Hashtags and Hate

The world is at your fingertips. How many times have we heard that? The sentiment is true; the information of the world is at your fingertips, a modern marvel of innovation. Neil deGrasse Tyson explained it best when he said that movies attempting to explain the future always assumed energy would be free and therefore things such as flying cars and houses like those of the Jetsons would be plentiful. Those storytellers never imagined information would become the resource without a price tag. We live in a truly different world than we did thirty years ago. The internet, along with globalization, has radically shaped our landscape. They have placed the world at our fingertips, or so they say. Is the world truly at our fingertips or is the world everywhere else? Maybe the world is looking away from the screen and into the crowd. Have we mistaken information for life? I propose this question that I think we all have pondered for the last several years because I believe there are few questions that are more important to be discussed. We have unprecedented access to information and each other through technology, but are we connecting with that information or are we sitting, soaking, and souring in it. If this access to information does not lead to original thought, solutions, and questions then what is the use? Why do we need a GPS if are not willing to try new places or meet new people? What is the point of social media if we are not spreading love? 25 years of innovation might be the great stumbling block of the next years of progress. Not only are we so caught up in the realm of knowledge rather than thinking but it has also made us complacent on true problems. Sure, speediness of internet is an issue today, but I am talking about real human problems. I am talking about police brutality, Chinese concentration camps, cages at the Mexico-United States border, and increasing suicide rates. What has this technology done to help us tackle these problems and save these people? I would almost argue that in recent years it has not only done nothing to help but hurt the solution. The solution to every great injustice of the past and ill of society has been cooperation amongst the reasonable and swift action to effect change. Now we have neither of those things. Cooperation among the reasonable is greatly overshadowed by the shouts of the radical. And forget about swift and forget about action, now all you must do is change your social media bio to include the latest hashtag: #blacklivesmatter, #freepalestine, #freeUyghurs, #kidsincages, etc. This is useless. As much as your sympathy, virtue signaling, or group think may mean to you, it does nothing for the people truly struggling. Technology and social media have given us a cop out where we do not have to act. Why feign morality for your social optics? Well, because that is the culture we have created. We shame people for not putting pronouns in their bio, not having the right hashtags, not retweeting the right politicians, and in the meantime we have reduced change down to meaningless actions and attacks. I believe in showing solidarity with those who are struggling or oppressed. But when solidarity is the end game rather than the means towards change, we have completely missed the mark. I would also add that attacking those slow to show solidarity makes that the top priority which is why we see it as the end goal. Have attacks through social media ever convinced someone to change or helped grow people in this community? No. Let us consider the marvelous access we have to information, and rather than belittling it with silly tactics, let us use it as a force. Generations of the past would have killed for the information of which we have access. It can be a powerful tool if, instead of soaking and souring in our own opinions, we learn, grow, pose questions, have discussions, and cooperate. Just a thought.