Stop making sense!
I don't have much to add, except that social media is probably a big part of it. I quit Facebook and Twitter before it was fashionable to do so. Twitter was still called Twitter.
We have forgotten how to talk to each other. On social media you don't have to see the body language of the people you are talking to. In person, that body language is what clues you when you are crossing the line into jerkdom. Now this course language has spilled into the public sphere, with bumper stickers spelling out "Fuck you Biden" in guns. No thought that a mom might not feel like having to explain that to their seven-year-old. No, it's "Fuck your feelings, mom!"
Now the biggest social media jerk of all is set to head up the newly created "Department of Government Efficiency." Right. Streamline bureaucracy by creating more bureaucracy. Why isn't anyone calling this out?
Will Musk take this opportunity to set up the perfect surveillance state? Hmm, let me guess. Will anyone notice? No one seems to care or even notice that he has stolen the sky.
The sky used to be free, in fact it is (was?) a metaphor for freedom. I signed up for Bluesky a few days ago, set up an account, then didn't open it until this morning. It was as if I'd opened a portal to Hell, as if I'd released Chthulu. Not that there was anything bad there, but I felt this monstrous sucking sensation, so I closed it. Social media is social media. Should I even bother to delete my account?
But getting back to the sky. It used to be free. Human interaction used to be free. Capitalism has monetized our very humanity.
If Neil Postman could see us now. We are amusing ourselves to death in ways he could not have foreseen in his worst nightmare.