When you’re as privileged as I am, taking any political side is evil.

I can’t blame struggling people for getting involved because politics impacts their lives. Yet a political effort can only thrive when the masses are cruelly manipulated by leaders who are themselves too privileged to feel threatened by political developments.

Imagine if I decided to be active in competitive politics. I couldn’t dare let my followers lose interest in political engagement, so I would have to always ALWAYS create the narrative of an enemy plotting against my political team. I would promise my followers prosperity if we defeat this enemy, but then if we do, I come up with a new enemy for my victims to worry about. Works every time.

You can also read this article at https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/im-sharing-the-privilege-of-not-having-to-depend-on-politics-constantly-fe73b89101c8.

Who would support a political movement that doesn’t convince them that their lives are at stake? If I don’t get my followers to feel this way, they may no longer feel that they need to rely on the false hope of my political movement to survive! Never mind that I’m too privileged to feel threatened by my side’s political enemies!

I would also need to make sure that my subjects have a narrow, ignorant, prejudiced understanding of these enemies. If my team becomes too open-minded, they may question my authority! They may come up with ideas that benefit them more than they benefit me!

But maybe I don’t want to brainwash my followers into a lifelong state of fear and paranoia. Maybe I care less about ordinary people having my political views and care more about these people making innovations in the way their political orientation views the world. Since I can make the decision to neither treat people cruelly nor hoard my privileges, I won’t get involved with the political sphere.

Instead, I decided to create an online space that functions as an alternative to politics. Where ordinary people can temporarily retreat from their oppressed mindset as political follower, share productive ideas using honest two-way dialogue, and work towards solutions regardless of whether top brass will approve. This context is called “The Context That Isn’t Limited In The Same Way As The Political Context” or #svalien. It applies to everywhere on Nonmonetized Together.

With this context, I can use my privilege to make an online space in which I can give other people that privilege! As long as you don’t use political tactics, you and I will have equal say in how this community functions. If you try political techniques in Nonmonetized Together, they will flop just as hard as #svalien techniques would in the political arena, not because of free-speech restrictions, but just because our social values are so different. Make sure to return to using political tactics once you return to the political sphere as #svalien tactics won’t work so well there.

In this article, I will collect some recent tweets from politicians and political figures, remove them from the politicized context they come from, and place them in this more open context, so the readers can have an open discussion about what these tweets have to say. Make sure to put the number associated with the tweet in front of your comment so people know what you’re responding to.

Tweet 1: “When the ISIS terrorist attack happened in Moscow, the BBC first reported it as a “terror attack” but then edited it to “attack”.

 

Instead of owning up to the double standards of their reporting of Hamas terror on Oct 7th, they’re downplaying ISIS atrocities.” – @ArchRose90.

This could be an especially productive discussion point for a website such as Medium since a good chunk of this article’s viewers pay careful attention on how they word their posts. It’s good to hear their perspectives.

Tweet 2: “Thankfully the Western world has long progressed past the idea of castrating and torturing criminal suspects. I hate the ISIS terrorist too but if you want to live in a society where the police can cut off your penis if you are merely suspected of a crime I can’t help you.” – @DrewPavlou (along with a screenshot of a post from @violetcity_ saying “But it was totally okay for him to murder innocent people? His ear is more important than the 133 lives he and the rest took? Gfy He’s lucky that they didn’t cut his penis off”)

What’s a response that addresses @violetcity_’s point in a productive way instead of going on a phallic sidetrack?

Tweet 3: “Some of the excrement that carried out the Moscow attack. They massacred over 100 people. I hope the Russian authorities torture them to death 💀” – @GoldingBF (along with a photo caption of them in holding)

I’m including this one as a challenge for you commenters. Do you have what it takes to have a clear head while talking about such an emotionally charged comment? Could you ensure it becomes a conversation in which everyone benefits? If so, congratulations!

Tweet 4: “MAGA this is you. Accept it or not, your children will learn in history class how Donald Trump was a traitor, a rapist, a criminal… I can go on and on. And you’re gonna have to explain to your children how you aided and abetted him.

 

This is an inescapable reality. #DonPoorleone” – @petee224.

I want to open this comment up so it applies to people who don’t believe that history teachers are infallible (should be all of you). In the near future, who do you think will be the most trustworthy (or least untrustworthy) source that will look back on Trump and inform the public, “he’s a traitor, a rapist, a criminal!” Who do you think will be the most trustworthy (or least untrustworthy) source that will disagree? Make sure to answer both questions. If you still think the answer is “history teachers,” that’s fine, then feel free to answer the question as @petee224 asked. Once you answer both questions, take the evidence from your side and hold it up against the scrutiny of the most trustworthy source on the opposing side! This way, you can put up a strong defense for your point instead of just dunking on easy targets. Remember what I said about how political figures benefit by showing only the worst of the other side! You don’t have to do that Nonmonetized Together. There’s also the possibility that this challenge will result in you changing your mind. Or you may change the minds of others. Or at least learn things you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. All great outcomes.

I understand that “The Context That Isn’t Limited In The Same Way As The Political Context” will be an unfamiliar experience for many of you, so don’t feel insecure if you make a mistake. A lot of people will. I will be patient and we can always restart the discussion over from the beginning if you accidentally slip into the mindset of the oppressed person.

If you want to learn more about this new context, you can read the linked article below. I hope Nonmonetized Together brings some exciting new intellectual opportunities and experiments for you! If you want to take advantage of the Internet’s untapped potential for mental empowerment, you’ve came to the right place.

https://write.as/non-monetized-together/why-i-added-svalien-to-the-nonmonetized-together-title

#Freedom #Power #ISIS #News #Terrorism

Discuss...

You can also view this article at https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/apolitical-pro-lifeism-b92b37f72f2d.

As I’ve mentioned many times already, I decided to stop having political opinions and motivations in 2020 because I just couldn’t convince myself that my political views were any more important than anyone else’s. Becoming politically neutral means that the pro-life components of my Catholic faith are presented in a luminous new perspective that not everybody is familiar with.

People tend to assume that pro-lifers want to outlaw abortions using state control, but my political neutrality prevents me from supporting that. I would rather make it easy for others to find access to information on why abortion is not such a great idea. This way, I can make a positive difference in society without trying to gain control of society.

I believe this is a more empowering approach for people than traditional pro-life or pro-choice movements because it is centred on distributing knowledge, not on forming oppressive laws. This is what’s useful about my neutrality — you know I’m on your side and that I have no ulterior motives.

Besides, as an eager follower of Christ, I don’t want to turn people away from Catholicism. I want to present it as something people would want to get involved with. By the way, the lack of public religious discussion is a societal problem. You should be spreading your own religion’s knowledge, too, unless it discourages that sort of thing for whatever reason.

So, in this article, I will present the Church’s pro-life philosophy from the point of someone who wants to share a valuable perspective, not from someone who wants to control you for political gain:

Remember that the reason why murder is considered immoral is because it takes away a life, which is the most valuable thing someone can own. By this standard, abortion would be worse than murder of a fully-formed person because a fetus didn’t even get the chance to own their life yet.

Plus, there’s no concrete scientific proof as to the exact point all fetuses become human, so you run the risk of killing someone who has already gotten to that point. You would have to use personal feelings instead of scientific proof in order to justify abortion, which is really irresponsible when a potential life is at stake.

When someone’s dealing with personal problems so bad that they have to kill someone in order to overcome the problems (like gangs, drug addiction, sex trafficking, etc.), people would usually realize that the solution would have been to prevent the problem from getting out of control, offer the sufferer alternative solutions, or find a way for them to be less desperate. In these cases, it would be ridiculous to say the issue could be solved by making it easier to kill someone, like pro-abortion camps would. That wouldn’t solve the greater problem.

So if you want to convince a pro-life person that abortion is okay, you’ll have to not only persuade them that someone’s life isn’t valuable enough for them to take ownership of, but you will also have to find indisputable proof as to the exact moment when all fetuses become human.

#Abortion #Catholicism #Philosophy #Power

Discuss...

This article is also visible at https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/dear-2088-im-sorry-that-you-re-society-is-doomed-due-to-2023-internet-misusage-9909d150161c.

Mimi Thian/Unsplash

Hello 2088, I’m from 2023. I’m here to apologize for the irresponsible ways my society has used the Internet and how it resulted in social disaster for your society. Anybody from the 2020s who agrees can write their name in a comment on this article. This way, they can let the future know where they stand.

I fail to understand how people can be given a platform that contains almost all the relevant information in the world and that allows them to communicate to almost anybody instantly, and then still manage to screw it up this badly. They’re given the world at a low cost and then waste it on trolling, blocking people, spreading misinformation, and making negative generalizations about groups of people.

I study online social interaction with the same inventive attitude as people who study technology and medicine in 2023. It pains me to say that the vast majority of problems caused by Internet interactions are easily avoidable. Depending on the situation, it can be a matter of just asking people before making assumptions, being willing to be proven wrong, trying to understand someone’s perspective before shutting it down, or not expecting the opposing political side to immediately understand the subtext of your political views without telling them.

Just because I’m from 2023 doesn’t mean I wish to be associated with this online culture. I’m very concerned with how it will affect your lives. And the issue cannot be solved by university researchers because the people who’ll benefit from these changes will not be reading academic publications. It will actually be solved by people who post about the situation on the Internet. This way, they can work from within to cure the affliction.

Tim Marshall/Unsplash

Yet the problem is too widespread for any one person to make any large-scale changes, so I took the initiative to carve a small corner of the Internet where people have no incentive to display such careless behaviour to the masses. The final result is Nonmonetized Together, a social hub where anybody is free to suggest, develop, and receive feedback on ideas for making the Internet a better place. Well, not just the Internet, I mean the physical world as well, but the solution to a lot of physical world problems starts with considering how Internet communication plays a role in the problem. Accessible through Medium and the Fediverse, Nonmonetized Together takes advantage of the idea that people’s decisions and beliefs can be influenced by what they read on the Internet, and that we have the power of making a positive or negative influence.

How can I be certain that people on Nonmonetized Together will not benefit from deliberately causing trouble? Well, every word I write and every decision I make for this community is made with the intention for avoiding side effects that generally come with social media. Maybe founders of some other online communities do the same, but what’s unique about Nonmonetized Together is that this is its main purpose. It’s not to share memes, discuss a fandom, repost articles, or anything else.

This means that Nonmonetized Together will also attract people who want to see positive change on Internet communities. These people will focus on being compassionate, articulate, inspirational, and patient.

I believe that even if anyone tries to provoke outrage within the community, they will be unsuccessful because their approach will stand in opposition to the motivations of the community members and their contagious positivity. Many other communities let their emotions get the best of them and try to “defeat” the troll, giving into their toxicity and the rest of the Internet’s negative atmosphere. Instead, I’m counting on the community to provide peaceful and logical responses that will instead frustrate their attempts at rage bait instead of getting sucked into them. Perhaps this could be done by focusing on their unnecessary nature of the junk comments, not their shortcomings.

Brooke Cagle/Unsplash

On the other hand, people who flat-out ignore small-scale trolls are just as toxic as the trolls themselves. I get that large-scale attacks can go out of control and needs to be shut down in those cases, but I’m talking about small-scale trolling.

It’s frustrating to see so many people fall for the advice to “ignore the trolls” without making the link between that and the social unrest in 2023. People keep saying they wish society wasn’t so paranoid and hostile, yet it seems like they want to do everything BUT directly respond to the causes. Websites in 2023 either remove inflammatory comments or encourage them. Nonmonetized Together is the only online space I can think of that aims to hold people responsible, turn these incidents into positive learning opportunities, and provide a better world for our children and grandchildren.

In 2023, people really seem to think that ignoring Internet trolls takes away their power, but ignoring them would likely mean the troll would just move on to someone who would give them exactly what they want anyway. So, ignoring them does nothing at all.

To make authentic social progress, people must react in a way that will not satisfy the disruptors, and that is what I am hoping to do here. As Bishop Robert Barron wrote, “[t]o turn the other cheek is to prevent [one] from hitting you the same way again. It is not to run or to acquiesce, but rather to signal to the aggressor that you refuse to accept the set of assumptions that have made his aggression possible” (50).

Another feature about Nonmonetized Together is that it aims to have a level playing field. Now, competition over resources, power, and influence is great from a social justice standpoint, but I hope people will be discouraged from it on Nonmonetized Together (I’ve never seen anybody attempt it on here before). I just feel that there should be at least one online community where people can share knowledge without worrying about running into those who care more about attacking them than anything they have to say. Imagine coming up with a great idea on Nonmonetized Together, being able to run it through a noncompetitive community, test it out in an environment with a level playing field, and only then taking it out into the wider world and using it as an ideological weapon. The opposition’s ideas wouldn’t stand a chance because they wouldn’t have the same screening process.

This requires the users and me to have an awareness of the inequalities present in the outside world, be careful that they do not take over Nonmonetized Together, and be willing to learn about the existence of inequalities they were previously unaware of. If people do attempt domination tactics on this community, hopefully they will be devalued by the wisdom in other members’ ideas and responses.

Nghia Le/Unsplash

For a couple reasons, I feel like I’m a great candidate for making sure Nonmonetized Together doesn’t fail. First, because I’m extremely honest but try to be sensitive to other people’s feelings at the same time. I’m motivated to be honest because it is socially rewarding, because I struggle to lie convincingly, and because I don’t like feeling guilty.

The second reason is because I have realized I don’t need any more political power than I already am given. Because of this, I trained my brain to stop affiliating with any political sides. This way, I could leave it up to the readers to take ownership of their own political activity on Nonmonetized Together, instead of being under my political control and influence. I also chose to seek meaning from Catholicism instead of politics, and the result is that I’m more willing to inspire others than bring down people I disagree with.

Inspiring others is what Nonmonetized Together is all about. I’m that sure the left, centre, and right all have their own ways of being inspired by what they read on here, but all that matters is that they are inspired positively and productively. If you feel that this does a better job at supporting future generations than the current state of the Internet in 2023, sign your name in the comments section, but be honest! Historians may look back at this post and trace your name to your online activity.

References

Barron, Robert. Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith. Image, 2011.

#Future #Power #Internet #Sociology #Activism

Discuss...

You can also read this article at https://medium.com/non-monetized-together/always-stay-one-step-ahead-of-ai-what-can-you-do-that-ai-cant-9841b6cf114?source=friends_link&sk=16421f4939e358d4a831d8a8fa7266fa

To prevent artificial intelligence from taking away people’s jobs, intelligences, and agency, people can find ways to explore, improve, and deliver skills that cannot be replicated by AI. If you want AI to support human activity instead of replacing it, you might want to start working on these skills immediately and develop them as much as possible. All it takes is for humanity to put more time into developing themselves than the amount of time that is put into developing AI.

Even if one person reads this article and commits themselves to this concept at their job, their methods may inspire other workers at the company and make a difference in how the business operates. If you succeed at finding ways for humans to outperform AI, you can give the company reasons to justify the extra cost of human workers. You can make a difference in the lives of many.

I think that pretty much everybody would think this idea’s worth a shot, but some people, especially anti-centrists, may feel like society needs to do more than that. So, this article’s comments section has two purposes. One, readers can share ideas for how humans can stay at pace with AI. Two, they can add any other suggestions they may have on what to do about AI. These suggestions can turn into action by being read by others and influencing readers’ real-life decisions (https://write.as/non-monetized-together/how-online-discussion-offers-more-potential-for-social-change-than-irl-activism).

I think customer service is one of the most important things to be protected. If the company you work at uses AI as customer service, maybe you can do something to serve customers who deserve something better. Maybe work after hours so you can provide an alternate service for people who want a human to do it for them. This may not be the best idea, so I hope people who read this article can collaborate so they can make a better one.

Another one of the biggest examples is how AI shapes our opinions and how we view the world. I’m mentioning this because it’s already been in full-force for years now with corporate-driven recommendation algorithms deciding what you see. This makes it only more important to avoid generalizing entire groups of people. I also suggest to remember that people are sometimes recommended different content than the content you receive, which may have influenced their thought process. This is why it’s important to give people a chance to explain why they feel the way they do, so you can provide a response that you can be sure applies to them.

This form of AI is easier to resist if you use search engines instead of social media, since with search engines you can search for viewpoints that challenge yours or specifically choose results that are lower-ranked on the search page. Search engines are tailored to the user’s preference too, but in my experience, it’s not as influenced by them as social media. Of course, there’s also read.write.as, which does not run ads and sorts articles by most recent, ensuring everybody gets their voice heard.

Do you have any ideas for techniques to research information outside of AI’s influence?

Now this is write.as, so I can’t leave without bringing attention to the fact that AI can now make blog posts. How can you make sure your posts compete with that of AI? Keep in mind the things AI will able to replicate a long time from now, not just today. Well, AI is trained off pre-existing information, so you can try writing in an original style. Then, you’ll be able to innovate before the AI can. You can write about topics that have barely been discussed on the Internet. AI would have trouble writing about those topics.

What can you do to prove that your blog posts are not written by a robot?

What else is there to say? You know I love challenging dominant power forces, but when there is a shift in society, I also adapt my methods in doing so. That way, I never admit defeat and I’m ready for anything.

#ArtificialIntelligence #Economy #Power #Technology #Society

Discuss...

This was originally published on Medium on February 1, 2023 (https://medium.com/@non-monetized_together/im-embarrassed-to-be-a-sociology-major-a5ea683a2f40?source=friends_link&sk=27c2adb611375a6c23b8d2dcb21d4ef2)

#sociology #power #academia #education #cringe

Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

Now that I’m finally about to graduate university, I can look back and say it was a mostly positive experience. Nevertheless, it has led me to lose faith in academic sociology. I am also majoring in sociology, which is an uncomfortable fact for me to accept. Don’t get me wrong, sociology is interesting, and I’m looking forward to finding work somewhere in the field, but I really don’t want to associate with the academic side of it.

I’ve came to the conclusion that it is just another way for the well-to-do to impose their power on everyone else by depicting their social platform as science. Yes, even the so-called radical socialist academics. I’m sure there are many researchers who don’t intend to participate in that, but they are caught in the institutional apparatus. As someone who has no business fighting in either side of the class conflict, I just want to push that to the side and move on with my life.

In my five years of attending university, I’ve read enough papers to know that the people who write them don’t give their readers any room for interpretation or inspiration. The publishers wouldn’t greenlight that. Every article is trying to say, “shut up and listen to me.”

The researchers will sometimes study ordinary people, but will never cite them, even when they are their academic “specialty.” And worse, the academy does not believe citizen experts are credible. Instead, the academics only cite each other. As a result, attending university narrowed my perspective instead of broadening it.

I have asked my sociology professor Nancy Mandell if an academic paper could get published if it cited sources outside the academy. She said no, universities are not interested in publishing that. She also said that they won’t publish articles that encourage the reader to come up with their own interpretations of the research.

Sociology really isn’t all that complicated. Anybody could learn it. What differentiates academic sociologists from everyone else is that they can use specialized terms and can get away with being a smartass about it. It has nothing to do with the value or intelligence one brings to the field.

I’m in a position in my life where politics, social services, and the economy are mostly afterthoughts. But since I sat through a bunch of lectures and read through some papers, I’m considered a better authority on these subjects than somebody who has to directly deal with them daily.

Non-Monetized Together aims to fill in this gap of knowledge formed by academic sociology. By encouraging an active comments section, it is not just a blog, but an online community, a virtual classroom, and an opportunity for readers to volunteer their stories. I wanted to build a space where people of all walks of life can build off each other’s knowledge, create their own theories, and prove that they can be intellectuals too.

Just remember, we are all equals here.

Discuss...

Medium comments:

The publishers wouldn’t greenlight that. Every article is trying to say, “shut up and listen to me.”

Yes. I am an academic. So true.

Brian G (aka 'bumpyjonas') – he/him

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Mr. Kevin, I can show this essay to a dear friend, a retired professor of Sociology, and can imagine the response. “There's no data to back that up”.

We love her to death, and I have had real exchange over issues in life. Although I may have years of personal experience behind my 'working opinion' on the subject, there's no data to back it up. I believe that means, 'tested data' gained and published.

True. My data is collected personally: seen, felt, repeated over time. Perhaps empirical, and with my own observations as verification.

She is right of course. There are always variables that can alter my personal findings. If my data hasn't been published to be scrutinized by others, then it remains a theory.

So I live my life in question whenever I remember to do so. My impressions are indeed valuable. We ought to all proceed without closed opinions. Life is better.

dick

Yeah, you don't need a sociology degree to collect data.

Kevin the Nonmonetized