Just consider this a sigh of exasperation. I try not to block or unfollow people on social media because of their political or cultural affiliation. I realize that I have friends and followers who are idiots, all over the spectrum, and that as such they will spew, replicate, and share any idiocy their limited minds and mental health issues allow, and that seems to validate their pre-conceived fantasies. I have always said that I will block, unfriend, or unfollow people mainly for this reason: Because they are NPCs – that is to say, they have no ideas or thoughts of their own. They blindly just regurgitate memes and ideas written by others, without thought or reflection. You are an empty canyon echo and a minion among a thousand-thousand other minions all parroting the same things. So, you are useless to me, since you are just one mirror in a funhouse. I generally will continue to follow people – even those with whom I disagree – if I think you are an actual person with the capacity of ideation, and that you once or twice have a thought that originates with yourself, or that you write out as a representation of your own life. If you once show some empathy or even the fleeting capacity to have thought outside the mass-market spin of your political cult.

Autobot NPCs who just pass on stupid memes, endlessly, with no personal context are useless to me, and they just bog down my feed. Likewise, mentals who immediately knee-jerk click-share the insta-spin meme-vomit of their political cult without even taking five minutes to check to see if it holds water… gone.

They say a frog will slurp up a tiny metal bb as it rolls by, because it must. It has no will or decision in the matter. It doesn’t consider if the moving object is food or not, just if it is moving and will fit into their mouth – down it goes.

In poker we say “You can’t bluff someone who sucks at poker.” Likewise, you cannot insult someone back into reality who cannot read, cannot think, and can only react and emote based on exteriorly applied stimulation.

I wrote this two years ago, and it applies even more today:

“My guess is that there are fewer than 10 people in your entire orbit that ever produce any original content that exhibits original thinking. A passive-aggressive slam at someone who cut you off in traffic, or your mother-in-law, or a guy who ghosted you is not the kind of ‘original content’ I’m talking about. This is the NPC reality today. In just a few years, maybe fewer, social media will have devolved into human chickens pecking at dots for street taco tablets dispensed below. If an image with a few words on it pleases you, peck here. If it displeases you, peck here. A smorgasbord of instant feedback loops for dummies. Somehow this will all be monetized, or the pecking can be hooked up to a treadmill to provide energy to the borg. I don’t know.”

The current cultural tempest is the latest example of the binary NPC warfare designed to move the Overton Window and increase the tension that moves the beast. Move the left leg, then the right and the whole stupid beast slumps toward the fire. Do I have an opinion on the matter? Yes. I used to tell people what I think, but now they will not read it or cogitate on it because they haven’t the capacity. In a world of non-readers, the meme-bot is king.

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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear on Wednesdays and Sundays on the website.