Or it was always that way? It’s just I (dumb me) vastly underestimated some people’s stupidity. Or let’s blame the smartphones and the tech bros who helped this journey of “making us dumber” 🙂
Smartphone and Social Media
This is not a joke actually, because sometimes I joked too much and my kids usually think my “dad jokes” are not funny. Probably my wife doesn’t think highly some of my jokes either. There are research (google search) that says “social media” make people think less critically – if they were thinking critically before social media, I guess. Let me quite some results from Google search below.
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Search Labs | AI Overview
Is social media making us stupid and less empathetic? – Peerbagh
Yes, social media can make people less able to think critically and analytically, and it can also contribute to mental health issues.
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Reddit: Social Media is making us Dumber
Note with all the American exceptionalism (which in my mind, it’s a myth or overrated to say the least). I don’t think America is exceptional in terms of social media usage though – at the same time, the tech bros are raking in money from social media and overuse of big tech left and right:
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Zuckerberg’s FB/Instagram/Whatsapp;
Elon Musk’s X/Twitter (at least he hoped he could make more money from X, he did make tons of money from Tesla, with quite a bit government subsidies);
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon – earth’s biggest store, shop until you drop;
tech bros’ Google;
tech bros’ Apple;
and so on
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I do similar things on the Chinese social media platform WeChat and Red Note too 🙁 In other words, I believe overall we are all dumber because our eyes are glued to the phone or screen all the time (again if applicable, nothing personal).
Missouri aka the show money state
The outcome of recent lawsuit that awards Missouri $24 billion seems confirmed my worry. I was too simple, too naive. MO AG Andrew Bailey doesn’t seem to be a nice person, btw. As practical matters, this will just make the lives of Chinese people in Missouri a little bit harder. Because as a Chinese person who lived in the show money state since 1997, I know most people here cannot even tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese people and so on. I can’t either: when I met a Chinese couple back in January 2015 for my old daughter kindergarten registration, at first I thought they are Korean 🙂
I am expecting more “go back to your country” shenanigans 🙁
Tariff is another good example. It’s 100% shoot yourself on the foot – those who start the trade war. Here is a good example.
If a country wants to reduce trade deficit: the rational way is to reduce imports, or reduce consumption. Right: don’t buy the junks from Shein and Temu.
If a country wants to boost manufacturing sector, the country can do things such as educate young people on engineering and manufacturing, advocate and support manufacturing business (instead of doing the bitcoin and cryptos shit; or put 100% tariff on EVs from the country you don’t like), and soon. In either case though, tariffs for imports or subsidies for domestic manufacturing are interventions, in other words the Government is meddling in the market. What happens to the republicans free market narrative?
AP: Missouri plans to seize assets to make China pay a $24.5 billion judgment, but can it collect?