#but like i cant quite dismiss the idea that there COULD be something physically wrong

[vaguelydefinedshapes]

i feel like i am so much more aware of my body than i am used to and i think that is good but it is also deeply uncomfortable

[carmenxjulia]

do you ever just think about how carmen's first reaction after hearing julia's voice in the fashion caper went from mild surprise to a smile? or how after she quickly disarmed julia, she gently put her gun back in her coat. or how carmen grabbed julia's hand? or how she made julia iin charge of her group despite barely knowing her? im still thinking about it and i cant fully explain why these small moments are so good? can you, please?

Absolutely. You’re talking to a person who created a 20,000 word fanfic based on a 45 second interaction. You want a Carmen and Julia analysis? I’d say you’ve come to the right place.

Yes, I do think about that scene a lot.

Let us begin.

Last season, Carmen and Julia interacted for less than a single minute. In that time, Carmen came to know and trust her enough to pass off the Magna Carta to her for safekeeping. And Julia got to have a real conversation with someone who was an international criminal and by some, might have even been branded as dangerous.

But Julia had always believed in her innocence and clung to the idea that there was more to each theft that most people didn���t see. Carmen leaving the Magna Carta was solid proof towards her theory that Carmen was one of the good guys. And it was a show of goodwill, a symbol of trust, that Carmen was banking on Julia doing the right thing and not taking full credit for its safe return (at least among her colleagues).

Then we get to season 2. Julia has, almost inexplicably, doubled down on her insistence that Carmen Sandiego is doing good in the world and is not actually a criminal at all. From the very first moment that we see her, she is trying prove her innocence. She asks Chase to wake up so that he can clear her name. She tries everything she can to wake him, and we as the audience are made to think it’s because she is concerned for his well-being… until the scene ends with, “we need you to tell us that she did not do this to you.”

Now, while I’m sure Julia would never wish death or permanent damage to Chase, she’s not trying to wake him because she particularly cares about him. He was rude and selfish and constantly dismissed her and yeah, Julia is the type of person who would still care after all that (refer to the first sentence of this paragraph), but it’s really really important to recognize that she’s not there for him. She’s there on behalf of Carmen.

So, what does that have to do with “The Fashionista Caper”?

We, the audience, are privy to Julia’s private conversations with Chief and other members of A.C.M.E. We get to see her defending Carmen, over and over, in the episodes leading up to episode 4. It’s not just speculation anymore! In Season 1, Julia had her theories, but was actively open to being proven wrong when provided with evidence to the contrary of her hunches. In Season 2, she is certain she’s right, and she stands by her belief that Carmen is good.

Carmen doesn’t see/hear any of that. She has literally no idea Julia has been defending her behind her back. No idea just how hard Julia has been fighting to clear her name with A.C.M.E. Not a single clue how conflicted Julia actually is, with having a job to do versus wanting to stand by the facts right in front of her.

She doesn’t see Julia again after the train incident (“The Chasing Paper Caper”) until they meet in Italy (”The Fashionista Caper”). All Carmen knows is that Julia is not as hellbent on catching her as Chase was, and that the Magna Carta were returned safely.

We, the audience, have a front row seat to watch Julia go from shaky theories to boldly proclaiming Carmen Sandiego is not who everyone thinks she is, despite seeming to be the only person who actually believes that.

Legitimately, Carmen has very little reason to trust Julia other than a gut feeling. There is no explanation for not only roping her into the caper, but immediately giving Julia her gun back and fully trusting she wouldn’t use it. Any other agent would have ignored Carmen’s request for help and gassed her right then and there. Carmen just inherently knows Julia is different.

We actually see an example of this just a few moments earlier. When Agent Zari tells Carmen to freeze, Carmen sets the gun off and turns it on her right away. When Julia shows up and demands more or less the same thing, the two have a little back and fourth banter. Carmen, no doubt, notes Agent Argent’s hesitation.

Carmen’s surprise no doubt came from her not expecting another agent, or at least, not expecting an agent to give her a chance to respond. Whereas Zari wasn’t afraid to get up close and point the gun directly at her face, Julia is standing quite far off. It probably took Carmen a moment to register who was speaking to her, and once she realized it was Julia, she relaxed, and smiled.

Julia helped her before, with the Magna Carta. So, why not seek her help more directly? Test the waters with the one agent who was willing to give her the time of day.

Not only that, but undoubtedly Carmen was re-formulating her plan to include Julia in it, right at that very moment. Honestly, the whole thing went far better with 4 people instead of the initial 3 (Carmen, Ivy, and Zack). So Carmen was probably like ‘oh hey that very reasonable agent from the train that I can probably count on to help me out if I also present myself as a sane and reasonable person.’ And then it actually worked.

But we can dissect this small change in her expression even further. Carmen is genuinely happy to see her/hear her voice. Not just because she knows Julia is raw and untrained and easily disarmed, no. Upon their first meeting, Carmen gave her the nickname “Jules”. In fact, Carmen has literally never spoken her full name, “Julia”. Even when passing off leadership in front of Ivy and Zack, Carmen still sticks to the Jules nickname. She doesn’t do this with anyone else. (Sure, Player is “Player”, but that’s purely upon his own request.) Maybe this is a reach, but, it feels like this indicates a completely different type of relationship and level of intimacy that Carmen shares with Julia and no one else.

Getting back on track.

Carmen probably took her hand as an extra precaution to prevent Julia from deciding to whip out her gun again. I mean, sure, it was also faster and easier to lead her by holding her hand. But also consider that the gun was holstered against her left hip, making it awkward to try to maneuver around her jacket with her left hand to try and grab it. With her right hand occupied, it would have taken too long for her to pull it out again, even if she’d tried. Honestly, taking her hand was the most practical action in this scenario, even if it was a bit intimate. It doesn’t have to mean anything, but it can.

It is also worth noting that although Julia believes Carmen is on the same side as A.C.M.E., she is probably rightfully confused starting from the moment Carmen takes her gun and then doesn’t gas her.

Julia’s orders from A.C.M.E. were to capture Carmen Sandiego in order to protect the Medici gowns. So when it turned out Carmen wasn’t planning to take the gowns, Julia had to decide that saving the dresses overruled the order to capture Carmen. The original mission she was given changed in a matter of seconds, making her have to pick a priority (Carmen or dresses). It also gave her an opportunity to work with Carmen and show A.C.M.E. she’d been right all along. But Julia, much like Carmen, had to trust her gut about this woman she barely knew, but had the utmost faith in.

As far as putting Julia in charge of getting the gowns to safety, that was probably the easiest decision of the evening for either of them. Carmen already knows Julia is one of the good guys. She doesn’t need to question her motives, at all. Not only that, but as mentioned above, Julia had already proven she could be trusted by ensuring the safe return of the Magna Carta.

Carmen knew V.I.L.E. wouldn’t be far behind, and dividing her attention could have been disastrous for the mission overall. I mean, she’s Carmen Sandiego, so, she could have probably handled it. But it was a much smarter move to put Julia in charge. She knew that Ivy and Zack were better at taking orders than giving them. She knew Player wouldn’t be able to coordinate well enough from his location. Carmen needed someone on the ground, right there, right then. Julia was available.

One final piece of this scene, that although it was not mentioned in the original ask, I feel is worth noting. Julia is actively worried about Carmen Sandiego’s safety. She outright asks, “what about you?” when Carmen instructs the others to get the gowns to safety. Why should she care? Her mission, saving the  Medici’s, is about to be complete. She’s about to really and truly prove herself to A.C.M.E. by being the agent responsible for saving the gowns. And yet she pauses, wanting to ensure Carmen is safe before she goes anywhere. A person that is supposed to be her enemy, although Julia has never truly believed that.

This is followed by Carmen pushing Julia back, not only urging her to leave with the gowns and Carmen’s own team, but moving her further away from danger as well as physically putting her body between Julia and potential harm. There are smashing sounds coming from the ceiling; clearly something bad is on its way. As usual, Carmen puts the safety of her friends before her own, which is a completely new experience for Julia. She is getting to see a caring and protective side of the super thief, one she was previously unaware of. Even for someone she barely knows, she’s willing to put her life on the line to save that of someone else.

And finally, even after Julia runs after Ivy and Zack, she turns back one last time to see how Carmen is doing. She doesn’t want to leave her behind, but ultimately realizes she has no choice. She certainly wouldn’t be any use in a fight. Plus, her number one objective is to save the gowns. Carmen Sandiego is probably going to get away. But the items she was sent to protect are now in A.C.M.E. hands. Job well done.

But Julia is left with the knowledge that Carmen Sandiego played an integral part in the success of the mission. She and Zari could not have saved the gowns alone (especially with the knowledge that Carmen was being attacked). Carmen Sandiego did in fact steal things- but it was to get the jump on another person or organization before they could do so themselves, smuggling the valuables away and returning them at a later date. Just as was the pattern Carmen laid out in Season 1.

Julia not only had her long-standing theory validated, but she got to see just how self-sacrificing Carmen could be. Putting herself in harms way while everyone else was encouraged to find somewhere safer. For someone labeled as a criminal, that was probably completely unexpected. Among a multitude of other unexpected things that had just happened. But that one may have been the most surprising.

All in all, there is a lot to say about this scene, and I could honestly go through it frame by frame and write a comprehensive essay. But hopefully this will sufficiently answer your query, and if not, feel free to send another ask.

[irishtowriteabook]

-Growing Pains- Part 1

🌸Summary; A throughly inebriated David blurts out some hidden feelings towards his best friend, turned carer, one faithful night. Nothing too major (not yet anyways) but it turns out seeing Natalie so openly affectionate with everyone who isn’t him has been getting him down!

Request; “Hey 👋💛 Can i have some more jealous Dave (or Natalie) please? *plot details and ideas that I won’t put in as this intro is lengthy as is*

I decided to change it up slightly as I know I love jealous fics but it can get too much! This is a two parter! Enjoy! Hope I did it justice

•

The blustering wind caused her (now loosely) curled hair to whip against her cheeks; a force to be reckoned with. Seriously, shit hurt. Natalie WOULD have rolled up the window. If the rolling up mechanism contraption thing worked, that is.

“Skype call with Ian, sponsored ad stories for boohoo, accountant meeting-“ A groan interrupted Natalie’s train of thought. “-And looking after a drunk David.”

Drunk as a skunk, Lorraine had said. I only had a Coke, David had said.

Natalie closed off her note-penning app with a swipe of her manicured finger and sighed. She looked down at a splayed out David. He took up most of the already cosy backseat with her lanky, wrangled limbs. His inebriated self held no hesitance in plopping his head down on her lap either.

David shuffled closer to her thighs, wanting to get closer to the radiating heat and bundling up her short black dress in the process.

“Quit it.” Natalie murmured. ‘I’d like to preserve what little dignity I have left after this night.’

“Natalieee..” David whined, his bleary eyes meeting hers. “I want to get off this rollercoaster. Like right now.” His words were punctuated with sighs as he voice wavered even more. The Uber driver seemed to no longer need to live vicariously through the Fast & Furious movies and instead made his dreams a reality. The car jostled harshly as he sped over speedbumps. At least Natalie THOUGHT they were speedbumps.

The neon green signage of an upcoming 711 loomed in the near distance amongst throngs of other partygoers. Natalie seriously considered asking Javi to stop for a few minutes tops for some painkillers but she was already in his bad books over making him wait.

“Fuck, my head.” David all but whispered tugging his denim jacket closer around him. Natalie froze, about as solid as Jeff’s abdomen, as David took hold of her hand and placed it upon his head. His dazed eyes couldn’t help but blink to a close as Natalie pressed the palm of her hand against his ‘throbbing’ forehead.

“This is what you get for being a dumbass around pineapple vodka floats!” Natalie quipped but her voice lacked edge in favour of a rarer softer tone. She settled her own head against the window.

Traffic lights, red ones that Javi drove through, green that Javi sped through and yellow that Javi cursed through, shone in through the tinted grass. It created various subdued hues that enveloped the pair- shit another pothole.

Natalie couldn’t help it. Her fingers mindlessly combed through David’s perspiration ridden but still majorly fluffy hair. His bottom lip jotted out. He smiled smalley up at her. She gazed down at him fondly but still kept a wary eye on the meter. She rarely Bought credit cards or much paper money with her on nights out. Nights out were usually regarded as “David needs blog content like right now” pseudos. Besides they only drank really, not gone rockclimbing. Except for that one ti-

“Why’d you stop?” Dave pouted and in his drunken stupor tried to again find her hand. He latched confidently onto her seatbelt.

The impatient stare from Javi in the mirror spurred Natalie on. She gathered her belongings at a faster rate.

“We’re home Dave” She explained quickly but his head wouldn’t budge a singular inch from her lap. Stubborn as always.

“Can’t we drive around- hey Mr Taxi Man can’t we drive around the block again? Just one more time, deadass.” David slurred out.

“Other clientele. Vamos.” Javi dismisses them courtly with a wave of his hand.

“You suck.” grunted David, matter of factly. Natalie mumbled hasty apologies under her breath and he wrenched the payment from her outstretched palm. No change? Alrighty then. Dickhead.

Lugging a floppy David into the house and onto the couch proved to be a hefty task. His eye foot coordination was 10x worse drunk than him sober.

“Whew! I used arm muscles I didn’t even know I had. I might just leave your ass and become a body builder one of these days.” Natalie glanced down at the sprawled out 23 year old.

David’s face suddenly morphed into the most downcast of expressions and Natalie felt compelled to kneel down beside him on the cool flooring. Her face embodied all that is confusion.

“No. Don’t ever leave me, please?” David frowned. Natalie damn near melted, she won’t lie, as he rested his hand on her forearm that was resting on the cushion. He looked up at her with his big brown eyes, waiting (im)patiently for her reply.

“Hey, hey, hey! It was only a joke, you dork!”

At her words David’s mood switched to the polar opposite, a complete 180°. His signature cheesy grin blossomed on his face once more albeit sleepily.

“Okay. Thanks!” He whooped softly. Natalie let out a breathy laugh before flopping down beside David on the couch, said David being totally entranced in his hands. She couldn’t blame him.

With a flick of the wrist (and the various remotes) the television and electric fireplace switched to life. Basking in the warmth and comfortable silence with the lack of interruptions or others surrounding them was different. A good different!

It was a welcome change to the usual deafening music and hard-to-keep-up-with conversations. Natalie was sure the neighbours agreed with her stance too. Hell even the sound of fake nails scratching down a blackboard was better than- Natalie shivered.

She half tuned into the news broadcasting stations as they relayed info on rallies and the like but David’s murmurs took her attention soon after.

“I wish I was Zane, man” He said drowsily. He clutched a nearby blanket to his chest as Natalie looked on.

“Hmm? Why’s that?” Natalie pondered as she riddled with the remote, twirling it around her fingers. “Because I dont! I can’t handle Zane usually, nevermind a Zane 2.0.” She laughed good-naturedly. However her hearty laughter soon dimmed as she heard David’s pathetic attempt at a fake chuckle. Something Liza could never do, but we shan’t get into right now.

“But you love Zane!” David sniffed and stared blankly at the plasma screen television. I love you too, Natalie felt inclined to say but couldn’t. Or maybe that’s more of a wouldn’t.

“True that but-“ The brunette let her high ponytail down and shook out her hair till it tumbled down her shoulders. “-It doesn’t mean I want another one of him!” She illustrated her words with arm gestures. David paid more attention to those than her words.

“Yeah. Makes sense.” He shrugged and blinked rapidly in order to stay awake.

Just as Natalie thought David had drifted off beside her he piped up again.

“I just think that Zane’s- Zane’s real lucky.” He slurred out. Natalie scoffed and shoved him gently.

“Says the multi-millionaire! Zane has got an ant infestation for the second time this week.”

“I don’t like it when my aunt visits either.” David sympathised. He raised his arms as Natalie tucked the blanket properly over him. She smiled. The opportunity to stroke his chest during the process for a moment, just a moment, was not passed up by her.

Her fingers trickled over a semi solid resting place and her thumb grazed his chest over his, you guessed it, black t-shirt.

“Zane gets Natalie hugs. They’re the best type of hugs! And- and Zane gets- Zane gets all the hugs.” David’s head lolled about as he struggled to sit up, his view still littered with the aftereffects of alcohol.

A lump grew in Natalie’s throat as his words sunk in. She had expected his usual tirade of drunken rambling and unrealistic vlog ideas but this? This seemed much more than that.

The brunette eyed him up, pensive.

“Do you like hugs Davey?” She questioned softly. Amidst his playing with the zipper of her open jacket he replied, “Nah. I just like your hugs.”

Guilt washed over her like waves tumbling ashore and she wasn’t sure exactly why. I mean it’s not like she rejected his hugs or affection per se, aside from that one time he was coated head to toe in slime. However the pair had lost that physical closeness they had as adolescents.

A flashback struck her, multiple ones really. Of Jason remarking on her ‘disgusted’ facial expressions during Datalie talk podcast segments. Of the incredibly awkward hug shared between the pair after her car surprise. Of her hugs with Zane. Cosied up pictures with Ilya and Jeff. Where did David come into things?

It’s not that she did something wrong to David, it’s just that she didn’t do the initiating. Not really anyways. It was always him.

Natalie’s attention fell on David as he prodded her thigh.

“You okay Nat?” His face was scrunched up slightly in worry. “Usually I cant get you to shut up!” He teased happily. Natalie’s mouth dropped open in mock offence and she punched him on the shoulder.

“Oi!” She let out a giggle. ‘Wait did that sound seriously just come from me?’

His cheekiness eased a smile on her face.

“C’mere.” With that she tugged his head down on her chest and collarbone area and sunk back with him resting on her against the soft cushions of the couch. Sober David would probably have frozen him and wouldn’t be sure whereabouts to place his hands. This David was a whole other story!

The fireplace sent an orange glow around the room, paired alongside with whatever visuals reflected from the television. They were both otherwise preoccupied to notice the broadcasts.

Meanwhile Smirnoff ridden David snuggled right in against her. God the biggest smile decorated her face to the point where her highlighted cheeks ached and she tried to contain it in case he looked upwards. She cautiously but warmly wrapped her arms around him. His mop of hair tickled her rosy cheek as she rested it on there but you’d hear no complaints from her and that’s for sure!

He smelt of laundry detergent and a sort of clean cottony scent. Yes she took a sneaky breath in. She hoped her perfume, a flowery concoction, wasn’t overly empowering or strong. Him burrowing even closer served her her answer.

David wound his arms beneath her jacked and around her waist and his grip didn’t loosen until he dozed off. Shy whispers of promised changes filled the air from Natalie.

•

To be continued! This is very superfluous (new word of the day!) but I’m a sucker for detail and as is the person who inspired this🌷 I’ve been awol for god knows how long because of the leaving cert prep but I’m back! I’m filtering through requests and it’s taking ages to write them out but do send more in! It may take a while but I’ll get to them 💕 Hope people enjoyed!

It takes a second or so to like or even comment (if you’re a fast typer) but that second makes me smile for like a trillion hours.

[skeptic42]

Breaking this off the original thread.

Me:

This is what happens when people are given a little bit of knowledge, yet not taught to think critically.

When @ace-pervert says something like:

Yeah as long as you have things which can test them

He’s right in that not everyone has a LHC lying around the garage to just fire up and test for the Higgs Boson.  However, it is possible to get an education specializing in the right field and get access to a particle accelerator.  And run some tests.

But then you get worried when he says,

You almost never get the same result twice when testing something

This shows a complete and total lack of understanding in science and how it works.  If nature was as chaotic as he implies, then we could never know anything.  And before he whips out with the whole quantum universe thing, there are tests that we can conduct and repeat experiments.  Plus the quantum universe thing is only applicable below the atomic level.

What we can know can change.  Science doesn’t collapse and all knowledge disappear when we discover something knew.  Theories (that is not guesses or speculation, but testable, repeatable ideas supported by evidence through getting the same results no just twice, but hundreds of times) are adjusted.  It’s only when they are totally proven false, like cold fusion, that they get scrapped.  Relativity supplanted Newtionian physics, but we still use it because it works for things here on earth.

But you have to be worried when you read,

it took so long for us to succesfully [sic] prove that the sun revolved around the earth

I’m hoping this is a typo.

provided you can demonstrate it exists to begin with which is impossible when it comes to things like intelligence which cant be tested directly but are assumed to exist but in truth are only hypothetic in nature and therefore not demonstratable.

First, there’s a difference between the abstract, like the mind, and the physical, like the brain.  Now, we know intelligence exists, we are currently using devices that result from using intelligence.  It also helps to actually define intelligence.  Being smart like Einstein and being a con artist like Trump.  Not the same thing, but some people can’t tell the difference.

We might not understand something, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.  Consciousness is a good place to start.  It does exist.  It can be tested.  It’s as immaterial as intelligence.

Next we have @chillimanjaro:

“There are dozens of aspects of reality we don’t understand, including other dimensions. We don’t fully understand things like quantum mechanics or even physics. Not fully.”

Other dimensions may exist, but so far only in mathematical formulas on paper.  We understand quite a bit about quantum mechanics and physics.  We don’t know everything, sure, if we did, we wouldn’t study it.  Our knowledge is expanding all the time.  We’re developing new tools and building more powerful ones.

As for “something beyond this reality,” it makes for great fiction and fun speculation, but if it can interact with nature then there would be a way to test it.  Just because there are wavelengths of energy that can’t be seen doesn’t prove that every other thing we can conceive of could exist.  We can conceive of a wizarding boy that goes to a magical school, but I think lending it credence instead of relegating it to fiction isn’t the best way to go about thinking about things.

That’s the great thing about curiosity and science, we keep looking for more answers.

Response:

chillimanjaro:

I’m not saying lack of understanding is proof of God existing. I’m saying that you cannot reasonably dismiss the concept of a diety just because you personally have not observed him. That regardless of what you or I say about a god has no impact on whether a god exists.

It’s not a matter of not observing or feeling a god, but understanding that all gods were created in the minds of men.

I could sit here and say I have felt the presence of God in my life. I could do that, but I know me saying that I believe I have felt God, that I’ve heard his voice, that I’ve had a religious experience is my anecdotal evidence and will be dismissed as such.

Very true.  People have felt a lot of stuff and been entirely wrong.

But I’d rather say that the dismissive nature of saying well I can’t see it, I’ve never felt it, I’ve never had that experience is not a proper way to address the question of Gods existence.

Again, it’s not a matter of not seeing.  I did give an example of something we can’t see, yet we know it exists.

You lack any faith in God existing because you’ve never seen anything to attribute that to the world and that’s all well and fine but that still wouldn’t determine the existence of God.

Nor would feelings or being able to conceive of a god.  Just look at history, all the gods were human or animal or hybrid, things people have seen, yet none existed.  The box you open has your god in it, yet no other gods.  Why?  Why is your god the one true god, but none of the other gods?  There may very be some super powerful being, but the idea is pointless.  god needs to be relegated to mythology, with the rest of them.  In the other box where you put all the gods.

To dismiss the possibility is just simply not reasonable.

To dismiss evidence is unreasonable.  To believe is unreasonable.  The possibility is not worth the effort or the time, except in fiction.

It’s as just as unreasonable as seeing the infinitely expanding universe and saying the only place with life on it must be our planet.

This is actually a very reasonable statement.  Is there life elsewhere in the universe?  Possibly.  Given the law of large numbers, it’s very likely.  Where the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe and the possibility of a deity existing differ is in one single point:

We know life exists in the universe.

And since it exists here, it is actually very probably it exists somewhere else in the universe with hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of thousands of stars with trillions of planets.  It like the lottery, the chance of one ticket winning is microscopic.  The chance of a ticket winning is extremely likely.

I’m not saying that you must believe God exist because the chance is there that God does exist.

The greater chance is that god was created in the minds of men, like the 5,000 some odd other gods.

I’m saying very simply that that you can’t just say, nope not possible at all.

The possibility is a moot point, nor does it increase the likelihood.

All I can really say is that if you seek God, not to prove existence of God for yourself, but if you SEEK GOD TO FIND GOD you will find God.

Yes. When you really want something to be true, it is all the easier to believe it’s true when you don’t and can’t prove or disprove it concisely.  It’s even easier when that god is invisible, untestable, unobservable. unprovable, and exactly what you conceive.

Also comparing the Bible, and more specifically the gospel of Jesus Christ, to Harry Potter is not a valid comparison.

They’re both fiction, and mention real places.  

Harry Potter has been stated by its author to be fictional and is not that old.

Yes, we know it’s fiction.   However, the Iliad and the Odyssey are much older, yet we don’t believe they are real.  The Sumerian flood myth is even older then the bible, yet we know that wasn’t real either.

Something that has stood the test of thousands of years,

What test?  People being forced to believe it?

has the most original copies of any documents in the ancient world

Do you mean the thousands and thousands of fragments?  You do realize that copy means not original.   Some of which prove they’ve been altered (like the addition of the last several verses of Mark).  

 (and I’m talking ancient documents dated around the time that it is claimed Jesus did what he did) especially when it was widely persecuted with crucifixtion, prison, and being burned alive at the time it began and still faces persecution in many parts of the world has a bit more value than that.

This seems a little odd, like you’re running at least two ideas together.  I’ll try to pull them apart.

The only documents about the existence of jesus are the gospels.  Everything else was derived from that or from the people who believed it.  There are no original accounts (and the gospels are full of contradictions, read Bart Ehrman).

We do know that crucifixions happened.  Doesn’t prove jesus existed.  It just proves the writers used that along with the OT to fabricate the jesus story.

I’m not sure how people being persecuted today proves the bible true.  I think your working toward the logical fallacy known as appeal to popularity (many people believe it, so it must be true).

If people did not believe Jesus came back from the dead then they would have renounced their faith in him under scrutiny especially when faced with his same type of death.

Called it.  People believe because they wanted to believe.  Belief in gods was rampant at that time.  Many religions sprang up and had instant followers.  christianity happened to survive the ages, not through fact, but belief.

If they didn’t believe in the miracles that they claimed to have seen and were just saying so then they would have given up, not given their life.

That doesn’t follow.  Just because people gave up their lives for their beliefs doesn’t prove anything except they gave up their life for their beliefs.

No one actually saw anything.  (Why are there 4 different accounts of jesus talking to Pontius Pilot that differ in almost every way and yet none of his followers actually witnessed any exchange?)  We have 4 canonical and numerous apocryphal accounts, all created at least 30 years after the supposed events.  Yet somehow, no one wrote down anything at the time, only 30+ years later, during an age of illiteracy, rife with supposed gods, with many wandering illiterate itinerant apocalyptic preachers.  Jesus was a common name, derived from Joshua, a Jewish hero. The practice of giving your children great names hasn’t changed.

No one is out there dying for Harry Potter (except JK Rowling lol) but people refuse to give up their faith in Jesus and die for it plenty to this day.

I hope not.  But if people were, that wouldn’t suddenly prove Harry Potter is real.  There however is a possibility that J.K. Rowling wrote about real events, but due to the magic protecting muggles and keeping them out of the wizarding world we are completely unaware of this unseen world around us.  Rowling may have even had these events transmitted to her mind so as to foster further disbelief in the wizarding world and protect it from discovery.

I’d really recommend looking into Lee Strobel if you’re interested for more answers. They actually have a movie based off his book on Netflix last time I checked. It’s called The Case For Christ.

Wow.  Talk about coincidence.  (But when I think about it, it’s actually a very likely coincidence.)  I just read about his book.  Now I’ll have to go back and reread that article again, so I won’t address it here.

I’d also recommend that you actually read the New Testament of the Bible, not necessarily the whole thing but the first 4 books give a clear understanding of Jesus Christ.

I have.  I used to go to church.  Been baptised, believed it because everyone else did.  But when I started to develop critical thinking, questioning things, I began to realize that I didn’t believe it.  

I recommend you read it as well, but read it in parallel.  Find the stories that overlap.  See how they are different.  Read Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted and Misquoting Jesus (I think that’s the names).  He’s a top NT scholar.  I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but he is good.

Another good one (though I will tell you that not everything between the pages of that book has the same value) is What Time Is Purple? It’s very short, shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes to read at max.

Maybe.  I have like 2,000 other books to read.

I recommend How to Think About Weird Things.  I’ve just started Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, it promises to be excellent.

[mrneighbourlove]

Monsters: Ch 2. Slithering Terror in the Dark

Klinge checked in on Miranda, who had apparently awaken. Finding her, he didn’t enter the room, simply hearing that she was a crying mess. The very young Dark Elf held onto Doctor Boveir. “Please don’t go! I don’t want to be left alone in the dark! I want my mother! Where’s my mother!!!”

"Miranda, calm down, it's not good for you to be so upset." Doctor Boveir was doing his best to soothe the poor girl. "I already told you that I won't blow out the candles, there's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe here."

“No! Monsters in the dark! Monsters! Please, please don’t go! I don’t want to be left alone. Please Mr. Boveir. P-please.” The tears streamed down her eyes as she refused to let go of him. Klinge crushed the door handle subconsciously and walked away. He brought her into this mess. He allowed her to be taken by that monster.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm right here, okay?" Doctor Boveir assured the terrified elf. "Look, I'm here tonight, along with three other nurses, all right? There's no monsters in the dark. Look around." He gestured to the medical bay, lit by candle light. "Now, you have multiple broken bones and you need to rest from your healing session."

Miranda sniffed, slowly letting go. “I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She tucked herself into bed, the tears only making her more tired.

"Now, now, there's no need to apologize." Doctor Boveir patted Miranda's head. "We all get scared sometimes. It's normal. Close those eyes, and try to sleep. If you need me, I'll be right here." Once the elf appeared to have drifted off into an exhausted slumber, the doctor placed another blanket on the sheets to keep her warm.

Only Miranda wasn’t talking to him. She lied in bed, staying awake for a while listening a praying she didn’t hear anything.

Doctor Boveir was doing his usual rounds and checking on patients. The darkness hid most due to the lack of light. Though Bonegrinder had his way of moving around Hyrule castle without being seen.

"Tiny snack... little elf... if you do not behave, you will lose more than just your life." Bonegrinder's voice came from within the wall behind her bed. "Would you like for the monster to go after your mother? Your friends? Eat them while you watch? You were warned not to traverse into the catacombs, but you did not listen. Tsk, tsk, stupid little elf..."

Miranda grew bug eyed, holding the sheets close to her and over her head. “No! Please. I-I’m sorry! I never should have gone near you. Please don’t hurt me or my mother. I’ll do whatever you ask. Please, please go away. Please I’m sorry.”

"Do you think apologizing is enough for what you did?" Bonegrinder scoffed. "You have alerted the undead commander to not only Bonegrinder's presence but those of the others in the catacombs. All because of your insistence when the prince ordered you to let it go... silly elf, don't you see now that the pretty prince was trying to protect you? And here, you doubted him, went behind his back to the undead tool. If he comes after Bonegrinder, those in Bonegrinder's home... then you will be the first to die, you stupid girl." The snake threatened. "Warn your commander to stay put or you will meet more monsters who Bonegrinder will gladly share your flesh with."

“No! NO! PLEASE MR BONEGRINDER!!! IM SORRY!!!” Miranda started to frantically scream and cry again. “This silly, stupid elf is yours! Please just don’t hurt me or my mother! PLEASE!!! Oh god have mercy, PLEASE!!!!!”

Doctor Boveir heard Miranda's frantic cries and rushed over to the elf.

"Miranda, Miranda, calm down! It's was just a bad dream, you're here, you're safe!" The doctor motioned for the nurses to come over to the bed as well. "There's no... no bone-monster here! There's nothing here! It was just a nightmare, there's no such thing as monsters."

“HE’S IN THE WALLS!!! OH GOD IM SORRY!!! PLEASE! I HAVE TO TELL RALNOR AND KLINGE I WAS WRONG!!! HE’S GOING TO EAT ME!!! CANT YOU HEAR HIM?!?!” Miranda frantically pushed against the doctors.

"Doctor, she must be hallucinating from the pain or the medication."

"Administer a stronger sedative and have a volunteer sit with her." Doctor Boveir ordered. "The girl is troubled mentally. We need to keep an eye on her." He then said with a frown. "And I need to have a talk with Commander Klinge about what happened. We cannot help until we know."

“NO! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T LEAVE ME!” Miranda bit one of the doctors hands as she attempted to run away. “Mother! I have to see my mother!”

Seeing Klinge watching from the end of the hallway she screamed at him. “Please don’t go after him! PLEASE!!!”

Her cries of lunacy and panic practically woke the castle. Klinge was glad he was wearing a helmet, because he couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. “I’ll end him....”

"Oh good goddesses, someone sedate her, now!" Doctor Boveir had to pry the girl's mouth away from his hand and the nurse quickly gave her a shot to put her to sleep. Shaking his head, he was pissed that the girl was acting so erratic and speaking of monsters. What if she had some sort of poison in her system? What if it was a dangerous gas that she breathed? He had no answers and no idea how to treat her. "Commander Klinge!" Normally, Doctor Boveir was a calm guy and it took a lot to get him angry. "I want... no, I need some damn answers, right now! The girl is out of her mind! What happened?!"

Klinge stayed calm, a little bit of spite in his voice. “You can ask Prince Ralnor, though I’m sure he will simply tell you she’s insane. I think the King and Queen would love to know the truth as much as you.”

"... I don't have time for your mind games." The doctor dismissed Klinge's statement with a huff. "Speaking of monsters in the walls. It's bad enough the maids say the castle is haunted and now you're in on this prattle too. I don't know what this girl saw or what the devil happened when you two went into that tunnel of madness, and I have a feeling I'm not going to get a proper answer. Until she is completely better, both physically and mentally, she is not to return to her work. Is that clear?"

“And she won’t be better until I deal with her monster. You can tell the Prince, the King, and the Queen I no longer take their orders until the matter is dealt with. Now go take care of your patients doctor. Before you receive something far more strong than a bite from me.” Klinge wagged a finger of warning at the doctor before walking to Tulilaid and Kelly, who had arrived to investigate the commotion. “Captains. I have a special assignment for you.”

“Yes, Commander Klinge?”

Tulilad quickly brushed back his hair and tried to wipe off any lipstick evidence on his face that might have been left there by Kelly. Clearing his throat, he stood up straight and faced his superior. “What assignment?”

“….I need you to go on a grocery run. Cake needs a casing. Might be rats in the wall. The Queen wants to take a cruise ship out to sea.”

Kelly kept a straight face, with only a flinch of concern. This was special code used only for emergency situations. Klinge handed Tulilad as list. “I’m taking a holiday. Be good.”

Oh shit. Grocery run was a vital hush hush mission. The cake needing a casing was a VIP needing protection. Her eyes studied her surroundings. Rats meant a spy or something listening in. And the cruise ship meant taking a garrison to take someone far away from Hyrule for their own good. Klinge was really laying it on them. But it was the vacation that worried Kelly. It meant Klinge was going rogue on his own. Who knew how long. She and Tulilad had to get somewhere private and read the note.

~

The Undead filth was becoming a thorn in his side. The criminal heads, his ‘Hive’ as he called it, were bringing him multiple complaints. Evidently, this commander was declaring war on him and his brood for what happened. This was nothing new to the Anagari. Sooner or later, there would be a mistake. Then, he could take advantage of the situation. A man with revenge on his mind was liable to act irrationally. The second prince could not control the undead like a puppet, despite Bonegrinder’s insistence that he be kept on a leash. Still, it was not Ralnor’s fault that Klinge would not behave. The prince was too soft to use necromancy magic to keep the bag of rotted flesh under his thumb. So Bonegrinder waited patiently, listening and watching… until every person was in place.

As the Hive gathered, Sheer-Kahn trotted in. He was an old and ancient creature. With four hooves he walked with a clack of every step. His upper body had two powerful arms for carrying his weapons of choice, a massive sharpened club and a bow that shot arrows the size of small tortoises. His main was silvery white, with a grey body. He was a Lynel.

In times much older, he might have been King here. But Hyrule’s darkest corners now held creatures far more adaptive then him. As powerful as he was, not even he could move an immovable object. He took his place and waited patiently. Here, his code name was Hades. For if anyone sought death by angering his master, he’d send them to the Underworld.

“Sheer-Kahn… my loyal friend, my trusted warrior.” Bonegrinder motioned for the Lynel to come into his personal chambers. He had the deeper sections of the catacombs suited for living. No one under his command wanted anything more than they needed. Every need and want was catered to within reasonable request. One thing was for sure, Bonegrinder took care of those who were loyal to him. Certain areas were nothing short of luxurious, despite being underground. The Anagari took a slow inhale of his pipe and let the smoke float out of his nostrils. “The undead filth has been a thorn in our garden for quite some time now, hasn’t he?”

Sheer-Kahn nodded. “More so now that he has discovered your presence. He’s always taken care to destroy the criminal element that has been created by you, even if only unintentional and previously unknown to your presence,  simply because it is ‘the right thing to do’. Now he’s targeting the infrastructure himself.”

“He doesn’t realize that what we do effects not just our brood, but those under us, those we take care of, the rejects no one wants.” Bonegrinder’s underground empire was ran to benefit some of Hyrule’s most unfortunate. Those who had nowhere else to go, came to the Hive for a home. However, Bonegrinder ran the underground organization like a tight ship. There was no room for error. A threat to him was threat to all under his command. If Klinge wanted to play dirty, then he could do so as well. “This old snake won’t have the others suffering because of it. The three he keeps close to him… the half breed, the kid elf, and the small guard. We need to bring them here.”

“They are in the heart of the castle. That could prove to be difficult.” Sheer-Kahn took a bow. “But nothing is below me. What would you have me do?”

“If the little elf is taken… the others will follow.” Bonegrinder slithered up to Sheer-Kahn, his claws holding up the Lynel’s chin. “You are strength and might incarnate, trusted friend. Nothing you put your mind to will ever fail. Though it is not unnecessary to ask for help when it is needed.” He then gestured to the figures in the dark. “Morowa and Negasi will accompany you if you wish it?”

Sheer-Kahn thought it over. Klinge needed to be distracted and taken away from the castle. Hades’ existence could not be made publicly known to the general population, so he couldn’t enter the castle, but he could take Klinge’s attention away. “Will you listen to my plan my friend?”

“Of course.” Bonegrinder offered the Lynel a pipe while he listened. When he was done explaining, Bonegrinder smiled wildly in content.

[byrowanbailey-blog]

BRIGHT FRIDAY

Brief: Produce a creative antidote towards Black Friday, that will be featured within Bright Friday festival.

The University of Brighton joined forces with environmental charities Hubbub and WRAP to launch Bright Friday. Acting as an antidote to Black Friday; an American tradition where retailers offer high discounts in an attempt to persuade customers to spend more money. Opposed to the ethics of Black Friday, Bright Friday brings together a variety of creative channels such as exhibitions, comedy, film, performance and workshops held in Brighton with an aim to emphasise positive messages towards consumerism and fashion; unlike its counter part Black Friday which has been seen abusing fashion and retail industries.

Possible creative outcomes for the project could surrounded avenues of illustration, film, photography, creative writing, art and fashion; with potential themes highlighting the silly side of fashion, how to value clothing, making clothes last longer and seeing value in waste. My project began by researching into consumerism, and how artists have reacted to it. Consumerism spanned from a society wanting to buy and sell with the ultimate aim to own, it is a social and economic order. For Black Friday is all about consumerism, taking advantage and polluting the consumer with buying and owning opportunities, this ideology of consumerism was an aspect I was keen to explore further. Through my research I discovered pop art emphasise consumerism through lots of its works, artists such as Warhol and Kuri constantly experiment and delve into the world of consumerism. Warhol’s rather contradicting “Brillow Boxes” raises everyday consumerism to the status of fine art, bringing consumerism itself to a level of importance and prestigiousness, opposing the symbolism of throw away culture that tends to follow Black Friday and replacing it with the everyday beautiful; in turn this contradiction of imagery towards consumerism was a fresh exploration which I found interesting. Similar for Kuri, consumption and consumerism acts as his material, taking inspiration from receipts Kuri re-imagines them into huge exquisite wall tapestries; in turn reflecting similar connotations to Warhol's “Brillow Boxes.” Transforming an everyday throw away item such as a receipt into an item of immense scale and beauty, strongly identified with me  an element of value in waste and turning something ugly into something beloved. This balance and mixing of beauty within waste, consumption and consumerism that Warhol and Kuri produce, was an aspect I wanted to explore further and experiment with.    

Andy Warhol: Brillo Boxes

Gabriel Kuri: Trinity

Following on from my initial research, I began drafting ideas and potential themes to work with; preliminary concepts ranged from creating a form of garment describing consumerism and the flaws of Black Friday, to a toilet roll of receipts highlighting value in waste and an animation piece focusing on the funny side of fashion and consumption. Undecided on choosing one idea, I ended up exploring two of my initial concepts the garment and toilet roll of receipts.

Influenced by Warhol’s reaction to consumerism I wanted to explore and experiment with the ideologies of wasteful fashion and and the absurdity of buying, selling and ownership. I felt using a garment as a canvas offered opportunities to express questions of value in clothing, making clothes last longer and recycling; concepts that Black Friday abuse. A considerable amount of incentive and inspiration for this idea extended from my Bowie project, where by I re-used an old coat that I then stitched, painted and collaged memories of David Bowie onto the garment. I felt I could use and experiment further with this creative process, adapting the theme to concepts surrounding consumerism. Before I began making the garment, I researched into the imagery I could use to express the meanings, emotions and questions surrounding my chosen subject matter. From my investigations I noticed sale signs and advisement promotions provoke and aid the pollution of Black Friday, they attract the buyer to “cant say no” deals benefiting the seller, but ultimately they are a visual symbol and a graphic icon for consumerism design. In particular vintage hand painted signs and eighties supermarket signs hold an element of attraction and visual interest, that I wanted to experiment and work with. Sourcing first hand and second hand imagery of a variety of different sale and promotion content, I began to sketch and paint details of the  imagery that I found visually interesting but ultimately relayed the questions I wanted to provoke on my garment. The roughness and sketchiness of my initial drawings generated a variety of textures and mark making, but also highlighted movements of rush and panic, which in turn I felt relayed messages of the manic rush and carnage that is generated around Black Friday; so instead of finessing the sketches I scanned them straight into Ps adjusting the details with a black fill so they became bolder, stronger and easier to visualise, and created separate layers for each image. From this I constructed a series of patterns using my observational drawings of sale signs, which I then printed onto cotton, a technique I discovered making my Bowie piece, ready to be stitched and sewn onto the garment. However before I could begin this, I had to have a garment. I decided on a coat because I felt comfortable with the creative process, as I used a coat for the Bowie project, but ultimately a coat offers a large canvas to work on, in turn enabling myself to experiment with more content. Having bought the coat from a charity shop, and with my cotton signage patterns printed, I forged a rough coat design template to work from, but I wanted to leave it quite open and unrestricted. Using techniques I discovered with my Bowie coat and devising new processes, I began to stitch, paint, draw, and collage onto the garment. Starting on the back I sewed all my cotton patterned pieces, overlaying and mix matching different parts; eventually ending up with an almost patchwork of signs, promotions and advertisement all alluding to the show of Black Friday. I then finished on the front using a mixing of inks, acrylics and highlighters, I began to paint further imagery surrounding consumerism and consumption.

Similar to the Bowie coat, I wanted to express the final garment further through a look book and fashion film. My initial thoughts for the shoot was to use a projector and model the coat while overlaying projections of shops, advertisement and other consumerism imagery to create a distorted and experimental photo and film. However the majority of my time was spent making the physical garment, so I didn't have enough manageable time to produce my intended shoot and film; adapting I ended up devising a make shift shoot in my living room. Yet this improvised shoot worked really well, using light and a zoom technique on my camera which I found by accident;  I composed a series of purely experimental photos and footage, that described notions of distortion, exaggeration and blurriness. The obscurity to the photos and film was something I was keen to portray, because I felt the blurriness represents the panic and frenzy surrounding Black Friday, but ultimately alludes the delicate questions surrounding money, poverty, and human wealth fair which in essence get mystified within the blur of the fashion world.

Overall I am happy with the final money coat and accompanying fashion film and look book. I enjoyed re-visiting the process of producing a garment that I had previously explored with the Bowie project. I feel the coat along with the film and photos depicts the farcical surrounding Black Friday and consumerism but also brings to light the fragile opinions and questions surrounding the fashion world. After completing the money coat began work on my toilet roll of receipts idea.

Inspired by Kuri’s receipt tapestries, I further wanted to investigate and experiment values of consumerism, waste, ownership and recycling but with a positive twist. Receipts are a symbol of consumerism, yet society tends to throw away receipts, discarding them as worthless pieces of paper. Yet a receipt holds values of money, its a personal recording of spending and owning, an unconscious valuable object, that is just dismissed, in turn highlighting value in waste and consumerism, but ultimately the absurdity to buy, sell and own. These ideologies and concepts formed the bases of my second outcome.

Sketching out different ways I could use receipts as a medium, I soon came to the conclusion that I wanted to create a toilet roll out them, but the of it practicality was a challenge. I experimented with several different avenues of processes and techniques, firstly printing on paper strips and then glueing them together to create a roll, but then the final outcome didn't really represent a toilet roll, the texture and form was all wrong but the printing of the receipts was precise and clear. For my second attempt I drew onto a toilet roll, this generated the right texture and feel but now the receipts where unreadable due to ink spreading on the tissue. To overcome this problem I took inspiration from my money coat, using the same technique of printing onto the cotton I adapted the cotton for strips of toilet roll, ran it thorough the printer and then stuck all the strips back together to form a toilet roll of receipts. 

With the technical and practical side of producing the roll covered, I turned to playing with the receipt design. Instead of using real receipt designs and printing them onto the roll, I wanted to exaggerate and find humour within the meaning and format of a receipt. My experimentation’s led me to creating four different designs that at first glance look like a standard receipt but on closer inspection I have changed subtle details. Using four different major retailers, such as Tesco, I adapted each of their respected name into an innuendo, for instance Wastesco. Furthermore where the list of bought products and pricing are normally laid out, I have placed the truths to shopping; the things we buy sub-consciously, for example we buy to show our wealth, to gain popularity and to get friends. These adapted designs of receipts allude to the truth of spending, money and consumerism as well reinforcing elements of humour.

In conclusion the final toilet roll of receipt is a humorous, challenging and entertaining piece. It describes the absurdity to consumerism, the waste that is thrown away due to over spending owning what we don't need; the symbol of a receipt on a toilet roll alludes meanings and questions around wasting money and materials, essentially “throwing money down the toilet.” On reflection both pieces work in tandem, together they both provoke and raise the questions I had about consumerism, Black Friday and the fashion world, is it all necessary? is it abused? can we find value in waste? why do we need it? This project has enabled me to develop, adapt and learn new skills, processes and techniques, but ultimately my explorations and experimentation's into these subjects have left me with a new approach to viewing the world of consumerism.

[mazimekus]

"More and more, it’s clear these platforms create divisions, exploit our insecurities and risk our health. They’re as bad as the tobacco industry"

I used to think social media was a force for good. Now the evidence says I was wrong Matt Haig More and more, it’s clear these platforms create divisions, exploit our insecurities and risk our health. They’re as bad as the tobacco industry

I used to think social media was essentially a force for good, whether it was to initiate the Arab spring of 2011, or simply as a useful tool for bringing together like-minded people to share videos of ninja cats. Having spent a lot of time thinking about mental health, I even saw social media’s much-maligned potential for anonymity as a good thing, helping people to open up about problems when they might not feel able to do so in that physical space we still quaintly call real life.

I also knew from my own experience that it could sometimes provide a happy distraction from the evil twins of anxiety and depression. I have made friends online. As an author, it’s also been a great way to test new ideas, and has taken storytelling from its castle in the sky back down to the metaphorical (now hashtag-heavy) campfire. As someone who often finds social situations mentally exhausting, social media seemed far more solution than problem . Yes, I would occasionally feel that maybe staring at my Twitter feed near-continuously for seven hours wasn’t that healthy, especially when I was arguing with an army of Trump fans telling me to jump off a cliff.

Yes, I’d see articles warning of the dangers of excessive internet use, but I dismissed these as traditional, reactionary takes. I saw social media naysayers as the first reviewers of Technicolor movies, who felt the colour distracted from the story, or were like the people who walked out on Bob Dylan at Newport folk festival for playing an electric guitar, or like those who warned that radio or TV or video games or miniskirts, or hip-hop or selfies or fidget spinners or whatever, would lead to the end of civilisation. I remember a Daily Mail headline, “How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer”, which made things even clearer: to be anti-social media was to be hysterically on the wrong side of history. Then I started the research for a book I am writing on how the external world affects our mental health. I wanted to acknowledge the downsides of social media, but to argue that far from being a force for ill,it offers a safe place where the insanities of life elsewhere can be processed and articulated. But the deeper into the research I went, the harder it was to sustain this argument. Besides the Daily Mail screeching about the dangers, other people – scientists, psychologists, tech insiders and internet users themselves – were highlighting ways in which social media use was damaging health. Even the internet activist and former Google employee Wael Ghonim – one of the initiators of the Arab spring and one-time poster boy for internet-inspired revolution – who once saw social media as a social cure – now saw it as a negative force. In his eyes it went from being a place for crowdsourcing and sharing, during the initial wave of demonstrations against the Egyptian regime, to a fractious battleground full of “echo chambers” and “hate speech”: “The same tool that united us to topple dictators eventually tore us apart.” Ghonim saw social media polarising people into angry opposing camps – army supporters and Islamists – leaving centrists such as himself stuck in the middle, powerless.

And this isn’t just politics. It’s health too. A survey conducted by the Royal Society of Public Health asked 1,500 young people to keep track of their moods while on the five most popular social media sites. Instagram and Snapchat came out worst, often inspiring feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and self-loathing. And according to another survey carried out by the youth charity Plan International UK , half of girls and two-fifths of boys have been the victims of online bullying. The evidence is growing that social media can be a health risk, particularly for young people who now have all the normal pressures of youth (fitting in, looking good, being popular) being exploited by the multibillion-dollar companies that own the platforms they spend much of their lives on.

Kurt Vonnegut said: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be.” This seems especially true now we have reached a new stage of marketing where we are not just consumers, but also the thing consumed. If you have friends you only ever talk to on Facebook, your entire relationship with them is framed by commerce.

When we willingly choose to become unpaid content providers, we commercialise ourselves. And we are encouraged to be obsessed with numbers (of followers, messages, comments, retweets, favourites), as if operating in a kind of friend economy, an emotional stock market where the stock is ourselves and where we are encouraged to weigh our worth against others.

Of course, humans comparing themselves to others isn’t new. But when the others are every human on the internet, people end up comparing themselves – their looks, their relationships, their wealth, their lives – to the carefully filtered lives of people they would never meet in the real world – and feeling inadequate.

Abuse is another serious issue. In his devastating account of online entrepreneurs and their values, Move Fast and Break Things , Jonathan Taplin talks of social media’s “Colosseum culture” of throwing people to the lions. “Punishing strangers ought to be a risky endeavour,” he writes. “But the anonymity of the internet shields the person who punishes the stranger.” To let companies shape and exploit and steal our lives, would be the ultra-conservative option Reading first-hand accounts by people with bulimia and anorexia who are convinced that social media exacerbated or even triggered their illnesses, I began to realise something: this situation is not the equivalent of Bob Dylan’s electric guitar. It is closer to the tobacco or fast-food industries, where vested interests deny the existence of blatant problems that were not there before.

"To ignore it, to let companies shape and exploit and steal our lives, would be the ultra-conservative option. "

The one that says free markets have their own morality. The one that is fine entrusting our future collective health to tech billionaires. The one that believes, totally, in free will; and that mental health problems are either not significant, or are entirely of the individual’s making.

We are traditionally far better at realising risks to physical health than to mental health, even when they are interrelated. If we can accept that our physical health can be shaped by society – by secondhand smoke or a bad diet – then we must accept that our mental health can be too. And as our social spaces increasingly become digital spaces, we need to look seriously and urgently at how these new, business-owned societies are affecting our minds. We must try to see how the rising mental health crisis may be related to the way people are living and interacting. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg says that “by giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent”. But what we really need to do is make social media transparent.

Of course, we won’t stop using it – I certainly won’t – but precisely for that reason we need to know more about what it is doing to us. To our politics, to our health, to the future generation, and to the world around us. We need to ensure we are still the ones using the technology – and that the technology isn’t using us.

Courtesy: Matt Haig is the author of How to Stop Time