I remember conversing via email. I’m talking about personal conversation. These days, my email is made up of “notifications”.
There are constant emails from Facebook or Ebay or whoever. These sites just beg you all day long, to click and sign in! See the picture someone posted! Heed the warning! It’s all so worthless.
I don’t think it’s necessarily conscious, but most people know on some level, it’s best not to create an electronic record; sharing your personal thoughts or feelings about something. Everyone is on guard all the time.
I maintain the forum on this site. It’s a place where you can interact with people, anonymously. There is at least a chance that something non-boring can be posted.
I wonder if people realize their capable intellect will degrade if it’s not exercised. When is the last time you created something as opposed to finding something someone else created and presenting it?
A client asked me about something stupid, yesterday. Something astrological. She likes to read a lot and of course there is a lot of crap astrology out there. I told her to be careful. There are machines (AI) writing content of all kinds at this point and frankly, they don’t know shit about actually living well and being happy… nor do they care.
Can you add to this? What are your personal, creative ideas or feelings about this, which you can post here, anonymously.
Update – I wrote this about 18 months ago. Things have gotten much worse. Sign in! Sign in! Sign in! Get this app. Get this other app!
I block dozens of fake people from this site on a daily basis. I have heard, forums will be taken over by bots. You’ll have AI interacting with AI in order to influence people. A dozen year ago, when Saturn was in Virgo, I implored people to guard their mind.
DarkAquarian wrote on Mercury Opposing Uranus – Oh My: “Communication is a MAJOR proponent of our existence…”
Those are some true words right there.
And what about our creativity? Pluto will weigh on Leo. Will you channel this power or be murdered by it?
My previous workplace liked to screenshot things I did on facebook etc. and refer them to management. Bunch of fucking psychos, no doubt they want to use the information against me at some later date. I have put in a request under the data protection act to get all such information they are holding on me (some of which I have already seen, and others bits I have been informally hinted at is there) and they have ignored it and so soon- ish, I will be able to refer this onto a government agency who will follow up. I am still a member of the Union I was with while I was working there.
Then, if they are ever made to give up the files, they have to justify the legal reason they are holding the information.
I don’t know how it’s going to end but this is some of what is going on with Saturn retrograde over the south node for me.
You are so right. I have had the idea many times that I would love to have a blog where I could really say what I think… but trying to figure out how to be truly anonymous is so hard. And the fear of being misunderstood – or worse, being understood and targeted has kept me silent. I hate that I am censoring myself instead of being courageous and bold, but that’s the way it is. There are some things worth dying for, but until I’ve got something to say at that level I’m staying quiet. And working on my writings for posthumous publication!
There is another challenge… people only go so deep. It’s gone from blogs to tweets to pics on Instagram. And the fact is, as more and more of the content on the Internet becomes useless, it becomes harder and harder to find an audience for actual human, attached to a soul, created content.
It’s like we’re becoming cocaine-addicted clicking rats. You have to stop and think. Develop yourself; your mind and your beliefs.
At this point, to do so would be radically counter-culture.
I have always tried to maintain a NON echo-chamber on this site. I hope people will help me to do this. No shit-posting, eh? How about we *don’t* crap in the streets?
This.
It’s time for a hippie revival and I’m not sure if its only me, my generation (gen X that grew up in the superficial and materialistic eighties but, and maybe it’s just me again, revered the values, art and culture of the flower children) or the culture as a whole, but is there anyone else that keeps having the Joni Mitchell lyric run through their heads as if on a loop “We have to get ourselves back to the garden”?
Pluto in Aquarius might bring us there. Either the misuse of the technology, or perhaps its failure (“Machine Stops” anyone?) might trigger a luddite revolution. Or perhaps just “1984”
I have no ZERO digital footprint …on purpose …. except may this response to you. I remember in 2009 wondering what facebook was and as soon as I perused the site…it was Oh Hell NO!! LinkedIn and all the other self promotion sites for your career photos and lifestyle just bore me …. I have always utilized the Internet for reading … and I find what I want to read and I still communicate via email with real people. I always have wondered why so many feel they want to put their entire lives on public display …. Not me …I am way too private. Must be my Mars in Scorpio…. because my Sun is in Sag and my mid-heaven is Aquarius ….. so according to status quo astrology I should be “out there” …. and nothing is further than the truth
I think it’s about the 80/20 rule.
80% of the content online is crap/irrelevant/soulless. The other 20% is. But how to find it?
It takes one to know one. So, if you are an evolved, well-developed soul with lots of heart, you can see through the crap (often at least). The difficulties appear when you look into things that you DON’T know a lot or anything about. How to separate the two?
I think with Pluto in Aquarius we become even more evolved in the data sciences – or the ability to eat data for breakfast and find the most relevant, the most interesting piece of information.
Finding the nut in the bunch will not be easy, but I think Pluto will aid us, for good or bad. A good wine can get bad with one rotten grape, eh?
That is the tricky part, I think. How to separate the crap from the good. And how to judge what’s good or bad, when the bad grape has rottened the rest of the content.
Pluto will kill off fake personification.
Authenticity will reign.
The pole dancer and the stripper will be shown for their true vulnerabilities…
This makes me think of, Lori Loughlin.
Sarcasm?
I do also wonder in this age where everything is recorded how easy it is for some recorded sex tape to go on the internet, also if these are acts of cheating. Also the whole Ashley Madison thing, and there are many more organisations that hold information such as that.
It could always go the other way, i.e. the information could be released. I think technology can be an aid to truth as much as an ally to tyranny such as in the case of a paternity test.
Sarcasm??
No.
I don’t understand this comment – is it a reference to something? Can’t strippers and poke dancers be authentic? I mean, we can heap moral judgement on what they do, but is it inauthentic?
Why did you take this as a negative?
Was a button pushed?
Because you said:
The pole dancer and the stripper will be shown for their true vulnerabilities…
Which made me think it was negative – but I guess when you explain what you meant by your comment, I will understand what it meant.
Okay, okay.
Pluto is a stripper.
Dreadlock pubes and a afro crew.
You think him authentic?Negative? Positive?
I don’t. Got the rejected man trine my Venus.
My Mars is in Cancer, retro. Love a woman and her ways.
Most parents would consider themselves failures if their offspring spent their adult years working in a strip club. Sorry Elsa, this is how I talk at work and no I don’t care if my comment is searchable.
They say the best place to hide a body is on the second page of Google search results.
Yes, and there is nothing but google on the first!
Didn’t know some people only google 1st page. ? There’s nothing fishy on the 5th, 6th pages, but that’s my limit. ?
Current situation, much better results from alternative search engines.
Could be by miles better, can’t say I disagree, but in the end even the ‘apparently unbiased’ have an agenda. As long as sensitive information is handled by people, mishaps can occur. If I remember (this is different from search engines topic) even e-mail replacements like telegram or signal have had some issues. People are sneaky and can find loopholes. So we just move along with the wave, knowing information is vulnerable in the hands of people and handled in an imperfect system.:) Can’t say there aren’t innovative people out there trying to fix those bugs. But pluto in aquarius is going to be something.
Well watched a great piece ,” wasted story” it was narrated by Anthony Boudrou? Food critic believe deceased,basically sharing how France and Italy
Have made it illegal to waste food fascinating,beautiful
My guilty pleasures weather channel and Elsaelsa
No Facebook etc. etc. my favorite way to float is in the clouds and treetops,just popping around here
I miss email conversations. I do have some friends that like to talk on the phone still, which is nice.
I am disheartened by the contents of the Internet at this point. I can’t get into Instagram or Snapchat. Not crazy about Twitter either. I’m sorry, but I’m a person who likes words. I want to read people’s thoughts. I want to share thoughts. I really miss Livejournal in its heyday. The cool online thing used to be having a community centered around sharing what was going on in your life. Facebook gives one the option to post longer statements, but it’s not normal to do that now. Reposting memes is the norm. A friend recently had to take a break from Facebook because she was having trouble dealing with how emotionally complex, nuanced ideas were being boiled down to one or two sentences. Can’t blame her.
But in the end, what is any of it except a box. The borg can influence reality but can’t erase it. I am determined to not fall into the void of shallow nothingness, to read more, to create more. More poetry and songs. More thoughts.
Amen, to this.
I still occasionally use my old live journal.
Quick contribution while on my teacher / learner lunch break from school:
The massive population of us on the planet combined with the celebrity making consuming culture – thinking some product to make us ok….
balanced with more appreciation for making on a local, down-sized Uranus in Taurus earthy scale
Pluto depth charges The Aquarian collective sensibility (my 7th house to get personal)
I live for Pluto depth … natal Venus and Mars in Scorpio (Saturn in Aquarius… Only now at 55 am I ‘getting’ the ringed one’s message )
The dark side of the internet – dark side of tech – will be revealed: what will humanity do with their new fangled ‘knowledge’…??
I was heartened to see that Alex Jones would be prosecuted & held accountable….his type of schlock is the dark side of the internet (not the only type by any means: but such a good example of something that could be liberating & unite humanity becoming utterly divisive & plain evil)
Here is just ’bout the only place I post here & there: no facebook or snap-crap, etc.
There ARE wonderful places on the wed to find deep, real content…not always on the first page of google though!!
Whatever happens is whatever humanity desires: that’s what we get…..then we get what we want & bitch about it….(btw not saying anyone here is ‘bitching’ – just there is cause/effect in our universe….we will reap what we sow in this tech age run amok)
And thank you Elsa for this place of dialogue & insights shared with open space – a ‘safe’ space but not moderated to all get-out so there’s no value left…a fine balance to maintain….
You can say what you want here, you just have to be polite about it because I have Libra.
I was going to reply to a few messages above, but thought I would write my own, instead. Social media seems like a “one-line form of entertainment!” Many people write one line, and apparently that is supposed to convey more than what I’m getting out of it. I find myself seeking others who really want to say something meaningful that is coming from the heart! I do have a few friends on FB that I can talk deeply with. I watched a video the other day saying the “average American male” has 1.3 friends. May sound funny, but it’s probably true! In short, FB and other social media appears to be for superficial chit-chat, and any deep emotional feelings get reserved for the few friends who do care.
I have always maintained real life friends. Flesh and blood, that you meet in person!
Back in Colorado, I had a woman’s club I went to and I also met a smaller group for lunch.
In the South, people definitely get together. There are four women I go to lunch with, another I visit and several I speak with on the phone, frequently.
You just can’t let this medium consume your life.
I think giving kids a platform on social media is absolutely fucking nuts. And they are joining conversations and being exposed to stuff that is inappropriate. They have the ear of adults who give them power, whore them out on shows, and the news (reporters asking children about their experiences after a horrific incident), and they are not emotionally equipped for any of this. When social media can stress out adults, what do these people think it does to kids?
It’s bullshit. Kids are a cash cow. It’s pathetic.
You wanna see something scary? Just watch Lil Tay on YouTube. She’s a kid and acts worse than Bhad Barbie (“cash me ousside!”).
Oops–it’s Bhad Bhabie.
Ugh. It’s gross. I can’t say she’s gross because she’s a little kid (I guess) but her family, handlers, whoever, are disgusting pimps. That shit is not cute.
On YouTube I’m noticing a trend. When the beauty drama channels post some new “tea” (hot gossip)—it almost always comes through things people said to each other on TWITTER, or videos they made speaking their piece on SNAPCHAT. Since I don’t use either one, I have no idea this crazy drama is going on! That’s nuts. People cancelling each other or having fall-outs through SOCIAL MEDIA. No face to face convos? No phone calls? Not even FaceTime or text? (At least with FT or text you’re still engaging the person directly.) It’s like people are too cowardly to talk directly to each other anymore.
Facebook, same thing. (I’m guilty of this too.) Instead of sharing your feelings and beliefs in your OWN words, you slap up a meme. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. And of course your friends will agree with and applaud your memes, since they likely think the same as you (otherwise why would you friend them on Facebook?)
What is the Matrix?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8e-FF8MsqU
Filming started in Feb/March 1998 just as Uranus entered Aquarius…
When Pluto enters Aquarius, I wonder how he’s going to transform what Uranus started.
Oops…
Neptune had just entered Aquarius in Feb/March 1998, joining Uranus.
Interesting because I think Uranus in Taurus is about getting “real.” Uranus in Aries was me, me, look at me, snaps Selfie. Person could make up their own identity/persona w/ technology. How will that change alongside Pluto in Aqu?
Bhad Bhabie, LMAO. Teehee!
Mailbox full of crap. Selling me SEO, trying to get me to sell something or trying to place links in articles on my site.
Ten mails a day from Facebook – desperate?
I really think these media companies have gone to far. Everything I click is stupid and/or fabricated/shaped for some purpose.
“Why XYZ stock fell today,,,”
Explanation, horseshit.
I’ve got one foot in the land of “jaded” and I’m leaning to fall in that direction.
Here is someone else, asking this question.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/opinions/george-will-is-the-individual-obsolete/
In the pre-interent era whenever I lived in big cities there was always the danger of letting the city swallow us whole with over stimulation of seeming random yet infinite choice. It can and did bring many to a sort of paralysis. The ones that thrived in the city practiced two things: focusing, cultivating and participating in events and activities with groups of others with whom one felt an affinity with and through whom that focus was reinforced, sharing intelectual, cultural and physical events and activities shared by that commonaltiy of focus. Movie and film houses, places like CBGBs, and Andy Wahol’s factory are prime examples; these were not solitary activities, they were seed beds of creativity, nurtured by the exchange of ideas; The second things they practiced was to stay focused on their creative goals and to practice a certain sustained involvement with those others with whom one shared them, actively demostrating a regard for their wellbeing and an enthusiasm for the overall success of eachothers efforts.
this was/ is paramount and still holds true in all fellowship.
Todays exchanges of idea cannot thrive in the bulletin board world of online life. it is too random, no center to which to hold, not even concentric centers. Surfing is the same as aimlessly wandering around a city day after day receiving stimulation without the inspiration of real contact with which to actualize ones impirations.
How I work it is by considering the internet as a metaphore for the over stimilation of city life, a choatic busy bulletin board with many paostings lain over each other. Finding others beyond the interent to connect with directly is paramount to happiness and thriving.The email and other things online can facilitate that as long as one remembers online life is simply just a bulletin board.
Welcome, uhane. 🙂
so pluto in Aquarius will auger in new ways of connecting that foster the exchange and thriving of ideas! the sciences and the humanties in particular.
Uranus in Taurus/pluto in aquarius is /will be is all about a new revolutioning breaking down or leveling in real goods, land use, real estate use; the return of squatters rights, returning the ownership of the means of production to the person using the tool in question, guilds, intentional communities, new economic models.. among other things. Also the solidification and finding of concrete demonstrable evidence for hitherto theoretical or abstract ideas and theories , especially in the sciences and humanities especially in looking for ways they can be applied in service if the commonweal. There will also be new theories in the abstract realms to mull over till the next cycle. We will go to the moon when Uranus goes into gemini and to mars when it hits cancer.
I’m reading things about AI these days. It’s just a clusterfuck.
There are fake people posting in astrology forums, for sure. They’re pretty good, too. Any getting better.
It’s like fake dating profiles. If I let the bots talk, it would be good for traffic but bad for my soul. So I block… constantly.
Here here – thank you Elsa seriously
You’re welcome.
I would say to watch “all watched over by machines of loving grace”, the movie, would give the average person all the insight needed to go forward into the pluto in aquarius years.
Where there is a baseball field there will be base balls
Bots? where there is an internet there will be bots.
Get used to it or CREATE a NEW venue.. that’s is pluto in aquarius.
Step away from the FB. throw away the selfie stick.
you can do that.. you can do what you like.
Peeps will either stop whining and pick up a code book, or a cook book or, well, a book or a new idea, experiment like Newton and usher in a new age of enlightenment OR they will peek out from behind the walls of their FB/insta/tweet churches “liking” or “disliking” everything others do/say/think like capricious medieval priests, reacting to rather acting.
Get out there and roll up your sleeves and build a new world. the rain forest will thank you with oxygen. maybe you don’t get enough of it.
I think it’s how you use the apps – I use Instagram. I follow some of my friends who post images of their art on it so we inspire each other with art. It would be hard to do this as we all live in different areas and COVID of course!
The other thing I use Instagram for is I post images of the litter (trash) I pick up on my walks in the country, as part of UK/International environmental groups (Surfers Againt Sewage, Pointless Plastic and Trash Trails). I also follow Extinction Rebellion).
I ignore everything I’m not actively interested in or that doesn’t add value to my life.
We can use social media carefully to minimise risk but of course it’s all traceable and if the far right supremacists rule the world I’ll be the first with my back up against the wall ?
I’ve gone off Facebook about 3 times. Added the same year I first started. There are pros & cons.
Cons
1) Studies about how if you feel like crap, then social media — where you see other people’s supposedly wonderful lives —- makes you feel crappier & less grateful for your own (FOMO) – No more please
2) Studies about when you are in the moment experiencing something that makes you happy & you see another person’s experience, it LESSENS your happiness – No
3) Constantly having to clean up my Facebook privacy – and the unsubscribing numerous notifications that make everything into NOISE – No
4) Everything is becoming shiny performance instead of true HONEST to goodness – helping people — People write what makes them feel good. But it’s only lip service a lot of times. What makes the difference is doing something about the problems, connecting on a real level & not oversimplifying into slogans. A lot of awareness, without a lot of knowledge about how to solve it on a real level — Is my Capricorn Mars in 9th showing?
5) Substitute for connection to people sigh —also BULLYING — adolescence on steroids – No
Pros (but also can be a con again)
1) Substitute for connecting in person & traveling to them
2) Distraction
3) I can be in a wasteland of isolation in my community of people on the treadmill toward I don’t know what — and still feel normal — Also can be very bad because then we can sometimes become extremist — out to destroy / kill / dehumanize the “other side” ugh no no NO – not good. Come back to the middle folks!! Stop the deaths
Thank you for bringing up the effect on Leo. Having Leo in my chart, I’ve been thinking of this a lot. I am concerned about the death of the live music industry, for one thing, among other creative industries. I know a lot of people here might not feel strongly about that, but it’s a big deal where I’m from and it’s being threatened by our current situation. A livestream concert just isn’t the same. Streaming/virtual anything isn’t the same. Hell, I miss going to the arthouse cinema.
So I hope Pluto ultimately transforms and refines what’s worth preserving. I intend to channel it.
I have gone off Facebook. The only reason I am there is because I once became an administrator of a page and if I leave, the whole page will be gone. Clever Facebook………. Sigh.
But I have removed as much info I can and deleted personal info. I don’t think it will do me much, because the algorithms can predict your behaviour better than yourself. And let’s not talk about Messenger and the way it listens to your spoken conversations while you’re off the app …. That is only half as scary as what they DO with your data. A mobile phone has approximately 8 speakers – yes that means speakers you can’t see, aside from the ones you can. The government/police special forces can listen to you. If they want and if they are allowed. But … They can.
I just did a post a couple of weeks ago, pulling the plug to IG as well, because in our posts – we reach out to create connection with others. And because of the algorithm will favour only those with a lot of social proof to further their advertising ROI, the small, humble and genuine profiles are easily not discovered/seen.
Pluto will probably make this worse. The only way up is going through LEO.
This thread is igniting thoughts I’ve been having about the Age of Aquarius. Are we there yet? Technology is Aquarian & we certainly are racing ahead in its growth. But having lived thru 5, soon 6 Pluto sign changes, (& 7 actual Pluto signs: Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sadge, Cap & Aquarius soon) it seems the first Pluto event is to blow out the pipes. Like taking a car down the highway after stop & go traffic. Like the s**t hitting the fan. Psychologically, the shadow rising up to wake us up. So what’s been going on is the Aquarian shadow which is Leo but the shadow expression of it on the web. Selfies, branding ourselves, make-up so depersonalizing that people look like bots! Curating our lives down to white & Gray w a fiddle-back fig tree & phone/tablet/computer on altar of our desk. We are battling our way to Leo/Aquarius consciousness out of the darkside of both. It’s a new 2,600 yr age…we are in baby-steps. Luckily we are astrologers & can see the long view & dig beneath the surface. We are remember our Leo heart as this virus reminds us we aren’t isolated brands battling for our share of the market – we are part of a human, no! Earth community!!
We must bring individualized points of view to the table for serious round table, community-minded problem solving. Each is a piece of the puzzle, not the whole. We also can’t do this Aquarian work w memes or sound bites. It’s complex. It’s the 11th sign of 12. We have to develop our whole selves to have the privilege to do this awesome work.
Now I’m thinking of the attributes of the other 2 fixed signs. Taurus – know your values – Uranus is blasting us lose of thinking they are actual stuff! Scorpio – do the blood, sweat, tears & snot working of facing our personal bulls**t/shadow to come to our true power. Be strategic.
Transpersonal planets form big ages of the world & we grapple w them w personal planets while growing into our Jupiter & Saturn. Capricorn & Aquarius are Saturn ruled so it’s an adulting time. A consciousness period. We have to use these limits & boundaries shown by the Cap stellium to repair & heal our cultural mis-steps to get ALL of us to the table…including Mother Nature!!
I have 3 Aquarius planets & have hope for humanity. My 20 Capricorn sun has been pummeled/humbled to look at my self deeper & my part in the world broader. Like Elsa, lots of Libra so want civil discourse. But boy, there is work to do. This group & these discussions give me hope for all of us…thanks for listening.