Banning touching is dangerous

One school in the US is formally banning all physical contact between students.

Apparently the ban on contact is an overreaction to a brawl gone bad. A kid got a kick in the groin and needed medical treatment. For the record: that s*cks. But let’s be real here: do we really think that banning touching will avoid pupils to touch each other in non-respectful ways?

Do we really think that banning touching will avoid pupils to touch each other in non-respectful ways?

It might at first, but the long-term result will be something much worse than a kick in the groin.

Touch is what made us who we are

Yet another news site adding to the infinite-regress-clutter

Just saw a couple of friends sending out tweets about vandaag.be, another (Belgian) newssite. The site owners claim their site is not just ‘another’ news site since it’s perfectly integrated into facebook.com.

To me, this is just another example of info-infinite-regress.

Illusion of depth

Ever experienced this in your bathroom or in an elevator: you look into one mirror and through another mirror on the opposite side you see an apparently endless series of reflections creating an illusion of depth.

An illusion of depth, not real depth, or should I say, insight. Infinite-regress gives you the impression of an endlessly chaotic world that makes the current reality seem far more complex than it already is.

The added value of news

Yet news is something which is sold as both making your world understandable and enriching your worldview. And that’s exactly what websites like vandaag.be (and other news-collecting and -redistributing websites) are not doing.

They don’t make your world understandable and I highly doubt whether they specifically enrich your worldview since they merely redistribute the worldview of other people who tend – in the end – have the same worldview as yours.

They are nothing but another mirror reflecting other mirrors.

Shut your eyes?

It makes me want to shut my eyes. Get back to the offline world. Go back to the newspapers and old-school mediabrands (yet, they’re also starting to reflect these reflecting mirrors). Or just talk to my friends and neighbours.

There’s no today like Today.be / Vandaag.be?

Above all, I hate dislike the name “vandaag.be”. It’s like they tell you what “Today” is like. Just in case you might doubt: today is what you experience here and now. I like to believe that it’s your today that matters most a today which – even in the face of the vastness of todayness shown at “vandaag.be” matters a lot (maybe even the most).

Get out

Am I telling you to keep the blinds shut and stay indoors? Hell no. Turn that computer off. Forget about other people telling you what “Today” is like and go make your own “today” (before anyone else does).

And by the way
Before you add just another mirror to this world, consider this:

• Is what I’m pointing out really attributing something to the people I’m talking to?
• Am I adding something to what I’m pointing out or am I merely referring to it (reflecting the reflected)
• Do you say ‘connecting people’ while what you’re really doing is ‘diverting people’s attention’?
• Feel free to ignore all of this if you like. These are remarks, no rules. (But you already knew this, didn’t you)
• Enjoy your day.

Feeling swamped? Stop swallowing. Start tasting.

Remarkable content is like a drug.

It sounds like a quote and it is one. It’s the title of a small post over @bwagy’s blog. Ben Young (that’s his full name) wonders about how addictive remarkable content can be: “It is like a drug, getting great content is like the mouse in the cocaine experiment, he can press a lever for a pellet of cocaine or sugar.  Inevitably he keeps pressing cocaine, as he likes the feeling.”

There is actually scientific information to prove this.