I love Deuteronomy 30:15: “I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.”
Here are my thoughts on what choices in our social media use promote life:
* You develop habits and form neural-pathways that serve you in life
* When you’d be proud to see your contributions featured on the front page of the NYTimes
* You build connections, develop friends, go into business or date people you meet who share your values
* You feel good afterward
* You display an accurate sense of your own importance and expertise
* You contribute and help people
* Shared vulnerability judiciously chosen
* You strive to be accurate
* Your social media use meshes with other parts of your life
* Your social media use promotes coherence in your life, what you share works through all parts of your life
* You exercise care and discretion
* You lift up people
* You seek win-win solutions
* Your self esteem does not depend on how much engagement you get
* You don’t sacrifice your values to pursue engagement
Choices that promote death:
* You develop habits and form neural-pathways that hurt you in life
* When you’d hate to see your words on the front page of the New York Times
* You destroy your friendships, you piss people off so they want to hunt you down in real life and hurt you
* You feel lousy afterward
* You lack an accurate sense of your own importance
* Look at me! Your use is to primarily emphasize that you are special and not subject to the ordinary rules of human relationships
* You primarily want to tear people down
* You pursue feuds
* You’re reckless
* Your social media use threatens the rest of your life
* Your social media use promotes splitting your life
* You hurt people
* You’re morbid
* You seek I win, you lose
* Your self esteem depends upon how much engagement you get
* You violate your moral code to pursue engagement
* You worry that the wrong people will read it
* Your use makes you feel degraded and disconnected
Richard Spencer’s famous rant is an example of what not to do: “I am so mad. I am so fucking mad at these people. They don’t do this to fucking me. We’re going to fucking ritualistically humiliate them. I am coming back here every fucking weekend if I have to. Like this is never over. I win. They fucking lose. That’s how the world fucking works. Little fucking kikes. They get ruled by people like me. Little fucking octoroons. My ancestors fucking enslaved those little pieces of fucking shit. I rule the fucking world. Those pieces of shit get ruled by people like me. They look up and see a face like mine looking down at them. That’s how the fucking world works. We are going to destroy this fucking town.”
