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Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 6:50 pm
by seemslikeadream
that's not correct I looked at his FB and I am not a friend
JackRiddler » Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:46 pm wrote:It's true, he's not set to "public" but to "friends only." Please let's respect that by only cutting and pasting interesting things he says, using the board quote function. Or maybe just lock this thread as my mistake. I'll await a mod ruling or advice.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:25 pm
by JackRiddler
I don't know. Could be a mix. He has that "shared with friends" symbol next to his posts, not the globe symbol that indicates fully public.

Anyway, same name, both boards, and it wouldn't matter if it were different. Anyone who wants to know knows. So it's just a formality, a politeness thing.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 8:02 pm
by Laodicean
JackRiddler » Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:25 am wrote: Anyone who wants to know knows. So it's just a formality, a politeness thing.


:clown

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:35 pm
by dada
I can only speak for myself, here. I don't like the social media bubble world. It has nothing to do with the targeted ads, or the information farming. That's just the way of the internet. It has something to do with the way it subtly shapes the thought process. It doesn't matter how insightful and intelligent, revolutionary or enlightening your words and images are, they are undermined by the format. You've lost before you start.

Maybe we think we can break out of it somehow. We try to see it as a tool, and not a drug. Of course some just don't care. Smart people are as susceptible to the allure as anyone.

Think about how this works. You have a hundred, five hundred, two thousand 'friends.' This becomes your echo chamber. A super special tweet gets twenty million shares. Leaving aside the engineering, that's just twenty million. Is that the world? Hardly. It's twenty million privileged users. Consumers, getting a fix.

So I don't know. It's difficult to put into words what's bugging me about it all. I'm still letting it work in me, the words usually come when they're ready. For the last year or so I haven't looked at other people's stuff on facebook, only posted, and responded when people 'tagged' me in things. I didn't like the feeling of when I have an interesting thought, or see a pretty thing, one of my first reactions was, 'oh, I have to share this.' So for the last four months I haven't gone on social media at all. I feel better.

Every once in a while I still get that 'oh, I have to share this on social media' impulse. Maybe I haven't quite found the words to explain it, but I know that feeling when I feel it. It really does feel like an addiction. And I'm looking for freedom, so.

And maybe that's the difference. We're all looking for different things out of life.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:44 pm
by guruilla
JackRiddler » Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:25 pm wrote:I don't know. Could be a mix. He has that "shared with friends" symbol next to his posts, not the globe symbol that indicates fully public.

Anyway, same name, both boards, and it wouldn't matter if it were different. Anyone who wants to know knows. So it's just a formality, a politeness thing.
I checked with another account, most of his posts are set to friends only, with occasional ones for everyone (not counting anyone who doesn't have a FB account, since they don't exist)

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:04 pm
by JackRiddler
dada, I get it. But the "bubble" aspect is a misconception. That's old-media defensive propaganda. I get infuriated enough by the diversity of responses and shit I see not to think so. It ends up as a thorough mix, if you actually engage. That's not really the problem, it's the larger conditioning through the format. Absolutely. But that in turn has been true of every medium, since hieroglyphs and alphabets, definitely since print. The stuff McLuhan saw. And he wasn't the first, it was understood long before him that print gave rise to reformation and nations based on vernaculars. So this is going to do something similarly epochal, but that doesn't mean it's altogether predictable in advance, good, bad or indifferent. Unforeseen consequences.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:22 pm
by Iamwhomiam
I was wrong. I cannot access Jeff's page without being signed in.

I now understand the reason for not sharing the video, Guruilla.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:36 pm
by Wombaticus Rex
JackRiddler » Wed Dec 14, 2016 5:46 pm wrote:It's true, he's not set to "public" but to "friends only." Please let's respect that by only cutting and pasting interesting things he says, using the board quote function. Or maybe just lock this thread as my mistake. I'll await a mod ruling or advice.
I dunno, if you want to do a whole Effigy Jeff thread and feed it oatmeal and entrails, I'm just gonna watch and enjoy this beer.

I know I'm a curmudgeon before my time but I'm also only here to serve, ultimately. So: what would be wrong about this thread? What is the actual concern?

Everyone gets The Dox Treatment. It's 2016.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:43 pm
by OP ED
I have a FB somewhere around here. I don't actually use it for anything.

I don't think I have ever posted or "liked" anything or whatever.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:48 pm
by JackRiddler
Anyway, back to the Virtual Jeff Wells Thread! Okay?!
Jeff Wells on 13 Dec 2016 wrote:I'm not saying it's creepy, just that it's not not creepy.
Link:
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief ... served-for

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:56 pm
by norton ash
Jeff Wells
Yesterday at 5:25pm ·
The CIA isn't staging a coup. The CIA is schooling Trump in who is the real government.
True, dat.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:11 pm
by dada
JackRiddler » Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:04 pm wrote:dada, I get it. But the "bubble" aspect is a misconception. That's old-media defensive propaganda. I get infuriated enough by the diversity of responses and shit I see not to think so. It ends up as a thorough mix, if you actually engage. That's not really the problem, it's the larger conditioning through the format. Absolutely. But that in turn has been true of every medium, since hieroglyphs and alphabets, definitely since print. The stuff McLuhan saw. And he wasn't the first, it was understood long before him that print gave rise to reformation and nations based on vernaculars. So this is going to do something similarly epochal, but that doesn't mean it's altogether predictable in advance, good, bad or indifferent. Unforeseen consequences.
Could be, could be.

If we're going the McLuhan route, then the anti-social artist is already critiquing the latest medium as it is still forming, while the fish is still learning to swim in it. And the fish never sees the water. The emperor's newest fancy brocade robe is still imaginary. Anti-social artist sees the medium as obsolete as soon as it's an official 'medium.'

But I'm not much for McLuhan. Progression of mediums is one perspective. From another, it seems that hieroglyphs and alphabets are still where we're at. 'Revolutionary' is kind of a marketing buzz word, the newest medium gets the mystical aura treatment by the latest word-shamans. We masters of hieroglyph and alphabet are all in it for different reasons. Some are on the cutting edge, some are the cutting edge, and some us are just cutting:)

Well, no one said staying ahead of the curve wouldn't be a thankless job. The anti-social artist knows what they're signing up for. Maybe I'll find the words to state the critique that's been brewing in my gut, and maybe not.

Unforseen consequences. You know, we all like to do the 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' thing with every thought. It's a useful tool, but we get addicted to it. Some clever people add a few extras at the end, 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis-parenthesis-paralysis.' But the surreal encroaches, rises up from the unconscious like a tidal wave. No one can ever forsee that coming. It isn't even a consequence.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:18 pm
by MacCruiskeen
JackRiddler » Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:48 pm wrote:Anyway, back to the Virtual Jeff Wells Thread! Okay?!
Jeff Wells on 13 Dec 2016 wrote:I'm not saying it's creepy, just that it's not not creepy.
Link:
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief ... served-for
What's the actual source for this not-not-creepy story, Jack? (I can't get the audio to play, maybe it's there.) Is any source cited at all, apart from one CNN hack quoting another CNN hack?
CNN’s Lisa Miranda tweeted the news earlier Wednesday, citing a report by CNN's Sara Murray, who covered Trump on the campaign trail.

http://www.thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief ... served-for

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 5:52 am
by stefano
Thanks norton. Sound like a good read from the blurb.

Re: The Virtual Jeff Wells Thread

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:16 am
by 8bitagent
I think Jeff's last blog post was 2012? I could only imagine how lucid visionary a new Jeff Wells blog would be, even if it was his final RI blog post.
A year in which we saw an 80s tv show reality star become president, the return of phanton clowns, Turkey almost fall in a coup, feathered dinosaur remains found in amber, new life sustaining planets found,
self driving cars and robots become common place, the return of creepy neo nazis, and so much other insanity