Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019 - Summary, introspection and resolutions

We are at the end of 2018. It has been a difficult and turbulent year. All in all, I believe the world did go backwards. I think it cannot be said that it’s the media’s fault that we all think that. If you take an objective look, human rights have diminished, authoritarian regimes are on the rise, LGBT rights have been reduced. I think it’s safe to say that the year wasn’t that good.

Regardless, we should not give in to panic. We must believe that things can change back and that last two-three years have only been a temporary setback. We must believe that the future is inclusive and multicultural. We must believe that the future is not dogma and escapism but science. We must stay calm and figure out what is to be done for things to return to normal.

For things to change back we must take the ‘fight’ back to the populists. We must be ready to counter them with facts. When they tell lies we should be there with the truth. A lot of things are decided online now. We all heard stories about armies of bots influencing elections everywhere. Whenever someone share lies there should be somebody to counter them with the truth. But above all, we should not panic. We lose our cool when we panic, we get into heated arguments where none are needed as it is often better to argue calmly and rationally with the facts. Yes, facts are unlikely to convince populists and those far gone, but we still have neutrals to convince.

What I have seen some success with is – not only argue with them about facts and events but instead ask them how would they solve something. Take for instance global warming. Ask neutral people – or even nationalists directly – how does nationalism deal with a global problem, such as global warming? Or how do they deal with multinational corporations selling our data outside the national borders? Or how does nationalism deal with the threats of AI or nuclear war? What does nationalism do to prevent wars? Consider the EU – consider how much peace it brought to the continent. How does nationalism do that?

Anyway, I strained off-topic. There will be time to discuss these things next year.

As the year comes to an end, the time has come not only to look outside but inside as well. And the year was bad for this page as well. It’s my own fault, of course. Naively I thought that I should focus mostly on the social media channels and I neglected to put new content on the page itself. And social media is tricky. Facebook has reduced post reach for pages, so it’s hard to get to people’s timelines. And when I do manage to get there – well, the topics of this page are not exactly fun or even too light reading – too light in the sense that I do not deal with TV shows or celebrities, so I have to catch people when they are in the mood to hear about the topics I care about.

Entangled Life - Top Nine Instagram posts in 2018.

Not only that but as an introvert, I inherently suck at social media. I do not know what makes people tick or what makes them ‘like’ something, so I present the post in the manner that does not speak to people and they often just scroll by. So, in the new year I wow to change all that. I am going to watch tutorial videos, tips and tricks, try to improve my online communication skills, do what it takes. That my friends are my new year resolutions.

When it comes to the page itself consequence of my focusing too much on the social media is – I did not take the time to post more often right here. I was under the delusion that most of the message can be relayed using social media only. But when a person wants to know more they should have access to the expanded version of the argument which should be posted right here. This will change in 2019. Right here and now I vouch publicly to post more.

Another endeavour I have been thinking about is creating the ‘Entangled Life’ Android app. I will work more on this in 2019. I cannot, unfortunately, guarantee that it will indeed be finished in 2019 but I will definitely spend some time on it.

These are my New Year Resolutions when it comes to Entangled Life. Wish me luck in fulfilling all that. That is it for this year. I wish all of you a happy new year, full of peace, harmony and prosperity. We’ll talk again in 2019. Bye bye.