Tag: Internet

Hallucination

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

The printing press changed the world. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid 1400’s, it made it possible for books and other written works to be reproduced with ease, putting information and knowledge in the hands of many who had never seen it before. Before that, if you wanted to reproduce a piece of writing it needed to be done by hand. But once invented, it flooded the world and people received fresh insight as the knowledge market shifted, changing the power dynamic across society. Not everyone was educated and able to read but it may have been one the most influential inventions ever.

The internet can be traced back to it, being like an electronic printing press, making information accessible to anyone who has the internet and a device to consume it. Not everyone can do that yet, but it is more than ever before.

Putting the unhelpful parts of the internet aside, now we have access to the greatest wisdom, insight and knowledge of everything that the human race has ever learned within moments of beginning a search for it. People living in the 1400’s could not have imagined having access to even a tiny portion of the information we do.

So, access to knowledge is not an issue then. Why aren’t we all geniuses, living the 4 hour work week, mastering all our habits and living as highly effective people?

It comes down to this: Implementation trumps information. You can have all the information in the world (and we do), but if you don’t do anything with it then it’s a complete waste of time.

Or as Walter Isaacson said, “Vision without execution is hallucination”.

We might have plans or ideas about what we want to do with life or about who we want to become and the difference we want to make, but it’s the actions that we put into place that take those hallucinations and make them into something real.

Generosity Porn

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

“Who is filming that?”

It’s a question I often ask myself as I’m watching videos online. You know the ones, filmed so that you feel like a bystander watching as if this is normal life, and then something funny or embarrassing or heartfelt or outrageous happens. But I find myself thinking, why was someone filming at that exact moment? Did they just happen to be recording a video and accidentally catch something that turned out to be internet-worthy?

The number of times I have tried and failed to video my kids doing something funny/adorable in everyday life, tells me people must be either recording every moment of their life to accidentally catch something amazing…or, it is set up. Which, of course, most video content on the internet is.

You may be familiar with recent story about the women receiving flowers as a random act of kindness, which was filmed without her consent and became a viral TikTok video. Or the guy who was just trying to go to Coles for some food and became famous because someone sneakily paid for his groceries.

It’s been a trend for a while now, where a benevolent individual is generous to the unknowing and ‘sad’ public, so they can experience a glimpse of hope in their otherwise ‘depressing’ lives, all whilst being secretly filmed. The ‘joy’ that it brings is multiplied by the millions of views the video gets and we can all feel a little bit better about the good in the world, as the creator earns something from their kind act, be that money, followers, fame etc.

It begs the question, if an act of generosity isn’t filmed and posted, did it even happen?

But generosity is generosity, right? What does it matter that millions of people have consumed it?

Yeah, I’m not sure where I land on this. Is it okay or not?

Here’s why it could be okay:

  • It’s just a video of a young guy giving someone flowers, or a dude paying for someone’s food
  • It promotes generosity
  • Random acts of kindness are awesome
  • We should make generous people famous for what they do. Bad news travels fast, good news usually doesn’t – lets celebrate it when it does.

Here is why it is not okay:

  • Clearly, these videos are not about the recipient of the gift at all. Part of generosity is giving something that is helpful to the recipient, not an act that dehumanises them in the process as the video becomes viral distorts the real story of the individual
  • It reduces the recipient to a product that is consumed. That is not dignifying. Generosity builds people up, empowers them and provides dignity.
  • Like actual pornography, it’s a cheap knock off of the real thing, created only for the end viewer/customer at the cost of those involved.

In any act of generosity, the giver will always get something out of it, that is part of the beauty of it. But when it ends up that the giver gets more out of it than the person on the receiving end, be that likes, follows, views, attention, fame, or money, then it ceases to be a generous act and becomes manipulation for profit.

So, the safest way to be generous is to do in intentionally, thoughtfully and as often as you can, without uploading it to the internet.