the chaos theory of now: what is god for anyway?

“When things go wrong, as it sometimes will (economists’ theory), or do (poets’ view), shouldn’t we just run for the hills?” This, is actually, an Invictus poem line gone wrong, (physicist’s law).

Sometimes, when we think things have become maligned and obtuse - or just not to our liking, we find that echoes of order in the universe have organised itself to put your end to right.

And we don’t know what that computational grid looks like.
(Not even in the slightest, our knowledge haven’t a minute idea of a fog.)

I don’t believe there are circumstances that do enjoy the stock options that go with the task of developing the antidote to the social chaos that has been summoned by more than a decade of embroiling people’s lives in a network that connected more than the average number of people engaged at one point in time, in a tiny space, but in the expanse of more than 12M lives.

Of course, we can argue our way to becoming the washing of our hands, rather than the feet of others, in this heady mission of de-corrupting an environment doomed for failure - in the assumption it is meant to save lives, and reunite, and multiply the goodwill existent in society - the downside of which is the entire opposite structured into a scheduled epicentre of doom and damnation. To a daily, regular, reins-free collision course to your un-destined tincture of interactive intimacy.

Imagine having a circle of friends (in high school) of more than ten, having the depth of relationship that connects you to at least a sub-group of four, and then having the best friend of one. And start multiplying the horrors that will be amplified to a stretched out trial and error of building, un-building, and simply watching feeds as people post their innermost lives online.

What people had not imagined to share with you, let alone the whole class, is now post-fed to everyone on a daily basis. To subject you to the uttermost levels of shame, loneliness, and the capital negative heights of social hell. If you were familiar how to avoid this, you probably had widened up and kept your local circles to a minimum, and international border-applied international circles to common groups/ party invites/ events/ sorority tag circles.

Friends.

Why is this label become the controversial pinpoint?

Tag.

Something we do to pictures - to share them. Or just show them off that you know certain people. In some circles, acknowledging the heirarchies that exist in your groups but in others, just to CC them (to copy furnish is a verb).

Like.

This one is a doozy. We select articles, pictures, photographs, videos, stories, etc, of people even if we are not in them - strange and embarrassing (for me), since we hardly know them and impact our social lives when we are Liked by the wrong people (again another nod to the damnation of a heirarchical reveal - much to the socialists’ chagrin).

Message.

This one is at least something that alludes to keeping things private. And remaining private - with features that ensure and subject the right (familiar/ actual one-to-one) people to connectivity, but to not blast or wail as in our very public estates to the confusion of people who didn’t even know you had a pet iguana. (And why the heck didn’t they?!)

Interested.

Events are another doozy. On the one hand, it’s an attempt to gain heights in commercial impersonal ground. On the other hand, there is no such thing as escaping the algorithms of the social minds. It burns in the mind, and it stays. Or why sometimes, first impressions always count.

Invite/ Accept/ Unfriend/ Poke.

These “Verbuttons”, are a way of socially dismembering or wrecking someone publicly in the social ethos, as it was in high school and most knitting circles. There are no euphemisms, or metaphors to save your soul now.

These are the “Buttons” of the GUI (human interfaced to digital cognition) of today. In the name of distance, and replacing the telephone. What was the emotional buttons that was equivalent to the Mean Girls code of social: Snob, Not Share With, Avert, Avoid, Spite. These are silent treatments that people understood without the manual. There are social codes in each society that we don’t need to delve into - as opposed to the more uncool Spell It Out, and Tell Her To Her Face, Take Her Aside to Discuss, or Do An Expectations Meeting. As might be in more organised socials in corporate culture. Well, large international organisations rather than small startups - where the CEOs will probably single you out, and speak calmly in fireside discussions, as if they were water cooler chats - so the adjust becomes a personal badge of accomplishment as you rise in the “social ranks” of a currency misfire.

Any social misfit worth her pink salt, whatever the industry can tell you, that speaking and clarity are the curse words that translate to “i want out of this institution” and i might as well sign in with the *witness protection programme or a drug rehab centre in colorado.*

But if the social networks were built from a society that was “cooler than thou”, does this mean we were adjusted to fit into it? And not assumed you were going to evaluate it for yourself - with the kind of people that were “let into” - actively subjected, not subjugated into someone else’s concept of social good or moral ethics that didn’t factor your upbringing - your actual digital-social networks, surely we weren’t that socially awkward in our formative years to have been instinctively led into a mouse trap of sorts, worse than being back in Years 1-12?

The mixes are dependent on a uni-directionalism that is observed within the system, but across borders, we either remain on-page or on-white-page. What does that mean? White pages: we use networks as reach out - since we didn’t expand via work - this applies to a very sharp directly related network of friends, family, neighbours. Or work-but-not-really-in-the-same-office. Which explains why they can’t be connected to on LinkedIn in case there are awkward comments - or formed question marks i the brain afterwards. When the confusion becomes a product of someone else’s social prescription, we are being formed in a direction of treating these once-heralded important social connections, as mere interactions that will “do us good” or “do us bad”. Which, to people who’ve lived their social lives before they tools, or before being subjected to its humiliating use to flagellate / boast/ multiply and amplify the ways, lives, opinions, and important connectivity, we became more engaged with the actual people.

Met them for coffee.

Gone for walks in the park.

Found a phone, & 25cents to call them.

We looked them up to understand that their time, is valuable.

But now, we research them - like facts on pieces of paper.

Not people.

Do we know the difference? Or are the differences now more capped on-grid, more than ever, and irrecoverable? Are our reputations online, as well as on the line, with the profile picture we set, and the phones that recognise our faces at each purchase point?

It might be that the Social Tools that the antisocial built, will be altering our social conducts. For life. Scary.

(Because, Face it, we have totally different behaviours at work, and our personal lives.)

Like, Totally?

Probably, mostly.

My network is chosen by me: Not forced upon me. Required: **An inner mantra of **“We are not socialists. But we don’t subscribe to being mean or holding someone else (an institution) to be responsible for our bad manners, and ill-mannered behaviour.”*

It’s idealist, but it’s real.

^* This article / social piece is A 2011 rebuttal to the Tao Of Pooh.