Psychology

If social media is working for you and you don’t care about the moral implications of using social media, then this post isn’t for you.

On the other hand, if the MAGA shift of social media, the love fest between Zuck, Musk, and Tr*mp and their slimey ilk makes you feel a little cringey. Or if you realize that you’re wasting countless minutes of your one wild and precious life, then this may be for you. Fair warning, it gets pretty technical; so stop wherever you want. It takes little more than a decision and a healthy dose of willpower. But if you want to block social media and cast it into the fires of Mt. Doom, here’s how.

This isn’t the first time, but I hope it will be the last.

Facebook, for me has long been a source of enjoyment and connection. But it also leaves me feeling cringey. So what changed?

What changed is that Facebook has gone full-on MAGA and I’m not OK with that:

• “Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with President-elect Donald Trump on Friday [January 10, 2025] at Mar-a-Lago, two sources familiar tell CNN. Meta declined to comment on the meeting between Zuckerberg and Trump.” - Source
• Meta said today [January 7, 2025] it will end its fact-checking program in exchange for X-style community notes as part of a slate of changes targeting ‘censorship’ and embracing ‘free expression’. - Source,
  • We all know how this has gone at “X”, where self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” has actively shaped pro-Republican messaging on the platform.
• “Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican, replaced Meta’s policy chief Nick Clegg last week. (He said Meta’s third-party fact-checkers have demonstrated ’too much political bias’ in a Fox News interview this morning [January 7, 2025.)” - Source
• “CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined at Mar-a-Lago on Thanksgiving eve. [November 27, 2024]” - Source
• “The company [Meta/Facebook] pledged a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration.” - Source
• “On Monday, it [Meta] added three people to its board, including close Trump ally Dana White.” - Source
  • I didn’t know who Dana White was but he appears to be the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and the owner of Power Slap, which is a “slap fighting” promotion, whatever that is. The bottom line is that he sounds like he’s rich and into violence, just the type of person that would appeal to Tr*mp.

So thanks for the memories, Facebook. But for me this is the end of the road.

Interesting links, a little thoughts for Monday, May 23, 2022.

We need people to push our buttons, otherwise how are we to know what buttons we have?

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is a Buddhist nun interviewed on the excellent Ten Percent Happier podcast. It’s always possible to reframe situations where someone “pushes our buttons” to see it as an opportunity to better understand that there are these buttons, these sensitivities that otherwise evade our awareness.

Over-involvement in the future must be our most maladaptive trait.

Back in the 1970’s in Ojai, when Jiddu Krishnamurti drew enormous crowds to his extemporaneous talks, he touched on the liberation that comes from releasing the pointless hold on the future.¹

Do you want to know what my secret is? You see, I don’t mind what happens.

That’s it. Of all the teachings from the broad wisdom traditions, his one secret was not minding what happens. Notice that Krishnamurti didn’t say “I don’t care what happens.” It’s an important distinction. I can care about my own wellbeing and that of others in some future. But it’s pointless to hold onto that future in its imaginary state. As Oliver Burkeman put it:

Reading Oliver Burkeman’s last advice column in decade-long series in The Guardian, I was struck by his advice on the imposter syndrome:

The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one…Humanity is divided into two: on the one hand, those who are improvising their way through life, patching solutions together and putting out fires as they go, but deluding themselves otherwise; and on the other, those doing exactly the same, except that they know it. It’s infinitely better to be the latter (although too much “assertiveness training” consists of techniques for turning yourself into the former).

2018 is my year of experiments (Why? TL;DR: New Year’s resolutions are over-rated and have a high failure rate. Anyone can run an experiment for a month.) My first experiment (No news for a month) is nearly done and I’ll declare it a success.

Background

The round-the-clock sensational news cycle exists in large part to create wealth for the already-too-wealthy. Little of it is actionable, leaving us at the same time both outraged and impotent. Mostly I decided to give up on the news because of Donald Trump, the demented psychopathic moron who managed to get elected president.^[I use these terms very carefully. Many have speculated that he suffers from some form of dementia owing to events where he slurs his words and perseverates. His sociopathic or psychopathic behaviours are well-documented; he is man devoid of empathy. And finally, his lack of reading is well-known. For all I can tell, the man is a functional illiterate. In contrast, his predecessor is a bibliophile and read widely and voraciously throughout his tenure.] Since Trump took office, like others, I’ve found myself cycling repeatedly through the stages of grief. But mostly I’ve been stuck on anger. There’s something about willful ignorance that does that to me.

New Year’s resolution time is at hand. But not for me; at least not in a traditional sense. I was inspired by David Cain’s experiments. In short, he conducts monthly experiments in self-improvement.

The idea of an experiment is appealing in ways that a resolution is not. A resolution presumes an outcome and relies only on the long application of will to see it through. An experiment on the other hand, makes only a conjecture about the outcome and can be conducted for a shorter period.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” - Socrates

This year I decided to take a different approach to making New Year’s resolutions. Although many people make resolutions, less than 10% regard themselves as successful at achieving them.

I decided to overhaul the idea of New Year’s resolutions. Rather than committing to an entire year of change, I set up a schedule of 12 mini-resolutions in the form of experiments. My first experiment for the month of January was to work out daily. My February experiment was to determine whether avoiding the news and time-boxing my social media interactions would make me happier.

You might be the subject of political pandering if:

1. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are the main tricks in the politician’s kit.

A politician who never tires of scapegoating a feared group, or a feared outcome is undoubtedly pandering. Or a demagogue. Or both. Whether it’s Mexicans, or Jews, or Muslims, or gay people, they never seem to stop talking about why you should be afraid of someone or something.