Beware of those who would entrap you in cases. Those who would define you by your replies. Who try to use wedge issues, and are triumphant if you do not fit within their ideologies.
Those who allow for no variation, but want people to be lock step behind their ideology.
And those who will not leave one alone.
I don’t like Siri. I do not like the Android alternative. I don’t want smart devices: I want dumb ones with dials that do what I tell them to. I want to have the power to break them… I have bricked tech devices before, and I want to do it again.
I run Linux for those reasons.
There is good teaching from Christ despite the crowds. He implies that we will live after death. That we will be renewed and changed. That God is the God of the living. This is our hope as we age and we bury the generation before us: that as they have lived in Christ before death, they will be with him after death.
13Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. 14And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? 15Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” 16And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” 17Jesus said to them, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.
18Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, 19“Teacher, Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 20There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; 21and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise; 22none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. 23In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her.”
24Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? 25For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.”
But the legalists and corporations that infest our lives and try to regulate our speech by social media will die. When a crisis occurs, you can talk to people, you can use secure email to get to people, but you cannot use work email (which lawyers routinely sift through in discovery) or social media to get support. You have to rely on who is around in real life, in real time.
Facebook was a means of monetizing human communities. For contacting friends and knowing where the music rehearsals are. But it no longer is doing that. My Kids don’t use it — they use Discord.
Youtube is censoring one way.
Facebook Inc. is lucky it owns Instagram.
This year, the world’s largest social network will see a decline among teen users in the U.S., according to a forecast by EMarketer. It’s the first time the research company has predicted a fall in Facebook usage for any age group.
EMarketer predicts 14.5 million people from the ages of 12 to 17 will use Facebook in 2017, a drop of 3.4 percent from the prior year. Teens are migrating instead to Snap Inc.’s Snapchat and Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook owns, the research company said Monday in a statement.
Facebook has continued to grow around the world, with more than 2 billion users this year, but younger people are finding it less compelling, said Oscar Orozco, a forecasting analyst at EMarketer. The company needs to attract younger users so they build a Facebook habit that will carry into their adult years, when they become prime customers for Facebook advertising.
“Teens and tweens remaining on Facebook seem to be less engaged –- logging in less frequently and spending less time on the platform,” Orozco said. “At the same time, we now have Facebook-nevers, many children aging into the tween demographic that appear to be overlooking Facebook altogether, yet still engaging with Facebook-owned Instagram.”
Do not trust these platforms. Build friendships. Be hospitable. Fly under the radar, Remain small.
And watch the great, the good, the pundits and corporations that are praised in this age fall.