Guerrilla thinking

2012 will be remembered (provided there will actually be a 2013) as the year when everything changed.

We can sense it, can’t you somewhat feel it in the air?
The world is at a turning point.
We have to decide whether we want to live or die and what we want to do with our future.

While the masses and most of the people in so-called civilized countries sleep quite at night, the south of the world is shaking hard and setting up a revolution that will change the course of history.

In some years from now the world might be so different from what we see today.
And we are not talking about politics.

We talk about a vision of the world and people.
We talk about memes and mind-controlling ideas that spread as a virus in any mind of the planet.
We talk about the web.

Don’t just misunderstand us. This is not about a plot theory.
We don’t think there’s a man in black hidden congregation willing to submit mankind to a single power.
No. You could prove us wrong, but we think there’s no such thing.
There is no hidden government or secret organization that’s driving the course of human history in a precise direction.
It’s just us. People.
And people are strange (yeah, now go la la la la).

People, you and us, love and hate other people.
Any action, judgement, decision we take is based on this simple primary instinct: like or dislike.
We like or we don’t like a movie, a pizza, a painting, a vase and a person we meet.

What the rise of the social media clearly outlined though is that we tend to like what people we like like.
If I like you and you like a movie, I will like that movie, even before watching it. 
This tendency has been correctly identified as a viral prerogative of social relationships that exploded in all its potential with the social media tools.

What has not been investigated yet enough is how this prerogative, this viral effect is going to change not only short circles of friends about a brand or a product but the entire world as far as the primal ideas of freedom, democracy, life and death are concerned.

For ages local cultures have survived with or without the consent of people.
Religions, histories, masters and traditions were so strong and invasive that any discussion could take place only in their framework.
With the birth of the web and the social media, the consent of any single individual has started to sum up with that of millions around the world, building a virtual world map of what is right and what is wrong. 

It’s not about knowledge. It’s about judgement.
On the contrary, we would even say that knowing is not so important.
People are not less ignorant thanks to the world wide web.
In some cases they are even more ignorant than before.

It’s just that while before we used to rely on local traditions and culture to create their set of values, nowadays we don’t do this anymore.
We pick our ideas and judgments directly at the source of collective consciousness. And as much as we did not discuss the values of our local culture before, we don’t discuss those of the collective thought of the web.
We take it for granted. A datum that must be true. Because it’s there. And everybody shares it and likes it.

Yet, the radical change in the perception of the world and our scale of values is not the only impact that social media and the web have had on our mind.
What has radically changed is the perception of ourselves.

If it’s true that now more than ever our idea of good and evil is now a result of collective thoughts and judgements, it is even truer that our idea of ourselves comes from a collective view of who we are.
The more people are connected and dependent on other people to judge and understand reality, the more they feel their own existence coincide with that of their social sphere.

Social media are starting to define the meaning of life. In some ways the whole meaning of our existence is becoming more and more that of being part of the swarm.

Just like in a swarm, any of us builds up a piece of common consciousness, knowledge and understanding of reality.
If you don’t contribute, don’t post, like, upload and bring yourself into the “matrix”, you do not exist. And you feel useless.
Sharing is existing. And any existence that’s no shared does and more and more will not exist at all. 

It’s what we call the swarm theory.
In social media, any individual performs some actions that are meant to prove its existence and show it to the others.
By doing so that individual brings value to the entire swarm and follows or lead the whole swarm to a specific direction. There are no bosses in the swarm, but only tendencies, trends. And this might be good.

What could just not be that much good is that like any other collective movement, the social media swarm is not about individuals, it’s about collectivity.
And this means that the loss of one is not significant for the swarm. 
This could, and in many ways is already, bring us to a world were persons are insignificant and life and death lose their real meaning.

You may say that we have gone too far but please consider how many so-called friends you have on Facebook, twitter and Pinterest. And then focus on those you remember the most. You are likely to answer that you remember those who post more content than the others. Even if they are not real friends, but just acquaintances.
Their existence for you depends on how much they share.
Should they die and stop sharing, you would never even realize they are dead. 
The swarm would keep on existing and moving indifferent to this loss.

With you in the middle of it. Flying around as a drop in the sea. 
In 2012 and more and more in 2013.
Until all that’s left is the swarm. And you are lost inside it.
Happy to share and create a collective mankind without men and women, but only avatars.