jrspruitt

We are very consumer based, at some level even the producers are just consumers, that use what they consume to create something else for someone else to consume usually. I would say that is just part of our way of living, in a society of people. The only way for us to have no consumers, is if we are all self sustaining, hunter gatherers really.

Perhaps at one point our species was consumerless, but the fact is, we work way better in a group, which means there will be consumers. I like turning steel into usable objects, I don't like mining it, there for I must be a consumer at some level. If I was forced to produce everything I needed to build something complex, like say a PCB board and components, it would take a life time to get everything necessary to produce something not all that spectacular.

I think the "bad" part of consumerism, is more a psychological state, like using drugs to escape a problem. Consuming on its own, isn't necessarily bad and you're right, very necessary. Perhaps its all psychologically based, I feel better building something, more than I do just waiting around for the next movie, or video game to distract me from my life. But really, whats the difference if what I produced just ends up sitting in the corner collecting dust, why I'm building something else?

In that sense, being a Producer, requires a Consumer, someone else to find what you have made useful. Otherwise all I've been is a consumer. Producing at worst, is a consumer, at best, helping make society a better place. Consumer at best is a Producer, at worst, just collecting, and creating a market, for junk to be eventually thrown away.

I totally agree with you. To me the producer is already doing what they enjoy doing, the financial gains are a side effect, and will pretty much just be used as funding to buy what's needed for them to keep producing. Would be like someone who enjoys running a business, the money is a part of it, but not the only goal, it blurs the line between hobby and work. The consumer spends their time consuming, the side effect of that is waste, once the consumption is over, the thrill is gone, the usefulness, if there was any, runs dry, it's tossed aside, as something new needs to be consumed.

There are things I want, that are not needed for my survival, but they are things I actually enjoy having, they serve some constructive purpose. I don't understand buying stuff just to buy stuff, just to have a new car, or just to have the latest version, it doesn't make sense. I think that is where some people that come into lots of money go wrong, spending it becomes their hobby, with out a job you got a lot of free time to keep yourself entertained. Producers would seem to inherently have the ability to deal with that free time in a much more fiscally responsible manor.

I really liked his thoughts on this. While I understand social media is a powerful form of promotion, its not the be all end all, there is more too it, especially when you do something outside of social media that you are promoting. The part about going for the little applause was great, you get hooked on each tweet, each video, each blog post and its performance in regards to audience reaction, instead of the entire body of work you've created. It has the ability to chop your "art" into micro bits, because it has got to fit inside the constraints of social media. In a way you become your product, it sounds like he stopped being a musician and was selling John Mayer on Twitter, it wasn't about the music anymore.

Which is kind of hard to stop doing, because its what the majority of the internet audience wants. Jeri Ellsworth made an interesting statement about the electronics/hacks she creates, the audience likes the simple ones, and don't care much about the much more technical and in depth videos she creates. The audience to some effect seems to be only interested in the short and simple. Which I would imagine, if John Mayer spent all his social media time, talking about music, and music theory, and the kind of things you would think someone would want to know from a talented artist, I doubt he'd have the followers. Where as, if he sticks to the one liners, and small talk, its vastly more popular.

As for the mental changes is causes, I fully understand this. I've read a bit about how the human brain changes according to how it is use. And also, when I was still blogging, I noticed an interesting change in myself. I started consuming the world in a "how can I blog this" sort of way. Anything even remotely interesting that happened, instead of me enjoying the life experience, quickly turned to, how can I phrase this on my blog? The short time I was on Twitter, I found I spent more mental capacity, sorting through my thoughts to Twitterize them, than on the actual thoughts. If you're famous for social media, that is great. If your a musician, author, electrical engineer, etc, it has the side effect of changing how you think, and then how you create, if you focus on it too much.

I've tried this many times in my life, and all I have found, is that there are people out there, who absolutely refuse to do anything about the problem. No matter how well the argument is laid out, how evil they have been acting, the only thing they will respond to, is force, because at that point, it is not up to them to change.

Yeah they do give off more of a riot like atmosphere, with the breaking and entering tactics. For this to be more equivalent, they'd need a permit to take up so much traffic on public roadways, or in this case, internet connections. Plus there is no clear cut description of what is causing the disruption. If a building was surrounded by protesters, there would be plenty of signs, clearly stating what the group of people felt was so terrible that they needed to protest about. The way it is now, average person thinks the website is having technical difficulties, and knows no different, until the news informs them. Which gives the media all the power in framing what the protest was about. Still regardless of this particular incident, I wonder if it is a tactic that could be used to any sort of degree of effectiveness, as a means for people to express their displeasure in the virtual world of the internet. We the People are powerful only as a group. People doing evil things, might not always respond to a PR attack through Twitter or Facebook.

I agree with there being a huge problem of it becoming vastly too easy to do. And there does seem to be a huge discrepancy on the internet, between what people feel is important enough to cause such a ruckus and what's not worthy. Ranging from real human rights issues to he said she said pointless crap. Perhaps it would mean more if you had to sit there hitting the refresh button in unison with a group, instead of just running a script to do it for you. You no longer need to be a charismatic leader to rally the troops, just infect computers with a botnet. Such singular power executed through such forceful means does seem more like tyranny than justice. I wonder what a better equivalent to such traditional means of the public showing disapproval would be online?

Since it is an act of political protest, I wonder how this plays out. Seems it is a lot like the cyber version of picketing/marching/protesting at a business, government building or any physical location like that. Where would you peaceably assemble online, in such a way it makes a statement? If everyone joins a chat room so what? Only they notice it, where if you protest in public, you get noticed, for disrupting the day to day flow of things. This seems like one of the few ways to accomplish that same effect online.

Well technically you can use racial slurs all you want, the only thing stopping people, is the social circles around them's willingness to accept such behavior. Or if you are a media figure, loosing your job.

If it was me, I'd rather know they were, than have them hide it, at least I would know who I could trust. And I think once exposed, its a problem that could be better dealt with. Instead of teaching people just keep those thoughts to your self, and let your racist, sexist, ways come out more passively. Which allows people to constantly be suspicious about other peoples motives and causes a lot of tension between people.

Though admittedly, getting people to stop needing some other group to put down, so they can feel better about themselves, is not ever going to be easy. Its a shame, in the "survival of the fittest" certain members of the species, find it easier to hold people down, than excel at it themselves. But we are what we are, and have been. At some point in our history there may have been a point to all this, but not anymore. Maybe it made more sense when we were doing these things over food, because there wasn't enough? Who knows.

I think its more effect to actually talk to people about why they think this way, what caused it. It was socially acceptable when they were kids, some one picked on them, stole their girl friend, cultural conflicts, etc. Getting to the root of the problem, than just telling them, you can't say it, but keep on thinking it.

I understand the issues that arise with forcing people to expose more about themselves, than they are comfortable with. From a personality standpoint, my google+ account is a well defined sliver of who I am as a whole, by design. Mostly because I consider it something that could be put on a resume.

As far as the social issues of such public knowledge, I wonder, is hiding from the problem, by sexually, racially, and or religiously homogenizing profiles ever going to help cure the problem in society that makes, making these things public, an issue? Certain males, act like jackasses around women, is putting them in an isolated bubble going to cure the problem?

Does training people that you can't say xy or z around people of a certain race, stop them from being racist? It just makes them Pavlov's Dog, they know saying those things are socially bad, and keep saying and doing the same exact things, when society is more lax about those things being said or done to a different group of people, say, homosexuals.

Sure it makes it harder for them to find people to act that way around, making it seem like its less of an issue, but does nothing to change the mentality that causes the behavior, they'll just find someone else to do it to, that is more socially acceptable, like Muslims. Hiding from it, is not the way, dealing with it, which is going to cause some discomfort is the you cure it.

"Call your dad on fathers day" as politically incorrect? This seems like overkill. There is a 1000 other vastly more important things to get worked up over. Its not like Google took your dad away or made him someone you despise, and then flaunts how great it is having a dad you'd want to honor on fathers days in front of you. It's a little something to give their service a slight personality. Perhaps its like Field of Dreams, give people somewhere to complain, they will complain, which is fine, but complain about the problem, the people that caused it, not the things that remind you of it, which end up getting those things taken away from the majority of people that would enjoy the rather innocent reminder.I could see being pissed off if you were in jail for a crime you didn't commit, and you were being forced to celebrate the 4th of July or something, but this is not even close to that.

I was thinking pretty much the same thing. I'm guessing extroverts need to "fit in" a lot more than introverts, and this challenges the extroverts needs perhaps. Also it could be found that when you aren't being talked to, that there is something wrong with yourself, instead of it being the other person's issue. So perhaps it causes some issues that way too. I think society is sort of conditioned to think someone who doesn't socialize at a certain level, somehow has a problem. Which we are a society, socializing keeps us together, so its understood why this is probably seen as a bit more of an issue. Being introverted I like to maintain a low level of socializing, I do it when I want to, I have no problem doing it, its just not as much as other people. But not all people have that ability, and I think people assume the worst, that the person somehow needs "fixing" and isn't happy with their social life and doesn't know how to socialize. Where me, bottom line, I'm not talking to you cause I don't want to. Whether its because I find the person terribly annoying, or just can't think of anything worth while to say is dependent on the situation. Which is why I either really like extroverts or really hate them, they keep the conversation going and are fun, or they never get the damn point, I don't want to talk to you, and annoy the hell out of me.

My first reaction was this is terrible, just giving someone the silent treatment, does nothing to clue them into what they did to deserve it. Assuming they are not a troll, who know what they're doing is wrong, the person may not understand, what they are doing is not acceptable, perhaps a cultural difference, perhaps social issues they have, ignorance whatever. Giving them the silent treatment will do nothing, they already have issues with socializing obviously, "getting the hint" probably isn't their strong point.

Then I started thinking about what was said, about this being "reality altering". Which I disagree with, if you are not good at socializing, annoying even, no one is going to want you to be involved in conversations, or participate in activities with you. Much like ratings/web hits, if people don't like you or what you have to say, you effectively get the silent treatment, or are completely ignored or worse. If you do have relevant things to say, and are socially well behaved, people aren't going to ignore you, and will want you to participate in their activities, because you have something to offer, and its in their best interest to let you participate. That is of course assuming they don't have some prior misconception about you, because of race, sex, jealously or other social failures on their own parts. They will accept you in instead of doing all those things that they do to try and give you the hint to "go away" like ignoring you, not telling you about social gatherings, or whatever. This is all very natural, and mimics the real world quite well.

ah, I apologize, I didn't realize there was a difference when it came to people under 18. Still seems a bit odd they would cut kids slack for one, but not the other.

I think it will be interesting to see if he is tried as an adult or not. Seems a bit odd, someone his age has the potential for a lesser sentence had he committed a violent crime, but perhaps not for copyright infringement. Either way, I think the MPAA/RIAA proved legally roughing up kids isn't the best habit to have.