I actually think this stuff might be beneficial. My generation, in our 40s now, grew up believing we could trust the Guardian, the BBC and the Labour Party, and many people still do; but the kids of today have spent their entire lives immersed in a rich soup of bullshit and the thing is, they know it. While our parents told us not to bel…
I actually think this stuff might be beneficial. My generation, in our 40s now, grew up believing we could trust the Guardian, the BBC and the Labour Party, and many people still do; but the kids of today have spent their entire lives immersed in a rich soup of bullshit and the thing is, they know it. While our parents told us not to believe everything we saw on TV, but both we and they continued to, our kids have grown up with the concept of “influencers”; they understand about algorithms; they have all had the first hand experience of seeing their own output and input get filtered. They know about shadow bans.
The other thing is that although everything is biased and filtered, it is nevertheless true that we have access to information now, from other places, that we have never done before. In no previous round of israeli atrocities in Gaza, have the photos and footage been seen around the world on a daily basis, but they are now. Maybe they’ll try to put the cat back into the bag but they will fail and get badly scratched in the process.
Not only are our kids reading and listening to Gaza, but they are talking to and playing games with Russian, Iranian, Chinese and Indian kids. They have friends from every country. And in fact, not only the kids because many of these game types have existed for 20 years. Ask yourselves: how long could the cold way have continued if significant numbers of British and American people had Russian friends that they spoke to regularly?
Removing rights from a population who are accustomed to them historically hasn’t gone well, which is why it’s been given to Labour to do: to reduce opposition from people who should know better, and so that they get the backlash (along with the backlashes for destroying the NHS and starting world war three).
Starmer hasn’t got a chance in the next election. We need to make sure there is a socialist option on the table outside of Labour, so that when Labour has collapsed, something remains to oppose fascism. But I’ve got a little feeling that with every passing year that the teenagers of 2008 remain economically excluded, the pressure for movement to the left will increase steadily.
I actually think this stuff might be beneficial. My generation, in our 40s now, grew up believing we could trust the Guardian, the BBC and the Labour Party, and many people still do; but the kids of today have spent their entire lives immersed in a rich soup of bullshit and the thing is, they know it. While our parents told us not to believe everything we saw on TV, but both we and they continued to, our kids have grown up with the concept of “influencers”; they understand about algorithms; they have all had the first hand experience of seeing their own output and input get filtered. They know about shadow bans.
The other thing is that although everything is biased and filtered, it is nevertheless true that we have access to information now, from other places, that we have never done before. In no previous round of israeli atrocities in Gaza, have the photos and footage been seen around the world on a daily basis, but they are now. Maybe they’ll try to put the cat back into the bag but they will fail and get badly scratched in the process.
Not only are our kids reading and listening to Gaza, but they are talking to and playing games with Russian, Iranian, Chinese and Indian kids. They have friends from every country. And in fact, not only the kids because many of these game types have existed for 20 years. Ask yourselves: how long could the cold way have continued if significant numbers of British and American people had Russian friends that they spoke to regularly?
Removing rights from a population who are accustomed to them historically hasn’t gone well, which is why it’s been given to Labour to do: to reduce opposition from people who should know better, and so that they get the backlash (along with the backlashes for destroying the NHS and starting world war three).
Starmer hasn’t got a chance in the next election. We need to make sure there is a socialist option on the table outside of Labour, so that when Labour has collapsed, something remains to oppose fascism. But I’ve got a little feeling that with every passing year that the teenagers of 2008 remain economically excluded, the pressure for movement to the left will increase steadily.