannot be won. Maim and demoralize your enemy and they can no longer bother you with their dissenting opinion.

Celebrities have no class either: http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/08/robert-de-niro-slams-donald-trump-video.cnn – using ad homonym attacks, with no arguments. Celebrities continue to virtue signal that they are so much more intelligent than conservatives that they must immediately resort to the threat of violence to prove their point.

Project Veritas went undercover and found proof of DNC and Hillary Clinton collusion to destroy the moral of Trump supporters; ‘bird-dogging’ them into action or inciting violence themselves to create the illusion of a violent tendency within the Trump support base. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY .

Of course, a candidate cannot be held accountable for the actions of their followers. But they ought to be responsible for the party and campaign they lead. This massive outpouring of violence will only get worse as these anti-social behaviors prove again and again to have no consequences if done against conservatives. Enemies of violence must be enemies of Hillary Clinton.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Finally, the FBI has reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s E-mail scandal. Where thousands of highly classified E-mails were mishandled and threatened national security. FBI Director James Comey initially did not pursue charges against the former Secretary of State. If you’re unfamiliar with the story you can find a work up of it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-comey.html?_r=0

This is a person who has massively mishandled information and then has the audacity to blame the Russians as hackers?

Why didn't they pursue the charges initially? It has something to do with President Obama knowing about her breach in security protocol and doing nothing about it. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/31077

But an open FBI investigation didn’t stop her from running for President, it certainly won’t stop her from winning it either. With less than two weeks left until the general election nothing short of keeping her from office will make these charges stick.

Donald Trump is the enemy of my enemy. He has charged into this political race uphill onto a fortified position with no support from his party or the media, only the people – his future consistence. His criticisms of America’s foreign police over the last twenty years give me hope that he truly is an anti-war candidate. The reports of his business failings are greatly overshadowed by the action and accountability of his success. He has financed his own campaign, building no coalitions, leaving him responsible to only one group of people – the American people.

Make no mistake, if on November 8^th, your vote is cast for Hillary Clinton you are voting for War. You are voting for violence in the streets. You are voting for a world government where we have no hope of self-governance. You are voting for a 65% estate tax that will destroy the transfer of anything you may have built for your family after you die. You are voting your great grand children’s future productivity away, as we have already spent the money they will someday earn and added it to our national debt.

I pray that the U.K. has shown us the way. That, even under blinding pressure from the media, celebrities, and politicians that BREXIT was racist, it won out and that UK citizens will no longer be a part of the EU. The media today still calls for another Referendum because they can’t imagine after all their hard work trying to brainwash the people they are supposed to serve; they would vote against their corporate media masters. The United States must take their lead and take itself away from the globalist agenda where it can finally make itself great again.

For your family, for your children, for yourselves: Vote Donald Trump.