We shouldn’t be this connected
Based on a conversation that I had with one of my friends; when you really put ourselves in perspective, as a human race of monkeys, we shouldn’t be this connected.
Only in the past 30–40+ years have humans been able to communicate with each other, starting with the telephone, to the radio, to the internet as we know it.
when you put into scale the absolutely massive amount of time that the universe and even the earth itself has gone through, it’s an incomprehensible amount of time. When the lives of Humans rarely exceed 100 years old these days and wayyyyy fewer centuries ago, the scale of hundreds, or even thousands of years is an unachievable stretch of time that we have no personal experience.
So when I and my friend see all this drama on social media, as many of our peers, we’re interested in knowing what people have to say about it. During the most recent Israel and Hamas conflict earlier this summer, I was glued to my phone for any sign of news and information about what was going on. My friend I discussed earlier at the time was visiting their family in Israel and I was extremely concerned with what was going on. It’s an extremely dense and complex conflict that has very strong opinions that are given a platform on the internet. I stayed in touch with her, and she detailed the sounds of the hundreds of rockets that got sent right into the city of Ashkelon, and she detailed the impact that it had on her family and friends who all lived together and sheltered together. Thankfully, no one was injured and after a long delay she was able to fly back to America. But the internet was ruthless. A lot of people, especially in Western media were ruthlessly blaming each side for the damage and deaths brought upon the attacks. And even to the point of sending death threats to her and her Jewish friends and families, just for being Israeli. Not understanding that the average citizen doesn’t hold the hatred that they assumed for the Hamas people, nor blind allyship with the Israeli Government.
People took sides when they had absolutely no stakes in the argument, blatantly virtue signalling just so they could make the problem about themselves. As we discussed in our classes, this was similar to the Black Lives Matter virtue signallers doing so for show, but not actively doing anything to protect black lives.
This is all a product of how intensely connected the world is now with social media. A world where celebrity families will most likely hear about the death of a loved one on Twitter before they hear about it from someone they know.
For the trolls who intentionally start hate storms and rile people up, and the people that entertain them. So the next time you find yourself enraptured in some internet drama, where someone out in the void said something negative about something you like or care about, remember that you will likely NEVER meet this person ever in your life and that without the technological revolution or expansion of western influence, we would be out hunting for game and picking berries off the tree. Something that sounds much more enjoyable nowadays.