this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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Understand USA
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"Crisis in Understanding in USA"
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Imagine America is an institution for the mentally feeble and it will suddenly make complete sense.
Not sure where you have lived, but I've lived in an RV in USA since 1999 in over 25 cities.
I've also lived in Algeria, North Africa. I've lived in Europe, in Cyprus. I've lived in South America, in Arica Chile. I've lived in the Middle East in Amman Jordan. I've lived in Bali Indonesia. I've lived in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I am not wealthy, I have no children and I worked from home since 1999 (often with my wife, dual income, no children) and I pay basically the same as renting an apartment in an inexpensive city like Fort Wayne, Indiana... living on $1,000/month back in 2001 and say $1,500 a month in Austin Texas back in 2009... before it got too expensive and I left there at end of 2010 to go to Africa.
Imagine the entire world who adopted social media found junk information and one-line insults to be far more popular and attractive than authentic book learning and study of non-fiction films and content. That people were more attracted to advertising and Reality TV stars as leaders of their nation than sincere, honest educated people. This problem isn't only the USA. This was how I was able to predict the Arab Spring from Austin Texas in December 2009 and was there in North Africa boots on the ground December 3, 2010 before Tunisia went from a online-only resolution to a "hot revolution" that became world famous.
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“Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it.” ― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
I have lived in 7 countries, and you're correct: the entire world is dumbing down. But I found nowhere as fast as in the United States. Also, it matters more because the US is (still) the richest country and the most powerful military power in the world.
That's because USA created social media systems first, ASCII before Unicode, etc. The rest of the world didn't get social media until after the USA. We Lost Control of educating social media computer users in September 1993, and it laid the foundation for Russia to win the Hybrid War online / on Reddit / Lemmy / Facebook / YouTube / Twitter / etc.
Americans will believe anything off a computer screen / Apple iPhone / Apple iPad / Lemmy system. Extreme problem we have with media ecology literacy. I teach it over on [email protected]
Donald Trump's November 2012 plan to mind-fuck the entire world with the Kremlin / Putin / Russia and Cambridge Analytica using Reddit, Twitter, news comment sections of computer screens was a master-stroke (100 years leap ahead of Edward Bernays methods, adding in Surkov methods too), along with Elon Musk purchasing Twitter to win all "hearts and minds" in 2022, and their self-destruction of the USA (and probably the entire world) is likely unstoppable.
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“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” ― Joseph Weizenbaum, computer science, MIT 1974
It has nothing to do with social media, and it predates it by decades, as demonstrated by this famous Genesis song.