By funding you mean resuming advertising on the platform, right?
yes.
RoundSparrow @ .ee
Stephen Alfred Gutknecht
Professional in social media since 1985, created / sold social media server apps at age 15. Traveled the world to study media ecology.
“Finnegans Wake is the greatest guidebook to media study ever fashioned by man.” - Marshall McLuhan, Newsweek Magazine
- 16 Posts
- 36 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 29th, 2023
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I think the USA has taken a deep dive in international standing since January 2025, and Reddit is a USA-flavored USA-centered content publisher in terms of front page community. Things were pretty anti-USA with all the support of Israel in 2024, but now in 2025 with Elon Musk being the center of all USA society attention every minute of every day, sites like Reddit are being turned away from (or people only reading to mock the USA) - where the HiveMind is extremely USA technology consumerism / technology lifestyle worship.
For example, I never witness anyone on Reddit criticize Apple Computers for funding Twitter / X in 2025. It’s tech addiction as the primary religion on Reddit. And I think those outside the USA are sick of that machine lust / machine mind behavior of Elon Musk, Zuck, Amazon, etc.
“Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992
Damned anti-vaccine activists.
I don’t blame them. In a society that worships the Apple iPhone and iPad and things that only fit in the length of a single screen, meme-speak and 3-word reaction commenting, it’s inevitable that entertainment mocking would eclipse science understanding. Carl Sagan said this in his 1995 book shortly before his death… that “10-second sound-bites” (meme-speak, Twitter-length junk) would drown society in the future if not changed. His 1995 warning has proven true since 2012.
Damned anti-vaccine activists.
I mean, who exactly educated these activists and everyday Apple iPhone users about information warfare? The most sophisticated devised by humanity? People were eaten-alive by Moscow information predators.
Look at the timing of this story, one year before the Wuhan Pandemic was front page, but nobody can seem to escape meme-think to discuss serious evidence. The activists didn’t stand a chance, they were scalped by Putin’s meme army since 2013.
Russian trolls blamed for spreading anti-vaccination propaganda
By Lia Eustachewich New York Post
Published February 17, 2019 2:01pm ESThttps://www.foxnews.com/tech/russian-trolls-blamed-for-spreading-anti-vaccination-propaganda
This is what pisses me off. Most of these sicknesses could be easily avoided, yet the lack of education from many clueless people
The most clueless ones are arrogant and entirely avoid researching factual evidence of a conspiracy (with evidence conspiracy, not a bullshit “trust me bro” conspiracy) that was published by well-known reputable universities: George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University authenticated the factual evidence.
I guess since smartphones and Twitter were the venue for the evidence, social media users just can’t see past their meme addiction to simple-think and reaction-thinking and seriously discuss the fact-based conspiracy evidence. I’ve been trying to grasp why in 2020 onward this wasn’t a constant topic of discussion! Wuhan China is world famous, why isn’t this public notice about Russia discussed (constantly!)?
August 24, 2018 - Measles Russia
The second it’s validated and becomes public knowledge, it’s no longer “privileged” knowledge and no longer makes them feel special for “knowing” a “secret truth”
Ahh, the (2 thousand year old) Bible verse Romans 11:33 theory of James Joyce’s work ;)
But democratized tech doesn’t guarantee democratic outcomes.
Far from it. We really need a major confrontation of the audience, information warfare needs to be educated to every single person of every age. Continuing education about science and mythology needs to continue, as people continue to flock to fiction and abandon non-fiction in every area of life.
People just can’t be serious about democracy and LOL and meme away their nation, the USA (where I live), it’s been absolute crisis since 2014.
“Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985
Conspiracy theorists: crickets
Agreed, FACTUAL EVIDENCE of a conspiracy theory is collected by reputable Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University and crickets. People flock to conspiracies with no evidence, but once one appears with authentic validation… nothing.
Troll accounts that had attempted to influence the US election had also been tweeting about vaccines, a study says. Many posted both pro- and anti-vaccination messages to create “false equivalency”, the study found. It examined thousands of tweets sent between 2014 and 2017. Vaccination was being used by trolls and sophisticated bots as a “wedge issue”, said Mark Dredze from Johns Hopkins University. “A significant portion of the online discourse about vaccines may be generated by malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas,” said David Broniatowski from George Washington University. The researchers reviewed more than 250 tweets about vaccination from accounts linked to the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (IRA). In February the agency was named in a US indictment over alleged election meddling.
Important Reminder
August 24, 2018
All across the world every major news site covered this story in August 2018. Even Fox News covered it.
The clergy are failing all of humanity in not calling out the hate patterns in the middle east from all across the world. People need to stop grey-rocking Malala and promote her teachings.
“If one man can destroy everything, why can’t one girl change it?” ― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, October 8, 2013
“In his pocket he kept a poem written by Martin Niemöller, who had lived in Nazi Germany. First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak out because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” ― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, October 8, 2013
9.9xxx years before October 7, 2023.
What am I trying to say? A woman in London yesterday was protesting Putin/Russia to support Ukraine. She is using symbolism of clothing. University of Toronto professor Marshall McLuhan described women using clothing against enemies in a 1968 book for deeper understanding of how she is fighting against Putin.
you are flinging shit at the wall and shrugging.
You think Canadian professor Marshall McLuhan is “shit” to fling? Canada is supporting Ukraine. I really don’t get your line of questioning here as a moderator.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about why did you post this?
How do we know what the woman in London yesterday is specifically referencing? She was at the US Embassy, so it must be Trump related?
Her sign seems professionally designed and printed.
June 2023
This might help people ? Not sure if directly related.
James Joyce apparently wrote the post title and description underneath
University of Toronto professor Marshall McLuhan’s words.
The post has a link to Wikipedia about 1968 book by Canadian professor.
“War and Peace in the Global Village is a 1968 book by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore. It contains a collage of images and text that illustrates the effects of electronic media and new technology on man. Marshall McLuhan used James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake as a major inspiration for this study of war throughout history as an indicator as to how war may be conducted in the future”
That future is now.
London, USA Embassy
source for image: https://old.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1j4f286/in_front_of_us_ambassy_london/
Americans are voting every few seconds, don’t you see where they are staring
They are voting up the memes. We have Meme Kings of Trump and Musk to meme about every few seconds on every single media platform. I see people pressing UpVote on Reddit, Bluesky.
People sold out to Apple iPhone, who in February 2025 is promoting products on Elon Musk’s X (Apple is paying money to Elon Musk), a long time ago for the ability to mock a 78 year old man on the Toilet tweeting.
“Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992
Linux community arrogance is to deny the device driver issues and think Apple is fine, when the reason Apple thrives is because they don’t have open hardware like Linux, BSD, Windows…
Hardware companies are rarely held account for their absent support of Linux - some campaigns have come and gone, but in the end Linux users tend to arrogantly say it’s trivial to switch and embrace dishonesty. I guess they figure Microsoft is dishonest, so they normalize it.
Then why do people use them? And quit yelling.
People are attacking you, ganging up on you, one of the favorite things on Reddit like media platforms is to be hard core conformity enforcers and silence attempts at understanding mob mentality.
It’s the influence on people’s behavior that’s far more my concern than the faith I have in people expressing self-awareness they have in terms of what they say (what you hear them say). Absolute addicts to technology can often not discuss their extreme addictions. You can witness the behavior all over in public since year 2010.
“One characteristic of those who live in a Technopoly is that they are largely unaware of both the origins and the effects of their technologies.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, 1992
The USA population and society has really lost all sense of what life was like before there was a constant notification stream of antics from billionaires. People are absolutely engrossed in the screen game of LOL at Donald Trump and Elon Musk so much they have no sense of life before 2008. There are huge numbers of people in March 2025 behaving as if Donald Trump is a new event and have lost every sense of him having been elected and in office in 2017.