The Luxury of Assumption
We no longer have the luxury of assuming ignorance or blame our own ignorance.
We live in a time where we can blame others for our own ignorance because “concepts” are too big to understand…
Facebook and Twitter‘s own algorithms were engineered for many types of manipulators of web traction: businesses, non-profits, and governments who understood how to manipulate the results, or sociopathic institutions led by unethical individuals also realized they could literally highjack the results to favor themselves (along with their tabloid practices and theories), and inevitably unassuming consumers were always the butt-end of the joke. Consumers were the ones who followed where they were being led.
Were they guilty?
Can we really blame them?
Did I fall for ‘BlackHAT’ Manipulation?
Did I read ‘Fake News‘ and believe it?
These practices have been around a long time, but people are still generally good, and they’ll apparently give you the shirt off their backs, the keys to your car, and their credit card number at the gas pump.
People who manipulate results are the issue, but they are not the only ones who are responsible.
The Institutions that subscribe to techniques of manipulation and those companies that have paid large sums of money for the privilege of lying to the public on such a large scale haven’t made their actions any more acceptable.
It doesn’t matter if you do it for good reasons, or not. Manipulating results is still cheating. It is still a lie and reflects on the intention of the manipulator’s greed and, inevitably, deception.
If you are one of the people who mislead’s the public, one of the companies, or non-profits, who utilize’s BlackHat practices for your own financial gain, then you are guilty.
And… if you are one of the employees who know’s about these specific company practices, and you are silent, then you are just as guilty, too.
If I could turn things around in my own life and change things I have done, and possibly change the outcome of my life — I would NOT change anything.
I have seen the manipulation firsthand, I have known key manipulators of my specific industry and I spoke up, and I am perfectly ok with who I am, today.
I am especially ok with what I do now, feel good about what I have stood for in the past, and what I will do in the future.
Yet, people are none-the-wiser. Today, the same people touting high ethical standards, esteemable social benchmarks of education and journalism continue to mislead people on a large scale.
People seem content to live in their own cloud of uncertainty, but… burn it into your consciousness, dear readers: the sooner we admit to ourselves that we no longer live in a time where we can blame our own ignorance on “concepts” that are too big to understand, the better off we will be as individuals and as a society.
The age of innocence is dead, the days of blaming others are over, too.
You can’t give excuses such as:
“I didn’t know these types of practices go on.”
“I didn’t know that companies, non-profits, governments, or megalomaniacs were manipulating results for their own financial gain.”
“I was unaware that entire industries could influence opinions, and people of a specific industry.”
You now have the awareness, you have been exposed, most likely hacked and you have to know that the only choice you have is the ability to look at things in a clear way to decide what — and who — you’re going to support.
You do not have the luxury of being ignorant anymore because hackers are assuming that you want to (and will) remain ignorant.
People can choose to specifically say, “I don’t think about those things because it just doesn’t matter to me,” which is not only lying to yourself but also a copout…
OR…
We as a collective people can accept that we will be impacted by what goes on in the world, do some minor research, inform ourselves with the tools for survival, and the basic way to understand what is happening.
The choice is ALWAYS yours to make.
You can always inform people, but you cannot force them to listen.
I am not telling you to enroll in school or start searching out the “hidden truths,” I am telling you to stop passing the buck and start using your common sense.