My friend was sitting on the couch watching a manly show on TV, and his girlfriend plopped her ass down next to him, grabbed the TV remote, and changed the channel to some girly show.

My friend gets up off the couch, goes in the bedroom, turns on the TV to his manly show, and resumes watching. His girlfriend comes in the bedroom, grabs the TV remote, and changes it to her girly show.

An argument ensues, and the argument boiled down to this. she wanted to watch her show, and she wanted to watch it with him.

Or to put it another way, she wanted to watch TV with him, but she wanted to watch her show, not his show.

While this is a true story, its also a good metaphor for what our social life will look like in 2026

All of us have walked into a room full of people, who are sitting around a table, in dead silence, all of them on their smart phones, completely ignoring everyone else

A man i know went and tried to do business with an indian tribe. he met with the tribes men, and made his sales pitch.

when he was done with his pitch, the indians sat around in utter silence for what seemed like 30 minutes… and finally one of the indians broke the silence with some profound statement or question…

And the indians would be silent for another 30 minutes, before another indian would break the silence with another profound statement

the key takeway was that the silence made perfect sense, from the point of view of the indians.

instead of having some “leader” start talking, and forcing the group into listening to him talk, and to think the way he is thinking

with perfect silence, nobody takes control of everybody elses thoughts,

and so therefore everyone else has the chance to think deeply about the issue at hand, without distracting everyone else with their talking.

the extrovert has no advantage over the introvert

——————-

there is supoosedly a sect of chrisrians who, when they meet for “church”, they actually congregate outside the church building before chuch,

but for the actual church service, they all go inside, sit down, in silence, for some time like 30-60 minutes.

then when church service is over, they go back outside and talk to each other some more

this kind of silent church service allows everyone a moment of peace and quiet,

no charismatic leader ditecting everybodys thoughts with their excellent sermon.

“White people”… in particular… seem to have a culture that is intolerant to silence, and so if there is silence in a room, the typical white person will feel obligated to shatter that silence in some way

Perhaps this is why many non-white people don’t like white culture, because its just so chaotic and noisy all the time…

Theres no peace and quiet

And maybe even white people are mentally exhausted, from listening to each others incessant chatter…

And thats why, more and more, you find yourself sitting around a table, in dead silence, each person on their smart phone, off in their own little world,

Nobody speaking, nobody leading everybody elses thoughts.

Everybody thinking about their own life in their own unique ways

People just want to watch their show… with you

A portal to media literacy

1 hour lecture.

A+ good

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s