Tag Archives: social media

Debunking Electrifying Hobby, Oversharing, Blogrolling

July 2, 2022 philwade Leave a comment

I subscribed to a video service in order to watch a movie last month, and since then I’ve tried to catch a few more in the package before cancelling. So far, it’s been a buy-one-get-four deal.

This week a couple of us watched the original Top Gun for the first time. I’ve heard it’s a frequently quoted movie. It can’t be more than any other well-received flick of its time. Only a couple lines stood out to me from the scant story that links the flying together. But the flying is cool. Dog fighting is cool. Faux drama about possibly running out of gas so you shouldn’t try to help a couple teammates return alive is not cool.

The F-14 Tomcats they fly in the movie have co-pilots, radar intercept officers (RIO). From what you see on screen, they appear to be only a second set of eyes, so I had to look up what they could do in the air–navigation, radio, electronics, and some weapons. Dave “Bio” Baranek, a Top Gun himself, has a book on it.

I don’t plan to watch it again, but then I rarely rewatch anything anymore.

Both sides: “The American body politic, Mamet tells us, is fundamentally diseased, and is slowly being consumed by an ideologically radical political class which, left unchecked, is sure to consume it.” A Playwright’s Life – (lawliberty.org)

Banned by YouTube: Ann Reardon has many great videos on cooking and other videos that debunk “life hack” videos that purport to demonstrate a cool, new time-saver, often food related. Her recent video exposing the dangers of fractal wood burning (“34 deaths”) was removed by YouTube, because somehow the artificial intelligence judged the debunk to be more dangerous than the how-to.

Star Rating? Tyler explains the reasons he doesn’t like Goodreads.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A book that changed the world.

Social demands: “Learning to say ‘no’ can be difficult; learning to not reveal one’s conscience on every single issue that hits the news can be even harder, especially in a society where it is seen as good and noble to have a ‘take’ or a strong moral stance on practically everything. . . .”

*Stormy Sea with Sailing Vessels* by Jacob van Ruisdael

Feature Photo: Christie’s Restaurant sign, Houston, Texas. 1983. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, Blogs, Socials, Religion

The God-Man Jesus, Philosophical Deadends, and Social Media

February 5, 2022 philwade Leave a comment

Some people would have us believe that Jesus never claimed to be God, but you cannot read the Gospels thoughtfully and come to that conclusion. Christ Jesus made authoritative claims about Scripture and the people around him. He said, you have heard it said … but I say to you. Well, who is he to be claiming such authority of the text and its traditional interpretation? A crowd took up stones at least twice, because they knew what he was saying. “The Jews answered him, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God'” (John 10:33).

But maybe appealing to the reaction of the crowds is deeper in the weeds than we need to go. Jesus’s teaching ministry was not lightweight moralism that could sound true to anyone. He called for repentance and the coming of the kingdom of God.

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher,” C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity. “He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.”

Let me jot down some blogroll links.

Social Media: Chris Martin has been writing a newsletter about social media for a while. Last summer, he wrote, “Social media and the internet are being used to perpetuate sin in ways that some sermon series on ‘technology and the gospel’ isn’t just going to fix.” In November, he said censorship isn’t the big problem with social media among Christians; it’s the way this technology is discipling us.

Martin released a book this month on this topic, called Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media.

Johann Georg Hamann “gives us a way forward from both the deadends of modernism and the deadends of postmodernism.” Hamann calls us ultimately to the Bible.

Trending: Merriam-Webster reports a sharp increase in searches for the definition of infrangible, which means “unbreakable, not able to be separated into parts” or “not to be violated.”

Trueman: “As the medieval world granted tremendous spiritual power to its priesthood and indulged its sins because of that, so we do with our celebrities.”

Photo: Paul’s Market, Franklin, New York. 1976. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Authors, The Press

A Rising Shame Culture

December 12, 2018 philwade Leave a comment

Perhaps the most poisonous aspect of current media culture is how it facilitates our impulses to condemn and shame others. Whether by open letter or twitter storm, some of us wake up primed to take a stand against some unthinkable person somewhere. Any accusation is credible without need of investigation. Any social post is up for scrutiny, no matter the age of the poster at the time. Consider our virtue signaled.

Helen Andrews reviews a shameful public incident that has followed her for years in this essay in First Things. Her story is grueling, but there are many more, allowing us to see a pattern.

At the risk of insulting the reader: No one actually believed Williamson was a threat to his female colleagues. It was only a pretext for what was really an exercise in raw power. People made the same kind of excuses when it was my turn in the dunk tank. Again and again, I read commenters insisting that what might at first glance appear to be prurient gossip was, in fact, fair political commentary, because I was a family-values scold and thus open to charges of hypocrisy, or because I was a hard-core Randian who needed a lesson in the dog-eat-dog heartlessness advocated by my idol. As far as I can tell, these characterizations were extrapolated from the fact that I worked at National Review. Certainly, they had no basis in anything I’d written (an Objectivist, really?).

The truth does not matter in the shame storm–only what can beat down the victim.

What solution is there? Look at what Jared Wilson posted today: “Christian, the Lord knows you are not an asset to the organization. He knows what a tangled-up knot of anxiety, incompetence, and faithlessness you are. He knows exactly what a big fat sinner you are. He knew exactly what he was getting into.”

Photo by Victor Rodriguez on Unsplash

Publishing

Twitter’s Quiet Suppression

February 20, 2016 philwade Leave a comment

For months, the news on Twitter has been that they don’t know how to monetize their platform of 232 million users. We’ve seen some advertising and promoted messages, but apparently they don’t make enough money. Ian Schafer suggests Twitter and its many critics don’t know what kind of company it actually is.

Maybe Twitter is deciding that it’s identify is to censor in the name of social justice.

For years, social media companies have been besieged by a new wave of progressive advocacy groups who demand restrictions on political speech under the guise of preventing “online abuse.” These are the groups who now make up Twitter’s dystopianly-named “Trust and Safety Council.”

That council has acted within the last few hours to suspend popular conservative tweeter Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain). Before this, they were slowing down the use or discovery of certain hashtags, as described below.

Naive I guess, but I didn’t know Twitter manipulated hashtags & trends like this #FreeStacy https://t.co/SzDrroQW1l pic.twitter.com/xsrxsGyb6T

— LauraB in MN (@LauraBxd) February 20, 2016

Breitbart.com argues for organization for all of us.

Conservatives and cultural libertarians are the most likely constituency to rise up, as they are the ones being predominantly targeted, but this is really a battle that should be taken up by all social media users. The Twitters and Facebooks of the world are not like the media empires of old; they are entirely reliant on users. Properly organised, users could hold them to account, in a way that would make investors sit up and listen — but they are not yet properly organised.

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Book Reviews, Creative Culture