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Shawn Mclean's avatar

This is the realization I’m coming to, on the ground foot work.

The digital funnels are all controlled.

The search engines won’t show you, search is a mess too because it’s all gimmicks for who can manipulate the algorithms.

The mobile app marketplaces are heavily controlled.

The browsers are owned by the same companies.

So all digital entry points are owned and controlled.

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Jan Austin's avatar

If you feel uneasy about social media and its ownership, have you thought about stepping away from it? I owned my own small business for YEARS with zero social media exposure. I suspect it can still be done effectively....

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The Word Herder's avatar

I'm trying to do that NOW. And I'm old enough to remember how lovely it was BEFORE CELL PHONES.

The CONVENIENCE will get you every time, and "They" know that!

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Terry Wray Bowling's avatar

Hi Jan.

I'm curious, what is your small business?

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Jan Austin's avatar

Sorry I'm just now seeing your question. I owned a small advertising/PR firm working with small businesses and sole proprietors.

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David's avatar

@shawn take a look at Nostr, it's early days and onboarding is challenging but it's a protocol like the early days of the internet. It supports short and long form content, and community but most importantly nobody can shut you down as it's aiming to be censorship resistant.

So very different to these web2 SaaS platforms and also different to Ghost and standalone WordPress etc etc

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Jan 25
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David's avatar

Yep nostr is the result of when Devs think they are product managers 🤦‍♂️

Sooner or later onboarding will get solved but nip-05, lightning addresses etc are all confusion points at the moment rather than enablers.

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The Word Herder's avatar

This is part of the Globalist Agenda...

Why the First Amendment is dead, or-- comatose. Except on Substack, but that means we can be trolled by malicious types... the price we pay for freedom. I'll take the trolls over censorship any time.

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The Word Herder's avatar

I do believe that was the PLAN.

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Evy Y. Parkinson's avatar

Yesssssss............

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Jon Olsen's avatar

Your pessimism and despair is the certain way to victory! LOL

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Jan 20
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Jon Olsen's avatar

I have a flip phone for travel and emergencies, but never wanted to get a "smart'"phone at all for assorted reasons. Don't need it! I email a ton though.

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Kitty Hartford's avatar

Me too! I still have a "landline" with the same number I've had for 45 years, no TV, no laptop, no tablet, no smartphone, just a little Tracfone/flip phone for power outages and traveling. I turn on my reliable old desktop computer twice a day to check my emails and the local news and weather. There's no contract for my flip phone, which costs me $23 per quarter. At age 82, I prefer to spend my time engaging with real people, pets, great-grandchildren, local musicians; getting lost in a good book with a cup of herbal tea and some dark chocolate (organic, Fair Traded, supporting women farmers in Africa), watching sunsets over the ocean, and musing over Substack posts and comment threads. My tribe!

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The Word Herder's avatar

You and I are old enough to remember PRE home computers and these horrible cell phones. Everywhere I go, people are staring at their phones, there's no communication anymore... it's truly creepy. Thank God I was born before all this, and I remember it! And I want it BACK. xo

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Betsy's avatar
8dEdited

I remember those days! We got landline service for free, radio, TV, everything for free, Candy bars cost a nickel ice cream a quarter, and hamburger was 39 cents a pound, about the same as leaded gas for your car. Babies were bathed in Phisohex 1 x daily and we used Vasoline to polish our Mary Janes. Penny candy even cost a penny, and with only 2 choices in the potato chip aisle, we had half the day to play hide and seek with our friends outside... Those really were the days.

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Poetry By Ericajean's avatar

Now that’s how to beat the system! By real human engagement and living real life. I’m a homebody, but I still miss the days before social media sucked us in😩

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Debra's avatar

And the most critical problem about all of this is... what happens to us as physical bodies, and why do I get the nagging feeling that we, as physical bodies, are losers in all this.. racket ?

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Paul Repstock's avatar

I say, "If you can't live without your phone; Then you will die!"

Very few people will accept that reality. The more complex a device, the more dangerous is your "Dependence".

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Debra's avatar

A long time ago I started thinking that the living energy ? that gets us up in the morning, as in "élan vital" in French, was also the energy that pushes men and women to look for each other, find each other and ensure that there will be a next generation. The industrial revolution has deviated this energy to seriously curtail our RE-production, by pushing it into anthill PRO- duction, thereby wreaking havoc on us and our desire, not just sexual desire, but desire to get up in the morning and BE, with other living, breathing, feeling, and touching people.

But really, there is no way that we can not be dependant... dependant on other people with faces, or dependant on utility companies ? Aspiring to absolute ? independance is maybe our major folly right now, as it has been in the past, moreover.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Interdependence is "Civilization". Enforced "Co-dependence" is the tyranny of an abusive relationship! I divorced fro, this long ago.

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Constance McClain's avatar

Interdependence. A Tibetan belief, describing a beautiful and a most evolved humanity.

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The Word Herder's avatar

Ah, someone else who understand this! Good job.

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Lisa Cunningham's avatar

Exactly. We writers are expendable idiots to these companies. They don’t have one speck of respect for how hard we work for pennies…Since I’ve been writing since I was about 10 years old (over half a century) I am sick to death of the BS.

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The Word Herder's avatar

Because we ARE. 5G is TOO STRONG. It's cooking the entire planet, not just us. A long list of disease and illness is actually EMF's. You'd be surprised how many things. And this is on purpose, they're trying to milk us for all the money they can get for health care before they just zap us all. Sorry, but that's the plan... So... we opt out! And shut it down! Poor critters, they have no voice.

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Shawn Mclean's avatar

We suspect it’s interfering with nutrient uptake in plants too.

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The Word Herder's avatar

Indeed. It's kind of a SERIOUS PROBLEM.

It's just too damn strong.

We have brilliant people. We can wire up with fiber optics or whatever, and put those brilliant folks to work to find a better way to have portable phones, if that's what we want. But not at the expense of everything dying! That's insane. I think I said somewhere else, it seems to be what these Globalist psycho killers WANT... to cull us down to a few hundred thousand? NOT gonna happen, but in the meantime, there's a lot of needless suffering and even death going on. Help.

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Bob Merberg's avatar

I get it. But, tbh, the last thing the ocean needs is your phone. \_(ツ)_/¯

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The Word Herder's avatar

I will NOT throw mine in the ocean, but maybe still with the pickaxe...

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The Word Herder's avatar

I want to have a ritualistic KILLING of my phone... I'm thinking pickaxe...

And THEN into the ocean.

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Jan 20
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The Word Herder's avatar

They wanted to surveil us, and spy on us, and zap us... these "smart" phones are actually quite dangerous, and give off a LOT of EMF's... We should NOT be holding them up to our brain cases, nor carrying them around right next to our bodies... People don't realize... 5G is WAY too strong, it's cooking the whole planet... We really should back off and find better means than 5G... It's really bad for us! And the critters, and insects (THAT's where the bees went!) and even plants.

Check out "The Invisible Rainbow," the history of electricity. LOTS of citation, too.

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Poetry By Ericajean's avatar

I’ll check that out. Thanks!

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The Word Herder's avatar

FYI, the book has COPIOUS citation... Don't let the thickness of it scare you off!

lol

And also, it's very well-written and is actually quite interesting! It's a good book.

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The Word Herder's avatar

Me, too, to Cate's comment.

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