If I didn't need my Phone for an enormous amount of 2FA and Work related tasks I would 100% replace it with a Dumbphone. Smart phones as a technology that has been just a massive net negative for the world, they have taken all the worst aspects of computers and amplified them greatly on top of being easily portable. The amount of people who have become socially retarded because the brick in their pocket allows them to entertain themselves constantly with tasty little tidbits of meaningless and vacuous content or who have let their basic skills atrophy because they always have a way of offloading the responsibility onto a device is enormous. I have an easier time interacting with my Brother now over Discord than I do in person because the Man is looking at his phone literally constantly, he is incapable of putting it down or giving his attention to anyone else. It genuinely depressing to be in a room with him and his wife because both of them spend the entire time looking at instagram and whatever other cancerous social media sites that are in right now.
Anyways now that the Rants over, I am envious of your quiet areas of nature. Once upon a time I used to live in the woods and it was great, but these days the only place I can really go to read outside is the Beach (I live a few mins away right now) which sounds nice but the strong winds, tourists, and complete lack of natural shade certainly make it not a peaceful place to read. Speaking of Tourists I actually had someone ask me what I was reading one day when I was reading Ride the Tiger, thankfully he didn't ask too much after I gave a basic description because I was kinda sweating bullets on that one.
After a prompting from the Spirit, I did something similar myself, taking the more drastic step of closing my Twitter account just before Christmas. I also plan on doing a Substack reflection soon on the experience. Our phones "possess" us, especially a social media app like Twitter. It was very disorienting at first, but I am finding my devotional life returning. My screen time has diminished over 30% a week over several weeks now. I barely read political articles anymore. I am diving into books like never before, and investing more in friendship with people I know here, face to face. While my politics has permanently changed now, it is also de-radicalizing me in terms of my energy. Thanks for sharing.
I'm Orthodox as well and I've been thinking about prayers that could be said before using the internet after Dave's blog yesterday. I think it might be good if we could adopt a prayer that acknowledges the spiritual danger both subtle and obvious that face us when we use the internet and asks for protection.
I wonder if adopting a prayer like that could realistically become widespread through a mostly bottom-up process. Despite technological spiritual enslavement being one of the biggest issues facing us I don't think our priests and bishops will loudly and unitedly tells us to start praying specifically before using the internet. I don't know if this is a good solution, but I think the dissident right as a whole needs to start taking this problem more seriously if we want the souls of our children to survive this wicked age.
I would recommend Paul Kingsnorth's Substack. He's been addressing this topic recently.
I am a big fan of Mr. Kingsnorth's work, I have been reading a lot of his work.
I don't know if a widespread adoption of any kind of prayer would work bottom up, but I've thought about writing one specifically for using the internet.
I'm always happy to hear that people are following Kingsnorth. I'm trying to get him to do an interview with The Distributist or someone else from this sphere of the internet. How did you hear about him?
I found a prayer intended for use before using the internet in Orthodox Christian Prayers. In my edition it's on page 107:
"Light from Light, Only-begotten Son of the Father of lights, who dwellest in light unapproachable, the beauty of whose countenance is beyond description and whose luminous thoughts are beyond the grasp of any created mind; O Creator of all form and beauty, which are intended for holiness and contemplation of thee: do thou now guide me who would use the internet, that by doing so I would glorify thee, and walk in the light thou givest me, at all times thinking on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and good, to the sole glory of thy most holy Name, Jesus: through the prayers of the Virgin Mary, thy our father among the saints Isidore of Seville and Theophany the Recluse, of the Venerable Eugenius of Aitolia, Job of Pochaev, and Nicodemus the Hagiorite; and of all the saints. Amen."
I really think the Christians on the DR ought to be encouraging each other to pray before we use the internet. At the very least I hope it will encourage us to see technology through a more spiritual lense. Obviously the Romans and Protestants among us will need different prayers but maybe that could function as a template.
Social media is so addictive. I have banned my children from using it until they are 18 at least. It’s so easy to think it’s real life, when it clearly isn’t.
Don’t get sucked into the technological Matrix, live primarily in the Real World.
This is my ongoing struggle and I've attempted, to various success, to do the no social media weekend for the past two or so years. Unfortunately my work requires smart phone use or I would just abandon the whole thing.
Succinctly I believe there are 3 key takeaways from the last ~15 years regarding the digital explosion:
1. The internet is a useful technology but one that humanity writ large was not equipped to be provided access to.
2. While the masses are enthralled by the 24/7 influx of digital opium, those in power (whether via riches or political machinations) use the internet of things for their own malicious and selfish purposes.
3. Smart phones were an outright mistake; opening this pandora's box has unleashed a wave of mental illness, spiritual death, and group hysteria, leveraged by those with malevolent designs to harm man's well-being.
"Technology" never was the problem - it's what it is used for and especially how integrated it is into the act of living that's the problem.
I loathe being stuck with one of these things as necessity for 2FA and banking. Calls, texting, calculator, calendar, stopwatch with alarm, music player, GPS - there is not much else I and I believe the average person ever needs or could reasonably desire from these devices. The camera is mostly software, the internet connectivity is a distraction, and apps, especially social media, are mind-numbing anathemas.
Good start. Now uninstall Twitter this weekend and never install it again. Then uninstall every other pinger, prompter, notifier and time waster on your phone. Then put it on silent. Then set it down out of reach and forget it exists until you next need to make a phone call or set a kitchen timer or use it as a pocket calculator.
Once your fingers stop twitching toward it when your mind wanders, and you no longer habitually glance at the spot you used to keep it, you might try using it for light reading, strictly of long, thoughtful articles, with your morning coffee. See if that doesn't awaken any latent urge to check in on "things" or be acknowledged by random strangers on the internet. This can take anywhere from a few months to a year depending on how hooked you were, so don't get discouraged if at first you feel the thirst.
Once you've got that down you will have mastered appropriate use of a "smart" phone and you'll finally be free.
If I didn't need my Phone for an enormous amount of 2FA and Work related tasks I would 100% replace it with a Dumbphone. Smart phones as a technology that has been just a massive net negative for the world, they have taken all the worst aspects of computers and amplified them greatly on top of being easily portable. The amount of people who have become socially retarded because the brick in their pocket allows them to entertain themselves constantly with tasty little tidbits of meaningless and vacuous content or who have let their basic skills atrophy because they always have a way of offloading the responsibility onto a device is enormous. I have an easier time interacting with my Brother now over Discord than I do in person because the Man is looking at his phone literally constantly, he is incapable of putting it down or giving his attention to anyone else. It genuinely depressing to be in a room with him and his wife because both of them spend the entire time looking at instagram and whatever other cancerous social media sites that are in right now.
Anyways now that the Rants over, I am envious of your quiet areas of nature. Once upon a time I used to live in the woods and it was great, but these days the only place I can really go to read outside is the Beach (I live a few mins away right now) which sounds nice but the strong winds, tourists, and complete lack of natural shade certainly make it not a peaceful place to read. Speaking of Tourists I actually had someone ask me what I was reading one day when I was reading Ride the Tiger, thankfully he didn't ask too much after I gave a basic description because I was kinda sweating bullets on that one.
After a prompting from the Spirit, I did something similar myself, taking the more drastic step of closing my Twitter account just before Christmas. I also plan on doing a Substack reflection soon on the experience. Our phones "possess" us, especially a social media app like Twitter. It was very disorienting at first, but I am finding my devotional life returning. My screen time has diminished over 30% a week over several weeks now. I barely read political articles anymore. I am diving into books like never before, and investing more in friendship with people I know here, face to face. While my politics has permanently changed now, it is also de-radicalizing me in terms of my energy. Thanks for sharing.
England has their poet of the north, and the US has our poet of the south. Great read, thanks Prude
I'm Orthodox as well and I've been thinking about prayers that could be said before using the internet after Dave's blog yesterday. I think it might be good if we could adopt a prayer that acknowledges the spiritual danger both subtle and obvious that face us when we use the internet and asks for protection.
I wonder if adopting a prayer like that could realistically become widespread through a mostly bottom-up process. Despite technological spiritual enslavement being one of the biggest issues facing us I don't think our priests and bishops will loudly and unitedly tells us to start praying specifically before using the internet. I don't know if this is a good solution, but I think the dissident right as a whole needs to start taking this problem more seriously if we want the souls of our children to survive this wicked age.
I would recommend Paul Kingsnorth's Substack. He's been addressing this topic recently.
I am a big fan of Mr. Kingsnorth's work, I have been reading a lot of his work.
I don't know if a widespread adoption of any kind of prayer would work bottom up, but I've thought about writing one specifically for using the internet.
I'm always happy to hear that people are following Kingsnorth. I'm trying to get him to do an interview with The Distributist or someone else from this sphere of the internet. How did you hear about him?
I found a prayer intended for use before using the internet in Orthodox Christian Prayers. In my edition it's on page 107:
"Light from Light, Only-begotten Son of the Father of lights, who dwellest in light unapproachable, the beauty of whose countenance is beyond description and whose luminous thoughts are beyond the grasp of any created mind; O Creator of all form and beauty, which are intended for holiness and contemplation of thee: do thou now guide me who would use the internet, that by doing so I would glorify thee, and walk in the light thou givest me, at all times thinking on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and good, to the sole glory of thy most holy Name, Jesus: through the prayers of the Virgin Mary, thy our father among the saints Isidore of Seville and Theophany the Recluse, of the Venerable Eugenius of Aitolia, Job of Pochaev, and Nicodemus the Hagiorite; and of all the saints. Amen."
I really think the Christians on the DR ought to be encouraging each other to pray before we use the internet. At the very least I hope it will encourage us to see technology through a more spiritual lense. Obviously the Romans and Protestants among us will need different prayers but maybe that could function as a template.
Social media is so addictive. I have banned my children from using it until they are 18 at least. It’s so easy to think it’s real life, when it clearly isn’t.
Don’t get sucked into the technological Matrix, live primarily in the Real World.
This is my ongoing struggle and I've attempted, to various success, to do the no social media weekend for the past two or so years. Unfortunately my work requires smart phone use or I would just abandon the whole thing.
Succinctly I believe there are 3 key takeaways from the last ~15 years regarding the digital explosion:
1. The internet is a useful technology but one that humanity writ large was not equipped to be provided access to.
2. While the masses are enthralled by the 24/7 influx of digital opium, those in power (whether via riches or political machinations) use the internet of things for their own malicious and selfish purposes.
3. Smart phones were an outright mistake; opening this pandora's box has unleashed a wave of mental illness, spiritual death, and group hysteria, leveraged by those with malevolent designs to harm man's well-being.
"Technology" never was the problem - it's what it is used for and especially how integrated it is into the act of living that's the problem.
I loathe being stuck with one of these things as necessity for 2FA and banking. Calls, texting, calculator, calendar, stopwatch with alarm, music player, GPS - there is not much else I and I believe the average person ever needs or could reasonably desire from these devices. The camera is mostly software, the internet connectivity is a distraction, and apps, especially social media, are mind-numbing anathemas.
Good start. Now uninstall Twitter this weekend and never install it again. Then uninstall every other pinger, prompter, notifier and time waster on your phone. Then put it on silent. Then set it down out of reach and forget it exists until you next need to make a phone call or set a kitchen timer or use it as a pocket calculator.
Once your fingers stop twitching toward it when your mind wanders, and you no longer habitually glance at the spot you used to keep it, you might try using it for light reading, strictly of long, thoughtful articles, with your morning coffee. See if that doesn't awaken any latent urge to check in on "things" or be acknowledged by random strangers on the internet. This can take anywhere from a few months to a year depending on how hooked you were, so don't get discouraged if at first you feel the thirst.
Once you've got that down you will have mastered appropriate use of a "smart" phone and you'll finally be free.
How helpful...