Utilitarianism

So this mad blog post is about something that maybe I don’t need to say.  I think really, people have watched it all happen and anything that I tried to keep up with is now just reality because the bad people won.  But it is an observation about facebook, and I do think it is better for some people to say it than to not say it.  In the past, when a resource everyone relied on so much became an almost or absolute necessity of people’s lives, it would often be instituted as a utility, such as electric and phone companies. Facebook itself morphed and added to its role like that, so some of its expansion is from the company trying to meet needs.  But some of it is most obviously from trying to meet “greeds.” And we don’t have a government that is functional enough to regulate social media, and we also have a public that decided to be patient with something so powerful functioning like a utility but not having accountability.  No one insisted on much regulation, but how have we been repaid for our loyalty and cooperation? By total betrayal that includes many of our actual friends and acquaintances. In a way, what has happened is a valuable demonstration of extreme free market potential, and as a libertarian, I somewhat am a fan of that process.  However, I do see some drawbacks where just like with other parts of our country’s systems, some people end up getting the worst of both worlds- capitalism and government socialism.  In other words, facebook has pretty obviously chosen a political party to support, and has enhanced its users’ efforts to harass and silence the other “side.” And the strategy of harassment and silencing and starvation is conspicuously similar to the culture wars from the past 40 years.  Only now, a social utility which has a public role that also has eaten up people’s actual friendships from both church, school, and work contacts, is actively shutting down not just normal life but the social component of people’s lives.  Would I not complain if I was one of the people boosted?  Maybe I would gloat or tell everyone it’s their problem.  Except the algorithms don’t allow for normal announcements and friendship as they once did, and they do allow for constant ads to funnel money to already billionaires based on my friendship. And soon Zuckerberg will pay the influencers who are mocking people from my religion and, hmmmm… geographical background.  There are already onslaughts of underwear ads if I post something religious.  And the social media up and ups will gladly tell you that is the point.  

I can go on, but people are already aware of this.  Are we going to take it?  How facebook hides its true staff behind insulting publicity mascots featured in meta ads letting us know that Zuckerberg has moved on to other goals? What if the electric company shut off half the power for one side of the political disagreements?  In a way, it seems that facebook is different from that, but in another way, it is much, much worse, because it is our actual church and school contacts, many of which have been glad to harass their friends literally to death. That is all I will say.  No one really has to say it, because it is all recorded. People’s motives are all too apparent. Their delusions of historical heroism, and the finale of safety threats to anyone who merely voted according to their pro life beliefs, much less actual government leaders who attained their role through the democratic process that too many people actually worshipped and idolicized to the point of the clogged process we now have. What will happen to deliver us from this oppression?  Probably a pandemic and war, and then the country breaks up in an immature, bratty admission that maybe it already should have two hundred years ago when aggressives tried their tricks before.