en.wikipedia.org
It's very real. They're everywhere. Bots. Persons who have been brainwashed by radio, TV, social media, and generally been socialized to be as if they were bots (just like Dr. Kaczynski said), AI generated spam content, and junk fed to you by the algorithm.
The bots, as you may well have heard have become increasingly sophisticated with the development of things like Gemini, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, etc. to the point where often they are very difficult to distinguish from real persons.
Persons made like bots are a step away from that in that they have, for so long, voluntarily or involuntarily been bathed in this...mental/intellectual junk that they begin to take act as sort of a transmitter. Take for example those social media videos in which some guy uses his "rizz" as the youngsters call it, to score some blonde bombshell. The videos aren't real. Everyone involved is an actor. Everyone involved may not actually even exist. It could just be an AI generated fake that's been touched up. But to someone with no cynicism, or someone who watches something like this day in and day out, it becomes real. And of course while they are seeing it, and seeing is believing, they're not seeing it in reality. They're seeing it through a screen. The screen has distracted them from reality, and created for them a false image. The image, in this case may well have an effect on how they think or behave. Of course this example is rather benign.
I'm just saying that this stuff is incredibly real, and it's out there, and I think it's real bad news for anyone and everyone online and (maybe to a lesser extent) offline who value independent thought and action.
Regarding your question as to my politics? Hm...I'd say I'm apolitical in that I do not particularly strongly support any ideology, nor am I a member of any party. However, I do have opinions on political issues. That said, I try to keep away from hot button issues. If something really big goes down, you'll hear about it without having to be told about it on the news. The news, of course, tells you what the ruling class wants you to focus on. Ultimately, I think political decisions ought to be guided by a set of values, principals, and logical processes, rather than a sort of...party dogma. That always got me into a bit of trouble. Whenever I did talk to partisan types, it was all fun and dandy until I disagreed with their party's line on something. Invariably I was met with canned replies that they themselves didn't actually think of, but were rather told by persons on TV, or radio, etc. Bot people! Hope that answers your question.
PS: I generally have a firm belief that as it pertains to big political issues, we are categorically powerless. HOWEVER, we have the ability to set ourselves up to survive, or even thrive under conditions imposed upon us. For example, I believe most world economies have foundations of sand. They incur huge debts, print money to pay this off, and then have a team of pseudo-economist apparatchiks say that it's normal and sensible. I disagree, and I believe that this system will invariably fail. Because economies can't be built on shuffling around imaginary ones and zeros on spreadsheets, not forever. So, I structure my finances, and prepare accordingly. If and when their system fails, I have measures in place to come out a winner. I can't control it. But I can prepare for, and respond to it.
