#complex world

ISO

The question of the importance of life is a philosophical and existential one that has been pondered by thinkers, scientists, religious figures, and individuals for centuries. Different perspectives exist on this topic, and people's views can be influenced by their cultural, religious, personal, and philosophical beliefs.n't Know? … Deciding What's Important in Your Complex Life

Complex World (Jim Wolpaw, 1992) this was so of a time and place and it’s hard to believe anyone could have ever gotten away with being this blind-confidently uncool. but i guess there’s universities, improv troupes, youtube, etc. that still offer this space. storylines converge on a rock club for people who are blind-confidently uncool. there’s a bomb in the basement. it’s actually nicely threaded, it’s just the humour and emptiness of everything else was irritating. captain lou albano was the shining point. made as a fundraiser for the club that this was shot in.

I'm starting to not just dislike, but actively despise our sound-byte, image macro, meme culture. Put some clever words on a convincing image, and everyone gets to feel validated in whatever belief they already had. It appeals to our lazy brains, which love to categorize and label and put check marks beside existing ideas. Meanwhile, we get to feel clever and funny and superior because we boiled this important issue down into one, irrefutable statement. But it's not irrefutable. It's one tiny piece of a huge, complex issue. It's some fact seen without context, or a false equivalency, or an outright untruth we believe because it seems to make sense, or just clever wordplay. It's a one-two punch of words appealing to our logical minds, on an image appealing to our visual, "see it to believe it" minds; so our natural response is to believe it, to appreciate it, and to feel good about ourselves for being so clever. It magnifies the echo chamber, it discourages fact-checking, and it builds us up at the expense of the Other Side. Because surely the Other Side should be able to understand this simple, obvious truth - after all, it's so obvious that it fits in a meme! But these image macros are empty. They're what a tabloid is to a scholarly paper. They're a reality show compared to actual reality. They're a piece of candy compared to a four course meal. They're fluff, but they're a special kind of fluff we're predisposed to take as Truth, because of the way our brains work. Just because something fits over a convincing image, that doesn't make it a simple truth. And just because it takes more than a sound-byte to refute, that doesn't make it a convoluted lie. It's easier to believe simple, straightforward things, because we can hold the entire idea in our minds at once; but the problems of this world are not simple, and the human experience is far from straightforward.