Popped

People love to be helpless. People feel comfortable being assholes.

By: Gabriela Yareliz

People do a lot without consequence, now. People hide behind their delusions, phone screens, AI slop, and handles and screen names that lend anonymity. People sue others for the decisions they made and responsibility they share. People hate responsibility and ownership. They hate others, conveniently. They strive for false righteousness and superiority.

Perhaps the past is filled with hypocritical people who lived off of appearances, but let me tell you something— the people who pretended went to great lengths to do so. It took effort. Nothing takes effort anymore. People don’t even think for themselves.

In many ways, technology helps information spread like a wildfire. In other ways, it cloaks and deceives. It’s a double-edged sword that people are willing to surrender to if it means flinging their agency and intelligence off a cliff, and being able to abdicate their responsibility to one more thing.

I think we were better people back in the day when you had to face life and face someone to say something. Where saying something had consequences. Where your actions had consequences. You’d get popped in the mouth or feel its weight. (Some people out there haven’t been punched in the mouth, and it shows…)

How do we go back to moral clarity? Do people just start punching others? Kidding. But also, not?

How do we return decency to the human race? How do we return responsibility to where it belongs?