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.

The Status Quo Always Dies Hard!

Many are incensed that Barack Obama received a Nobel Prize for having accomplished little or nothing "tangible". After all, it's just rhetoric and intentions! And rhetoric and intentions don't change anything!

Oh really?

Being a cynic myself, I would concur that rhetoric and intentions rarely do anything useful, but are they always futile? Here is a consciousness raiser: being that the status quo (which often is or becomes harmful to society at some point in its life) dies hard, how are we ever to move beyond the most dangerous ones? By paving new and untraveled roads.

Because the status quo is so entrenched in the mindset of a society, rhetoric and intentions must be sufficient to sow the seeds of change. Since Homo sapiens seem motivated predominantly by reward, how then do we pave the way for change? By rewarding and honoring rhetoric and intentions! This will then attract others to travel these new and untraveled roads. Over time, the status quo relinquishes its unshakeable grip and tangible changes ARE accomplished!

The BIGGEST of all questions is, which status quos have overstayed their welcomes and which have not? A tempting question to be sure, but this is not what I am addressing here. I am simply addressing WHY it is or at least could be beneficial for society to REWARD rhetoric and intentions alone.

If there was never incentive to change the status quo, how would it ever have changed?