I worry about using X.  I don’t trust Western Institutions.  I stopped believing in them in 2020.  I was already supremely skeptical, even cynical, when the technocrats launched that little covid ditty on every single human on earth.

I’ve known forever that the internet is key to the transformation these rich and powerful few envision for all of us.  That’s why I maintain a love/hate relationship with this technology.  I’ve hated it more than loved it, thank God.

I’m tempted to like it a little when it serves up videos like the one above.  For some reason YouTube put something actually good for my thinking in my feed.  I’m shocked.  Listening to this thirty minute book review while enjoying my afternoon walk just now made me slightly less hateful toward Google.  ONLY slightly, I assure you.

I’m accustomed to the internet serving up stuff that reinforces my political and ideological preferences.  I guess they’ve decided that doing that will entice me to buy more of their products and agendas.  I don’t think it ever worked.  But … whatever.

If you take time to watch or listen to this YouTube you’ll hear an interesting take on the popular Greek legend about the Trojan Horse.  It was both a gift and a weapon in a war, not either/or.  The channel producer points out that even after the gift was emptied of the soldiers the lovely horse, that was so seductive to those living inside the city who now realized it was really a weapon, remained.  Don’t get trapped into thinking of the Trojan Horse as either one or the other.  It was both.

And that illustrates something true about the digital structures that we use everyday.  Let’s not lose sight of nuance, and most important the fact that nobody (but God) knows the future.  This economic play for absolute control over our minds and hearts hasn’t played itself out.  The reviewer offers some good reasons for hope based on what’s happened over the past few decades.

So I’ll keep my eyes wide open as I continue to put up with Musk’s posts being the first thing I see every time I login to X.

Amen.