The Internet: A Blessing Or A Curse?

Personalized internet filters are a great way to provide only the content each individual prefers. This seems very convenient and fairly innocuous concerning somebody's favorite types of movies and music. But what about tailoring an individual's news sources (most of which today is merely opinion and rhetoric) only to those that are preferred? What is bound to stem from this?

People become so identified with their chosen perspectives which only further reinforces the polarity of today's society. How then are we ever to settle life's most pressing issues?

In this regard, though we may exercise our freedom by listening only to those "news" sources that appeal to us, what does this systematically lead to? Enslavement to very narrow-minded perspectives. In this case, our freedom to listen to preferred news sources becomes a paradox in itself: ironically it leads to enslavement.

An interesting corollary to this is that one's perception of reality seems to become more “real” than reality itself, in turn exacerbating the already existing polarity causing more resentment, more hatred, more suspicion and other such destructive thoughts.

Selling Ourselves

As we “progress” technologically, it seems we are forfeiting our individual identities. To what? An enormous, impersonal “pattern” of collective behavior which capitalism preys on with reckless abandon.

On the one hand, this seems to lend itself very well to efficiently and effectively addressing consumer demands thus maximizing each individual's utility. On the other, it seems to relegate us to that of mere machines whose only purpose is to produce and consume "stuff", lacking a distinct “human” element of individuality and identity. 

One of my concerns with regression analyses to determine consumer preferences deals with free-will. If a given analysis determines that it is likely I will make a certain choice and interferes in my life in such a way as to test this prediction, might this interference itself compel me to choose it*? In this case, it seems this prediction becomes self-fulfilled prophesy.

If so, is my free-will really free?


*Perhaps this is a nice corollary to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?

Personal God?

Personal to whom? To me? To you? To them? I do not believe any type of existent God could be personal. At least insofar as how we individually and, dare I say, selfishly define personal. And why would we not? Or rather how could we not? What is personal if it does not revolve around self? Ideas of a personal God then seem to naturally mimic our individual preferences and whims.

But this will often conflict with a collective concept of what is preferable and desirable for society as a whole which is the only type of view I could ever imagine a hypothetical God espousing. Otherwise, whose side might He be on when there is disagreement?

Do you not see how arbitrary any answer to this is? In light of this dilemma, is it now quite apparent God's view must revolve around a collective perspective?

So in essence, I am saying that our individual concepts as to what makes God personal are by definition very selfish! If God acquiesces to my personal preferences, how then could He be personal to somebody else with competing preferences?

In the quintessential competition that is war, for example, somebody wins and somebody loses. How could God be personal to both? Therefore, there seems to be a dilemma with the idea of a personal God.

A Reflection On Personal Identity

You can not “try” to be yourself. You can only “be” yourself. Similarly, you can not express individuality by “trying” to distinguish yourself. This is simply following the convention of being different only for the sake of being different.

In other words, you can not find yourself by being different. You can only find yourself by being.

Many people follow a convention only to satisfy the ego's lust for identity in things outside of self. This is simply the ego seeking a false sense of self through “trying” to be different.