25 Years ago there was order.

People watched the News, got their information from the shiny man (or woman) on TV or their mate Dave down at the local Boozer.

The population was quietly controlled into social order.

When I was young there were rarely any protests, people were more interested in being with their friends and going out, and inside we were quietly happy.

One may argue that was a good thing -- because we were kept safe from the horrors of the world and what it was truly like.

When @beardoin and I were off on a trip to Loch Lomond for the day, rarely was it on our minds that someone was getting bombed somewhere in the middle east or further afield.

Yeah, I will say life was comfortably (and naively) good for most people were you lucky enough to live in a first world country.

But that all changed when the internet was released to the masses.

The world changed for good.

One could project that the world is a lot unhappier than it was 30 years ago. We didn't have much but we were happy and somewhat content with our lot.

People were really only interested in what was happening in their own communities rather than worrying about what was happening in Abu Dhabi or some far off place.

When I was going through my training in mental health I one day walked into work feeling fresh and light and ready to conquer the world.

It was quite the change prior to my life earlier; something had clicked, something had changed.

I remember my manager telling me that I was giving off different energy; that I was more content, more relaxed, and better ready to take on challenges.

I remember her telling me that I no longer looked like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.

This caused me to reflect quite a bit on how I was perceiving the world around me; that I was carrying the burden of other people's problems on my shoulders and not concentrating on what truly matters -- me.

I had been too previously wrapped up in what my friends were doing; who said what to whom, and what the government were doing in London to actually focus on my own problems right in the present.

That is when my life changed for good.

But I see this part of psychology being weaponized against the masses on every social media platform, yes, even X.

Our anger is being used to win wars within our governments; we are mere pawns in a larger game of chess.

It all started with Facebook I think. I say I think here because I'm no insider, but I first felt the change on Facebook.

Facebook was once a good place to hang out. You would see what your friends were up to, and you would band together for truly honourable causes; together we were (and still are) strong.

Facebook was doing a scary thing back in 2011.

It was uniting people in ways the oligarchs in power hadn't seen before.

Remember occupy wall street?

That was co-ordinated through all the social media platforms and it became a humungous protest, the likes I'd never seen before. People from all over the world joined it.

That's when our feeds started changing. That's when the FBI and the CIA and all these shadowy three letter organizations realised that information needs to be controlled for there to be order.

That's when the terms misinformation and hate speech began.

Because no-one cared beforehand. Everyone knew if people were saying things that were insane they were laughed at rather than taken seriously.

I remember a time when your Facebook and social feed was filter free. You could see what all your friends were posting in real time. The internet was good back then. Information flowed more naturally.

But then soon afterwards our feeds began to get smaller until eventually we could only see 1% of the entirety of the people posting there. So if there were 300 posts, we'd only see 30.

"For us to feel less confused"

Apparently.

But really it was all about narrative control.

With 1% they could control who sees what and when.

No more occupy wall street ever again.

Yet this was only the tip of the iceberg because Facebook really did a number on communities. People got bored after the change, stopped using it, it was way less fun than before.

So they needed to get people to engage.

That's when the thought bubbles started.

Facebook started to love bomb us with posts that we agreed with constantly, the thoughts that went against our programming were filtered out.

Then, after a while, we'd come across one of our friends that said something that we at the core disagreed with.

We used to be able to tolerate that but now with everyone being open about Politics and religion the mind was fair game on our feeds.

And thus that's when communities began to break down and friendships would rip apart.

The same happened to me today actually which inspired this post.

I logged into Facebook for the first time in a month. One of my friends had posted something I at the core disbelieve -- yet what it didn't do was show me the 20 posts earlier they made that I completely agreed with.

I only saw that solitary one post.

They wanted me to engage

They wanted me to be angry.

Yet I quietly refuse because no words or opinions have any control over me. I sit here in silent rebellion of a world that wants me to be intensely angry.

We've seen governments and agencies secretly use the populous as a battering ram against anyone that have opinions they dislike in recent years.

Cancelling someone was no organic act of nature, but manipulated consensus backed by lots of money, lots of tech, and lots of mobilization.

Overwhelming totalitarian control is not when you are afraid of the government, but it's when you're afraid of your neighbour and what they will say.

Ask anyone from the old eastern bloc countries, they will tell you.

So when you find yourself raging at something on social media; whether it's Facebook, Twitter (now X), Tiktok, YouTube, or whatever..

Ask yourself,

What things about my own life am I angry about and how can I work to solve them?

Because I promise you are not angry at whatever you have seen. It is a projection of how you feel inside being weaponized against whatever you are viewing.

It's for engagement, and it's also for whatever Political aims.

Just..

Work on yourself and solve your own issues.

You will be immune to it after that.

Life will seem easier and happier.

Trust me.