Saturday and Sundry Thoughts on Communicating Massively

There are still a few of us around who are able to recall life before computers, and therefore before the internet. Heck - I can even remember life before television! Mass communication, in those days, came via newspapers and radio, and to a lesser extent via film and newsreels at the cinema. First time I saw a TV working was for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. A few neighbours, my parents, grandparents and I piled into the home of a local business woman who had the only set in the village where my grandparents lived.

I do remember when the very first mention of computers reached my delicate ears, in 1966/7. I'd been working for a few months for a local Devonshire (south-west England) 'bus company in the accounts office. One of the senior employees had been sent on a training course, on his return he regaled us with tales of the binary system leaving our brains limp and imaginations reeling. All we had to work with in those days were very basic mechanical adding machines, one step up from the abacus. Having, out of necessity, trained my non-mathematical brain to add long columns of figures in hotel ledgers during the few years previous, I often opted to "do it in my head" rather than tackle the awkward adding machine.

None of us could have possibly envisaged the amazing developments we've seen during ensuing decades. Online banking, shopping, social networking, the dreaded Facebook, smartphones, ipads..... spam, porn sites, viruses, malware, Twitter - the good, the bad and the ugly of it all. I am well aware that my own life turned in a very unexpected direction, all due to the internet, for it was through the net that husband and I met.

There's a downside to these developments and changes though, there's always a downside.

Television should be the last mass communication medium to be naively designed and put into the world without a surgeon-general's warning.
Alan Kay

Over roughly the same time span: from TV sets becoming commonplace, followed rapidly by computer development, up to the present, corporate power has risen in tandem. Now multinational corporations own media, at least they do in the USA and have tentacles worldwide. TV has become a major arm of the corporations' mass brain-washing system. Oh, they'd been doing it before TV, but the opening up of mass communication made it so much easier! As more time has passed evidence has continued to emerge that we are under constant surveillance. Recent developments relating to Facebook's gathering of personal information is disquieting to say the least. Perhaps nobody senses danger if all the stolen information is used simply to target a few adverts for shoes, bandages, bras, toasters - whatever it was we were searching for online last. But the feeling that there could be other, darker, uses for the information gathered is not a happy one. Facebook is currently at the centre of discussions on this front, but Google and others are also quietly gathering our personal data, and have been doing so for years.

The solution? For ordinary souls such as I, and passing readers who do not wish to divest ourselves completely of access to television, computer and internet, all we can do is be aware of the potential "weaponry" in our living rooms, remain vigilant, never forgetting possible sub-text, and remember to keep in mind, always, this question: who is "paying the piper"?

When discussing this topic, several years ago, and before Facebook became the monster it now is, a friend observed that as we become increasingly under cyber influences, man-made (or manipulated), the structure of the human psyche will probably transform - over time. Sensibilities will increase and entirely new avenues might open up. Aquarian Age stuff to come?

My view: humans will, almost certainly, evolve psychologically due to the highly technological world they've been born into. We are at the slimmest end of the science fiction wedge of that eventuality right now. It must be happening, week by week, year by year, decade by decade.

My husband's opinion:

"Follow the money!" You can tell which industry is making the most money by the number of TV spots they are running. These ads can cost as much as a million dollars a minute. Cars, pharmaceuticals, insurance, smartphones, political candidates; who’s on top tonight?

I read a piece about the rise and fall of a country once. The one thing that I remember most is that the aggressor took over mass media first. Radio, newspapers, television...town criers to internet... mass communication is first to go. So, money has taken over our mass media. Have we been conquered?

"Watch Yourself!" (Zeus to Narcissus)

Not a day passes when I don't read at least a handful of questions at Quora relating to narcissism. For example :

Are relationships with narcissists doomed to fail?

Does a narcissist know they are a narcissist?

Do narcissists know when they are wrong? Mine never admitted he was wrong and never apologized.

Why is there so much unreliable, erroneous and opinionated information about narcissism on Quora?

Narcissism. Can we lay blame on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, names of which escape me? People use those tools because they are like mirrors - all about them, their need for an audience . Blogging filled that need for some people, for years. Blogging was but the overture to the full-blown symphony!

Is blogging a symptom of chronic narcissism? Is using Twitter and/or Facebook et al a sign that the disease has become acute?

Blogging, for me, is and has been simply a way to experiment with a girlhood dream of being a writer or a reporter or journalist. Maybe there is some retro-narcissism going on.

I've always found Facebook a wee bit creepy, though was never quite sure why. I opened an account early on and almost immediately deactivated it, re-opened it years later, then deactivated it again. As for Twitter, I can see that for some people it could feed incipient or rampant narcissism (and that is a very awkward word to type, I'm finding). Looking in on Twitter has, very occasionally, led to information I'd have otherwise missed, but beyond that, I'm not enthusiastic. If Twitter is a narcissistic pastime, I fear I'm not doing it right!

Here's a ponder-worthy topic on which to close: is perusing one's astrological natal chart the ultimate in narcissism?

The (Scary) Circle

Some movies are supposed to be scary, some are unintentionally so. I haven't yet decided which best describes "The Circle", currently available via Netflix. We watched it last week, and it scared me! George Orwell's "1984" seemed to be coming to life, but in slightly different guise and flavour. Remember that famous quote attributed (possibly mistakenly) to Sinclair Lewis? "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" ? After watching "The Circle" I decided a re-phrase of that quote would be apt: "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the internet and carrying a smartphone."

"The Circle" is a movie adaptation of Dave Egger's 2013 novel of the same name. It's a cautionary tale, the story of a young tech worker, Mae Holland, played by Emma Watson. She gets an entry-level job with The Circle, a powerful internet corporation based in The Bay Area, California.

The Circle stores data, unbelievably huge amounts of data: financial, medical, social, personal, about its account holders. The Circle's leaders convince account holders that collection of their data is for their own convenience and will bring about a better life experience. Open sharing is good, they are told constantly. There are no grim oppressors here, their role in this digital age is taken over by smarmy, insincere Machiavellian figures, played by Tom Hanks and Patton Oswalt.

The Circle, the original 2013 novel, was set in what was then the near future - a near future so near now, in 2018, that you can taste it! Some elements of the story are already here.

I'll not outline the story in detail, in case any stray reader might want to read the book or see the movie. There are numerous reviews around the net for anyone curious to know more. Reviewers in general are not impressed with the movie adaptation, though most do say that the theme is a good one - the adaptation for screen could have been handled better. I agree. There was something missing, for me. I found The Circle scary and prescient though, because of what I've read about today's social network websites. The movie's worst failing, I thought, was that it felt flat, in tone. Tom Hanks played the part he was supposed to play well enough, yet it's not easy to erase his long-time chat show image: a genuinely nice, good guy. A different actor in that part could have added extra edge and a brisker tone. Let's see, who can play smarmy, charismatic, but basically manipulative and...well...bad, with no ingrained "good guy" background?
Bryan Cranston? James Spader?

Facing F-Book

"The inexorable growth of Google, Facebook, and Amazon has raised fears these giants are becoming too powerful. Here's everything you need to know":

THE NEW MONOPOLIES

The piece is reasonably brief yet informative on issues which are only recently starting to be addressed.

With reference to just one of the three entities discussed in the piece linked above, Facebook, and its burgeoning power, this problem has more, and even more dangerous, tentacles than simply making outside competition difficult or impossible. Below is a single paragraph from another piece, long but well worth the time:
You Are the Product by John Lanchester at London Review of Books.
(My highlighting)

....What this means is that even more than it is in the advertising business, Facebook is in the surveillance business. Facebook, in fact, is the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind. It knows far, far more about you than the most intrusive government has ever known about its citizens. It’s amazing that people haven’t really understood this about the company. I’ve spent time thinking about Facebook, and the thing I keep coming back to is that its users don’t realise what it is the company does. What Facebook does is watch you, and then use what it knows about you and your behaviour to sell ads. I’m not sure there has ever been a more complete disconnect between what a company says it does – ‘connect’, ‘build communities’ – and the commercial reality. Note that the company’s knowledge about its users isn’t used merely to target ads but to shape the flow of news to them. Since there is so much content posted on the site, the algorithms used to filter and direct that content are the thing that determines what you see: people think their news feed is largely to do with their friends and interests, and it sort of is, with the crucial proviso that it is their friends and interests as mediated by the commercial interests of Facebook. Your eyes are directed towards the place where they are most valuable for Facebook.

That highlighted phrase is, or should be, chilling. It doesn't take much imagination to understand what could be possible, stemming from it, at some time in the near future. It's also not too comforting to read that Facebook's creator, Mark Zuckerberg has further aspirations - of becoming US President, there's some evidence that he is considering becoming a candidate in 2020's presidential campaign.

Saturday & Sundry Thoughts on Blogging

What am I doing here, blogging still in mainly empty halls? Am I trying to re-create a Tinkerbell (or Tinkerb-log) Effect keeping alive the belief in blogging by... clapping blogging?

As long ago as 2009 I was lamenting the decline in personal blogs; seven years down the road and, though my own blog, now over 10 years old, is limping along and lonely, many more have gone to the bloggy internet graveyard to rest in peace. In allegorical terms I guess one could say there has been an ever-widening pandemic - of blog flu - better known as Facebookitis, with side effects known as Twittering or tweeting.

In 2009 I wrote, among other things:

"...Perhaps blogging, as practiced by The Great Unwashed, has now passed its peak. Each new internet activity tends to do so with increasing rapidity these days. Message boards, though not completely extinct yet, are much less used than they were a few years ago. Blogs aren't likely ever to disappear completely either, but the number of small, personal blogs is certain to shrink in future, with other enticing options now available.

Facebook and Twitter have been upstaging blogs to some extent. Internet communication is evolving ever more rapidly as equipment becomes slicker and possibilities more exciting and inviting. Bloggers, too, are evolving, having honed their skills over two or three years, they may be feeling now that it's appropriate to post less frequently in order to maintain quality level, or so as to leave time for newer interests. "

Among a number of comments (yes this blog did, once upon a time, have commenters!) was one from my husband "anyjazz":

...This is a thoughtful observation on the direction of blogging and the web in general. I don’t know the culprit either but I bet it is a combination of several elements.

The original ambition wanes when realization sets in that having something pithy or indeed anything to say on a regular basis is really difficult. We are faced with the fact that we are not as deep, not as multidimensional, not as funny, as we originally fantasized; what we say is somehow not as interesting to every one else as it is to ourselves.

The shorter moment-to-moment systems have a broad appeal now. It is the convenient, instantly gratifying, worries free, one shot, conversational, language-crunching, grammatical disasters of Twitter, Face Book, texting, et al, that seem to be emerging as the popular communications mode. Communicate more, think less.

Maybe there is some good in everything. Granted, it is hard to see here. With humanity seemingly headed for disasters on several levels, (climate, religious and/or ethnic wars, pandemic disease, grand-scale greed and political implosion, for just a few examples) perhaps we are experiencing close-up an evolutional movement so grand we don’t recognize it.

The key to all of our human foibles is communication. If not the total solution, communication is at least the first step in any solution. Think of solving any problem, from vacation schedules at work to saber-rattling between continents that can be sorted out without communication.

Perhaps we are headed for a communications level heretofore unimagined in our world.

Another, from old blog friend from early days, Anthony North:

I think a major problem is people are realising what hard work it can be building up a readership on a blog. Social networks seem to offer a faster growth of readership. I think the future should be a merging of website, blog and social network, thus satisfying a whole package in one.

Another blog friend, Ron Southern, who has since died wrote, with regard to encroaching Facebookers:

Will it be as hazardous as a shiny black Cadillac going North moving over into my southbound lane? I just hate it when that happens......most writers in the world burn out after a while. Only "the great authors" want to die with a pen in their hand or their fingers on the keyboard! And, lately, I'm not so sure about them!!!

From Sparrow Chat blogger RJ Adams (link in sidebar) occasional commenter in 2009, and still in 2017; he and Mrs RJ have since "upped sticks" from the USA and moved to France. In 2009 he wrote:

I'm guilty of this myself, I'm afraid. Sparrow Chat is nowhere near so prolific as it used to be. Partly, because the demise of George W Bush and his not-so-merry band left a vacuum - the arrival of a sane US President being less newsworthy, even if the the rest of government still stinks to high heaven - but mainly due to other interests crowding out the blog writing. I've been very busy of late on other projects and keep promising myself I'll return to SC as soon as the pressure is off. Unfortunately, it never does. Meanwhile, I'm truly attempting to maintain at least one post per week.

And from the gals, in 2009, for whom I sadly have no photographs:





Elsa (astrologer and astrology blogger (link in sidebar). Elsa was first to welcome me to astrology blogging, back in 2006):

I've noticed the same thing. I chock it up to harder times myself. I think we are going to be paying for content more and more, going forward.

Tuikku said...

I have a history related blog I haven't been updating for months. Life has been hectic, true. Also, I've had Saturn on my Mercury, so expressing my ideas in writing hasn't been that easy. I'm still on someone's blogroll though, so I guess I should make an effort to start writing again.

Wise Webwoman (of The Other Side of Sixty blog - link in sidebar) wrote:

I haven't noticed this, T, maybe my blog buds are sticking to the knitting. I did drop a couple in the last few months, not updated since May in both cases. I do write them to see how they are but never a response....
Disturbing.

From Jennifer:

I loathe Twitter. Really, being able to write one sentence at a time is THAT FABULOUS? Really really? I feel like people are going to lose their interest/ability to write anything longer and thoughtful, and it pisses me off.

So...as 2017 continues to unfold, what will I do with Learning Curve on the Ecliptic? Carry on carrying on, or put the blog to sleep forever? Tinkerbell survived, maybe this blog, and a few others still extant, can survive too. I'll continue logging on and blogging on...until I don't.

It's All About You

Remember that old Seekers' song?

I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I'll never find another you.

But Facebook and Twitter and other cyber associates have, it seems, managed to find lots of 'em.


They Have, Right Now, Another You
by Sue Halpern.

Discomforting ain't it? I doubt that it will stop the average Facebooker or Twitterer from Facebooking or Twittering though, or that they'd even stop long enough to think about it.

The Social Network, Zuckerberg, Savarin, the Movie, the Astrology.

We saw The Social Network at the weekend. We'd intended to see Red, but changed our minds at the last minute after reading reviews of The Social Network praising it to the hilt and mentioning the word "Oscar". Now that should have been a red flag. Some years ago, in the UK, we paid a visit to the cinema to see Cold Mountain, also praised to the hilt by critics - and we hated it.

We didn't hate Social Network, but certainly didn't see it as Oscar material. It was reasonably engaging and informative on the history of Facebook in a fact/fiction (which-was-which?) sort of way. The acting was decent to good, especially as most of the cast were practically unknown. Armie Hammer (right -playing dual role of twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss) fascinated my eye due to an uncanny resemblance to UK's Prince William, when he was a tad younger than he is now.

How much the personalities of the leading characters actually match those of their real-life counterparts is what bugs me a bit. Was it all embroidered, embellished and exaggerated for the sake of selling tickets? I suspect it was, and that young Zuckerberg in real life was/is not nearly as much of an a/hole as portrayed, and Savarin not nearly as oddly inept in getting into the situation he did.

Below, scene from movie. Left: Andrew Garfield playing Eduardo Savarin. Right: Jesse
Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg)



I'm not a Facebook fan at all, quite the opposite in fact, so the subject matter of the movie wasn't much of a draw. I was more interested in the personalities of computer prodigy Mark Zuckerberg and his original business partner Eduardo Savarin. Zukkerberg came over as someone with a lightning fast mind with speech delivery to match, technologically gifted but decidedly unpleasant. Savarin was presented as far more humane, human, easy-going, generous natured and likeable.

Other astrologers and astrology bloggers have investigated Zuckerberg's natal chart already, their findings are easily accessed via Google.....that by Mary Plumb in Mountain Astrologer (with natal chart) is HERE.

Zuckerberg was born on 14 May 1984, Sun in Taurus, Moon somewhere in Scorpio (birth time isn't known), ascendant remains a mystery. His natal Mercury is in Aries, and his habit of rapid-fire speech, as portrayed in the movie, is a nice reflection of an impatient Aries mind.

Perhaps it was his social awkwardness that propelled him to use his innate gift for technology to develop a system by which the socially awkward could become socially involved, albeit remotely. What would be his likely rising sign I wonder? Saturn - which would give Scorpio rising? Uranus on the ascendant? Uranus was in Sagittarius though, he just didn't seem like a Sagittarius rising to me - quite the opposite in fact. Aquarius rising, with no planet nearby? That's a possibility.....could fit and would add some Air to his chart - an element mysterious in its absence in one so tightly bound to his intellect.

Eduardo Savarin doesn't seem to have attracted much attention from astrologers so far - this is his natal chart, set for noon.

He was born in Brazil, in Sao Paulo, on 19 March 1982.



Here's a gentler character altogether, Sun and Mercury in Pisces, with at least one planet in each sign from Pisces to Libra, rather well-balanced. Moon was somewhere in business oriented Capricorn.

Savarin was the young best friend and university colleague who first believed in Zuckerberg, and in their friendship, enough to provide initial finance needed to launch a version of Facebook. His natal chart has plenty of Airy input from Aquarius and Libra. Savarin wasn't into the techology of Facebook at all, he was keen to promote it, find backers, advertisers etc. Zuckerberg, however, initially held back on such promotion.

I'll resist going further into the plot of the movie, so as not to spoil it for anyone who intends to see it.

For a young guy as brilliant, as early, as Mark Zuckerberg I was rather surprised to see his natal chart lacking Air, and presenting little of what I'd have expected to see. He's young yet (youngest billionaire ever), his life hasn't unrolled properly, and early success isn't everything. His natal chart covers far more than teens and twenties. Astrologers should take another look at in in 20 or 30 years' time - perhaps then it might seem like a better fit. Once the Facebook phenomenon begins to fade, Mr. Zuckerberg's life story might perhaps take a different turn.

PS: A few weeks ago Guest Blogger Gian Paul wrote a post which involved Facebook - it can be accessed HERE

Gian Paul has been adrift from the blog for a while due to Blogger suddenly becoming inaccessible from his particular location in Brazil, for reasons unknown. He is trying to hook up via another route, and I'm hoping he'll be back before too long.

Astonishing Correlations: Facebook vs. World War I

GUEST POST by Gian Paul

Facebook, launched on Feb. 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his friends at Harvard, just celebrated it's 500 millionth adherent. Revenues for Facebook should surpass $1.1 billion this year and Apple/Microsoft and others may soon get into mega-battles to gobble it up before it get's too expensive to do so.



On May 20, this year, Facebook carried to all it's subscribers and fans Draw Mohammed Day. Success was mitigated, I think. Business-wise at least. Pakistan took Facebook off the free net and subsequently introduced a "censured" version. So did other countries.

Over half of Facebook adherents are non - American, 70% at the last tally. Free speech is what the Draw Mohammed Day was propagating, so it must sound like a threat to many Muslim regimes. Iran obviously and others, more moderate, also non-Muslim (China).



World War I started on 28 of June 1914 in Sarajevo by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. That horrible war, 5 years later, put an end to the Ottoman Empire, the biggest ever existing Muslim "world power".













Once before I'd been intrigued by the date of the start of World War I. And had predicted (posted in Astrologymundo some 6 weeks before) that some type of war action was imminent in Kashmir, which had gained it's - subsequently lost - "independence" on Aug. 15, 1947, jointly with India/Pakistan. The Mumbai attacks on Nov. 26, 2008 occurred when Pluto was opposite his own position of the Sarajevo assassination and
Neptune had gone direct to cross in opposition the place where the Sun was when Kashmere/Pakistan/India gained their independence from England.

In retrospect I think it was more intuition than science which had guided me. But it's again back in my mind, try to explain?!

Back to Facebook and Drawing Mohammed Day:

The day Facebook was launched, Feb. 4, 2004, there were astrologically speaking very strong aspects (by "heavy" planets and far beyond statistical probability) on the "Sarajevo Assassination" map: Saturn conjunct Sun; Uranus in opposition Mars (less than 1 degr. divergence); Neptune conjunct Uranus (1 degree divergence) and foremost Pluto opposition Saturn, exact, 1.5 minutes divergence only!

On May 20, when Facebook carried the Draw Mohammed Contest around the world, irritating many Muslims, obviously, the Sarajevo map received the following major transits, again far bejond any statistical probability:

Mars opposes Jupiter (1 degree divergence) - Uranus squares Pluto ( 1 degree divergence) and really ominous, Pluto opposes Sun at also less than 1 degree.

This is EXPLOSIVE STUFF. And Facebook (or who is behind and manipulating) knows it. Here are merely shown the astrological facts and evidence that should be a warning to thread this path of "helping the freedom of the press" a bit more lightly.

In my opinion there is no point in provoking against the innate (automatic) beliefs and instincts of many Muslims (the simply devout and the fanatics). The risk being of turning the simple and sincere ones all into fanatics as well.

Facebook is not without it's adversaries in the liberal world, mostly because of privacy concerns. Imagine what that can represent in "lesser developed" societies! But privacy is one subject, frontally attacking another's idol (Mohammed in this case), is another.

The Aquarian Age, supposedly promising "brotherhood, peace and understanding" to the many may have to face some moral issues of mutual tolerance which really, one might have thought, belong to the Dark Ages.