Up To Us

Liberal Constitutional Democracies and their Citizens are similar to the News and Social Media. The Government can only really do a limited amount of stuff because they aren't dictators. We made it that way. Many of us disappeared off to the New World and set up new ways of doing things. We made a hash of it initially and those of us who were there already often got the short end of the stick. But we got, and we are getting better. 

In many countries in the world, if we want to do something, we don't have to wait for the Government to do it. A Liberal Constitution gives you the right to do something unless it obstructs someone elses liberty. It doesn't stop you from helping people. If there are poor people in a rich country, I don't think you can blame it on the government. You don't need to get consensus, raise taxes, and redistribute. If there are poor people in a rich country, it is because not enough of us are doing something about it. 

When it comes to the News, if we want to hear about stories that really matter, we don't have to wait for the News to cover it. Social Media means we are in charge of the content that gets put out. There is no one stopping you from participating in the conversation. If the quality of discussion is poor, we can't blame any Media companies.

News stories tend to focus on 'News worthy' items. They talk about deaths due to shark attacks and murders, not deaths due to diarrhoea or malaria. Something is newsworthy if it is out of the ordinary. It is not the job of the media to tell us stories that resonate more closely to our lives. The description of ordinary peoples lives. We don't tend to talk about the stuff that matters to us in the open. So we only hear from celebrities and writers. We don't hear from each other.

source: NEWS!!! Florida led the world in Shark Attacks in 2013

One thing I like about the blogging medium is that when I speak to friends who read my blog, we get straight to something that matters to both of us. Most of us only have a few areas of interest that overlap and we are very busy. We don't get to see each other that often. Often a catch up ends up being small talk for a while before perhaps by chance you stumble on something that matters. With blogs, the friend may have skimmed stuff that doesn't interest them and read the ones that did. The trigger of seeing you may bring back that post and you can chat about it. Even better, I have found the trigger of seeing the blog post actually leads to more face to face time. With so much going on, sometimes we need triggers to remind us what is important to us. 

In my ideal world, we would all write blogs. Clearly public comments descend quickly, but if one persons post triggers you to write something etc. the world will be more full of things that matter to us.

At some point, if things aren't the way we want them, but we have the power to change that - it is up to us and we need to get on with it.