Emotions in a Trump era

Bryan Kroger
Jul 22, 2017 · 5 min read

The topic today is “did CNN blackmail someone on Reddit?”

Probably not, but some people are absolutely convinced they did because of the last statement in the CNN article.

CNN “reserves the right” to reveal guy behind Trump wrestling video”

The now infamous statement which was at the end of the article detailing how CNN tracked down the Redditor who created the original content.

The people who lost their collective minds on this statement began decrying CNN for their “punching down” and “blackmailing” of this person. I think we would have seen the exact same reaction by the same people even without this statement. It just so happens that people solidified around this particular thing because it was an easy mark.

I love this statement, which apparently came form the author of the CNN wrestling video:

“To people who troll on the Internet for fun, consider your words and actions conveyed in your message and who it might upset or anger,” he wrote. “Put yourself in their shoes before you post it. If you have a problem with trolling it is an addiction just like any other addiction someone can have to something and don’t be embarrassed to ask for help. Trolling is nothing more than bullying a wide audience. Don’t feed your own self-worth based upon inflicting suffering upon others online just because you are behind a keyboard.”

source

Neat, but my point here is that the original statement could be taken in many different forms. Maybe CNN meant that they are going to protect the identity of the person unless the person decides to give CNN permission to reveal his identity in an act of taking responsibility for his actions.

Perhaps the troll wanted to leverage this as exposure to create a more important movement to get people to stop being such assholes online and wanted to use CNN to help do that. I’m sure CNN would have been in favor of doing that. And who knows, maybe the original author of the CNN video could have used this to launch a series of TED talks on the subject.

Or, maybe CNN was blackmailing some random person that they didn’t like, but that seems unlikely. If there was some deal, and this person was a troll I would think the response would be to release whatever deal was on the table as an act of mutually assured destruction, thus sealing his fate as the “Emperor Troll” as it were.

At nearly the same time as this cluster fuck was unfolding another circus was hitting town in the form of NPR tweeting the Declaration of Independence. Folks decrying NPR for attacking Trump. Most of the tweets were taken down once they realized NRP was tweeting the DoI. One could interpret their outrage as an indictment of Trump in that describing the tyranny of Europe also describes the current state of the POTUS. Or, we could just assume these people didn’t realize what was going on and had a knee jerk reaction. We’ll never really know unless we get curious about their intention.

These two issues have something in common, believe it or not, and it’s something that we might want to keep in mind in this age of Trump. They both show how people always choose how to attach to a given topic. In both cases people chose to attach to a belief based on the information in front of them.

Another example of this would be either abortion or gay marriage. The people that support the banning of abortion are usually always on the side of also banning gay marriage, and in both cases they use the Bible to support their case. The Bible says more about greed and laziness than it does about abortion and gays. In fact, all of the rules in the Bible are bullshit arguments because Jesus died for all of your sins, so when people use the Bible to justify their position I often find myself wondering if they think the sacrifice of Jesus wasn’t good enough.

But you can point out the logical failures in their arguments all day long, in fact people have been doing exactly that for literally decades. People will always choose to attach to a meaning regardless of facts or reason.

Sometimes, the things we complain about are a window into our dysfunction. The next time something like this happens, try looking at the dysfunction through the window of a persons actions.

For example, this snippet from here:

I mean, he’s not wrong. If I could slit his flabby neck and dump him in a ditch somewhere without getting caught, I absolutely would in a heartbeat.

Same goes for pretty much any shitlib whiny or fake-news propagandist. The only thing stopping me is that it would be inconvenient, and the fact that the law enforcement apparatus is still semi-functional.

I’m surrounded by people who feel the same way. Shitlibs have dehumanized themselves in our eyes. We simply don’t give a shit about them, don’t consider them human.

Trump’s stupid meme didn’t do anything to reinforce that belief. Decades of constant browbeating, whining, lying, and despicable deception by leftists and their media establishment are what did it.

When I read this, I see the dysfunction: someone that’s hurting and frustrated with the world. I can relate to that feeling, I’ve been frustrated and angry with the world too. I bet you have too, in some way. And yes, we’d all love to hate this person for stating that they’d kill a liberal just because they think differently.

I see people hurting in a world where hugging another man is considered gay. Where we tell our men that it’s not okay to share our pain and our suffering. Where it’s weak to talk about what’s going on inside. I think the worst sin in this world right now is perpetuating the myth that opening up is weakness. It’s not, the strongest thing I’ve ever done is to open up to my wife and show her the squishy, hurt bits on that live on the inside.

I can’t tell you what to do, but I can share a little wisdom that I’ve learned along the way. When I learned to let go of my attachments to what things might mean, I became a happier person. The Buddhist have it right, man. There is no such thing as good or bad, right or wrong, there are simply things that happen and what we choose to make those things mean to and about us.

As we travel together on this wild journey in the new Trump America I hope we can all learn to live together. You don’t have to love your neighbor, or even agree with them. But hopefully we can at least learn to see each other for the emotional creatures we are.

Thank you for reading this. I love you. May all beings be free, may all beings be happy.

Bryan Kroger

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Exploring the space at the intersection of technology and spirituality.

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