"If you need every story in your feed to be 'My team wins' and 'Here's why my side is the good one', you're WEAK - and deliberately keeping yourself ignorant."
Veteran comedian/satirist/social commentator Bill Maher's Friday night political discussion show on HBO, Real Time, is one of my most regular Youtube fixes - particularly his 'New Rule' segment, the more 'serious' monologue with which he regularly concludes the show.
He's often now decried by elements of 'The Left' in America as a 'sell-out' - because he's willing to engage with right-wing figureheads and talking-points on the show, and to crticise some of the grosser excesses of 'woke-ism' & co. But humour is essentially apolitical: it makes fun of whatever is most ripe to be made fun of. In essence, he is still very obviously the same anarchic hippie pot-lover he's always been. (So, yes, very largely a man after my own heart....)
His most recent 'New Rule' featured the devastating comment above on the 'bubble' mentality that online life now seems to create and perpetuate (and went on to suggest some ways in which we might seek to confound The Almighty Algorithm and break out of our 'bubbles' a little; the link embedded above should take you to the mid-point of his homily, where the key quotation I've copied here occurs; the whole piece is worth a watch).
I feel this is a point which has particular relevance to the realm of Fantasy Premier League. I am widely reviled on most of the online forums about our Fantasy game that I contribute to - purely because I insist on repeatedly making points that many people find uncomfortable. - relentlessly questioning usually unquestioned 'truths'. You know, things like: bonus chips do not automatically work better in Double Gameweeks;... a midfielder is usually a better captain/Triple Captain pick than a forward....; and 'effective ownership' has nothing to do with differential points advantage. That kind of thing.
Try to get used to this, people: DISCOMFORT is good for you, DISCOMFORT is an evolutionary stimulus.
You might disagree with me; you might not understand me; I might be wrong - but being willing to engage with ideas that you find challenging helps to grow your brain!
[I know my weekly 'A Little Bit of Zen' bon mots are often not very Buddhist in nature at all (mostly more Stoic or Daoist, or just sad-truth-wrapped-in-a-joke...); but I felt these observations really fell rather outside even the very loose parameters of that series.]
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