It is really odd how well fiction predicts reality.  Millions of us “jack into the matrix” of social media every day, without really knowing which world is real, and which world is fake.  On the last day of January, 2017 I found the exit. I am going to share it with you.  The link to peace resides here. Using it to exit a messed up world is a lot easier than the movie depicts.  No agents, no killer robots, no mind-blowing time loops.  A few keystrokes, a click or two and, just like that, you exit a digital world that looks nothing like the real world.

I have to admit that parts of the matrix were really fun. Reconnecting with decades old friends, keeping up with distant family, and sharing my own life, brought much joy.  The bad parts made me a frog. Not the prince, the other one.  The one that sits in slowly heating water unable to recognize danger until it is too late.  The bad is being able to “hear” the crazy in other people’s heads, while being goaded to contribute your own crazy.  Maybe not crazy, but opinions and beliefs that are all clamoring to “win” a massive king-of-the-hill competition.

It is also interesting to see how history repeats itself.  The digital messages boards of the 80’s and the AOL chatrooms of the 90’s all met the same demise.  They were hailed for their power to bring us together.  Then they collapsed under the consequences of bringing us all together.

Message boards, chat rooms, and social media start as digital communities, but they inevitably become digital communes.  Like their real-life counterparts, communes are destined to fail because they have no intrinsic method for dealing with diversity.  In a commune, diversity, is labeled and systematically destroyed in the name of equality. Humans are diverse, and equality does not equal sameness.  We need physical, emotional, and mental space in which to relax, be ourselves, and be different.  Digital communes, as with physical communes, demand homogeneity (sameness) to remain stable. While nobel in intent, it is ultimately self-destructive.

Nation-states trying to impose one set of laws for everyone have the same problem.  One set of universal rules sounds great, but it doesn’t work in practice, and it is an ancient problem.  Almost 250 years ago a fledgling nation took shape that attempted to acknowledge and solve this puzzle.  It employs an elegant layering of federal, state, county, town, household, and individual rule-making that made space for many, many beliefs to co-exist as a single community.  I firmly believe, it is the best framework humans have found to allow polar-opposites to exist in peace.  Our Constitution is the manifestation of brilliance, not just the writings of doddering old men.

Unfortunately, social media looks more like the empires of history that repeatedly rose, faltered, and failed for thousands of years before the founders of the United States woke up and tried a different path.  Focusing on my real-world citizenry protects my own ideas and beliefs, and those of others.  Relinquishing my Facebook citizenry in favor of my real-world citizenry in the United States of America, is the best decision I have made in a long, long time.