The Real Religion of the U.S. - Capitalism

From increasingly younger ages, we are programmed to consume. More, more, more... faster, faster, faster! Money is our god. We are obsessed with ourselves and social media is the vehicle for self affirmations. It drives our attention spans into the ground and is constantly fighting for every second of it.

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Just Keep Swimming

We are swimming in a sea of information, and the scarcest resource is attention. Abundance of information leads to scarcity of attention, the management of which is now the single most important determinant of Present Day success - welcome to the Attention Economy.

Microsoft found that since the year 2000 (when the mobile revolution began,) the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds.

We consume content at an increasingly alarming rate. Many of us use multiple content sources at a time. We're watching TV and on our phones.. or worse, talking to someone and checking our phones.

When will we stop referring to them as cell phones? They are pocket computers that are glued to our hands. The average Millenial checks their phones over 150 times a day.

We are addicted and enslaved to our phones. Many of us no longer know our own minds.

Toxic Social Media

Major Social Media companies use our data for their profit. Facebook shows zero concern for privacy, and has repeatedly shown they will do practically anything to keep you "engaged". Facebook is toxic, don't continue to be their product.

Or Snapchat.. it's hard to tell what's an ad from an actual snapchat you received from someone. Also, they are cataloguing all of the geographic data from our phones and selling them to the highest bidders.

If you're as fed up as I am about being capitalism's bitch, be the change you wish to see and convert your friends & family to decentralized social media platforms like Steemit or dTube.

And It's Not Just Social Media, it's Across Multiple Media Platforms.

The media wolves will do anything and everything they can to obtain one more minute of your time via the attention economy. Reporting on issues that are oftentimes purely divisive.

When it comes to the news, it oftentimes feels like fact is blurred with fiction.

Corrupt leaders fuel racism, xenophobia, civil rights, and policies that have proven to fail us, like the war on drugs(too much has been spent and too many lives have been lost.) However.. what do all of these divisive issues have in common? Money. The Money Hungry elite continue to stuff their pockets with as much money they can.. the military industrial complex, Mass Incarceration(New Jim Crow), etc.

As we continue to fight amongst ourselves, the rich get richer. Pure, unregulated capitalism mixed with social media is destroying us. Peeling back one layer of democracy and freedom at a time.

We have been pitted against one another on issues that seem to stand the test of time. Black vs. White, Left vs. Right etc.. and unfortunately, there's no money in peace. We continue to sell our safety to corrupt leaders who use technology against us, keeping us in a constant state of fear.

Social media feeds are filled with news that promotes this constant state of fear. Because fear is a limiting factor.

With technology as our catalyst, we are being catapulted further into the information age. Technology is simply a tool, but we need to start re-evaluating the way it is being utilized in society. Will we let the elite continue to herd us, or will we use it to create our own destiny?

Steven Pinker, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, says we're actually living in the most peaceful era since the existence of our species.

This attention economy naturally extended onto the internet, and now it has quantized our souls as patterns of buying, viewing, and reacting. It's downright demonic if you think about it, a system designed to transmute conscious awareness into trinkets so that rich sociopaths may lord over the rest.

Call to Action

Understand that in order to get attention one has to give attention. Don't get me wrong, I love technology just as much as anyone else.. but there has to be a balance. Stay present, stay conscious. Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space. Don't be the Elite's product.

I think we need to figure out what society we want first. The future we want. And then figure out the technology and tools to use to help get us there. Because if we’re a tool-making, tool-using species that uses technology to solve human problems, then the real question is this: what problems shall we solve?

Thanks for reading! Would love to continue this discussion in the comments