A User’s Guide to Doing Nothing: Echo Chambers and Energy Siphons
Reflective Essay
Short attention spans. Constantly rotating micro-trends. Infinite outpour of information. Goldfish memory. Eradication of third spaces. Diminishing human rights. Hyperinflation. And on top of all that, a portable electronic box that siphons your anger, dissatisfaction, and frustration into the digital echo chamber. Millions of voices are milled and chopped into bite-sized finger food, ready for consumption on your commute to work. You were promised a tool for mass organizing, a device that would bring the mother of all revolutions. Instead, we have a sugar-cane pacifier, offering you everything on demand but snatching it away the moment you open your mouth.
Top-secret scandalous documents are declassified. Parliaments are filled with convicts, abusers, fascists. Government commits genocide. What are you going to do about it? Pay your taxes and vote for the other side. New government, new genocide. Pay your taxes and vote for the other side. The pendulum of history swivels like the grim reaper’s scythe, slicing through one acre of the earth at a time. But hey, we have democracy, and you don’t. Are democracies good just by virtue of being democracies? We have free speech. Someone in the crowd whispers, “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of consequences.” Boom. One day, your free speech lands you in a prison cell, followed by a deportation back to the war-torn country this democracy helped destroy.
The revolution will not be televised because it never happens. Nothing ever happens. In the past, peaceful protests were a means to soothe the masses’ anger and frustration. To let it all out, like your therapist tells you to do. “Let it out. You’ll feel better. What’s happening might not change, but trust me, you’ll feel way better!” If protests persist for long enough to disrupt capital flow, then cosmetic changes are applied to the status quo. The previous illusion has been exposed, so it’s time for a new one. Slavery becomes prison labor. Enemies of the state become terrorists. Free speech becomes “Boom. Jail!” Climate action becomes “Carbon Neutral by the Second Coming of Christ.” Sometimes the new illusion involves lifting the mask, but the mask is an onion: the closer you get to the core, the darker it becomes.
You’ve witnessed all this through devices like the one you’re using now. Maybe you channeled your anger into words, like I am now, until you found others chanting the same chants. Eventually, your voice dries up, and you go to sleep. “Tomorrow, we’ll rise with pitchforks”, you say. Tomorrow, you’ll rebel. Every day is a new day. Tomorrow, the past doesn’t exist. Go to work and pay your taxes, or else the invisible waves delivering clickbait headlines and memes to your screen will stop delivering. Then what? You would have to confront your inaction with action. You’d have to unplug from your source of sustenance, and that is unacceptable.
I am guilty too, just like you. I write comments like “Will someone organize?” I actually don’t, but I could. Collective camaraderie breeds both action and complacency. Physical complacency while the mind burns creates cognitive dissonance. For anyone unaware of its mechanics, cognitive dissonance occurs when internal beliefs and external actions aren’t aligned. To resolve this tension, your brain will either change your beliefs to match your actions, or change your actions to match your beliefs. This is why the fire of “teenage rebellion” against the status quo often burns out at around age 25.
In the paradigm of power, the average person is like a child. We are all children of the government. Therefore, it’s not entirely your fault for being complacent. Some of us are too busy surviving to think about collective growth. Some of us risk deportation if we speak too freely. Some of us have kids to protect. Some of us have side hustles and passive income channels to maintain. Some of us must vacation in Mykonos next week. Some of us are just too damn pretty to fight. Some of us can’t boycott KFC because “their fried chicken is like the best!” Some of us will literally die without the latest iPhone. You get it: Nothing changes if nothing changes.
We’re in the fourth turning within the 80-year saeculum that began after World War II. Fascism is here again, and we’ll do nothing about it. We’ll rant on TikTok and share infographics on Instagram. We’ll “promote public discourse” on the importance of empathy in an empathy-deficient world. But overall, it will come and go. We’re no match for the weight of history. In 20 years, we’ll look back and draft updated international laws in UN forums, punish a few war criminals and their secretaries, and set up museums, statues, and memorials. We’ll commemorate the fallen, who sacrificed their lives so that good could triumph over bad. #InOurPeaceEra.
I debated leaving this piece on a hopeful note, something along the lines of “we’re the masters of our own destiny” or “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” But that’s not the purpose of this essay. If you feel frustrated or disempowered after reading this piece, maybe that’s okay. You’ll be just fine, love.