another post about life online

I am doing this maddening process of writing something for 100 days. I am not sure how I decided to take on yet another thing in the midst of some pressure on various fronts of things to complete.

Nonetheless, today I put aside the time to have a conversation with both sons on zoom. Something we do precious little and yet it is so important to remain connected. They can both be quite strong in their beliefs. Those who see the the great hack and the social dilemma and do not understand the implications of them are changing the fabric of being human. The whole way we interact has altered as has recently been seen by the power of the online with GameStop in the last few days.

The online machine is not a thing driven by the minds of the rich. It is a mass levelling field. However, that field can be manipulated by the voices of those who can. The Gamestop affair may be having a major effect, negatively, on those who play with large sums of money as we think of playing with dominos. Can a large number of users chatting online, behaving as groups do when the group dynamics come into play then be thought of as moral or ethical or are these terms for individuals.

If another global recession is the outcome of a large enough group of people swaying the system, is that a good thing. Yet another recession? because people who self regulate in groups tend to behave in predictable ways? Surely a large enough group of people voting with their actions is just democracy? This goes full circle back to the toppling of governments by people using social media to suggest things such as to not vote was the right thing to do as a protest and then make a cool meme to get people on board.

If the stock market can be affected so much by a reddit community, what else can they do? Or indeed what else can the rest of us do? The first series of Mr Robot springs to mind! F-Society.