Psychological Violence

If you hand a child a choice between a dinosaur plushie or a blanket so it will instinctively grab for either one. You will rarely see it instead protest for a third item not yet presented, not yet known.

In the same vein, under the guise of entertainment or communications, so one can be consistently nudged this way and that. You technically still have a choice, but you are pushed to only choose these outcomes. One’s realm of possibility will not only shrink with enough time, but cease to exist, as every dream will be subconsciously contained by what one sees. The most insidious part is you can check out any time, but can you deal with the Stockholm Syndrome?

People often forget that the Internet is a psychopath’s domain. There are entire military arsenals dedicated to injecting your mind, pulling the rug: one can analyze each bit of you and peer into a soul if you leave enough of a trace — a trace previously found perhaps in clicks and other analytics, metadata bid and sold, but advanced text analysis could do the same. Turn a few knobs and you’ll see the modern mouth foam.

Everyday you log on you are in a, technically, hostile environment, if we define hostile as that which goes against your interests and hopes to change your tune to a dissonant new, a trail you’ll follow and keep spiraling in a hope to find a conclusion or some soothing. More engagement, more ad revenue, or more cult members too. Every single conversation and paragraph read is a sell, and you’re waddling through the darkest parts of humanity in broad daylight.

These words are psychological violence. I am actively constraining your worldview to what is being written here, even if you could scoff — and though you may protest how, well, after this is read, you will go back, so some moment comes and it’ll persist. It sticks with you. Are you sure you want this?