Ron....As much as I would like to say LinkedIn and social media do not matter, the evidence says information finding and storytelling went all in with the internet more than 25 years ago. LinkedIn seems to have replaced the Yellow Pages. It's where people go to see if I am still alive, in business, at the same email address, and what's happened in the time lapse since they last decided to not let relationships fade any further. Other startups after LinkedIn, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others never got any traction with me, so there's no "letting go" of something I never added to my attention in the first place. Marketing got a bad name because of so much slime; still, if we want to serve certain kinds of people, we have to figure out a strategy to appear in a time and space that intersects with their search for us. I'm still working on it and appreciate all insights as to how others may have achieved this.
LinkedIn is a mirror of our collective reality—and yet, that reality is itself an illusion. Much like the Matrix, LinkedIn is a simulation, designed to keep us distracted, passive, and entangled in suffering. But here’s the twist: it’s not LinkedIn that created us—we created it. It is a reflection of our beliefs, shaped by the mind, and projected outward.
In that sense, LinkedIn is us, symbolically speaking. Leaving LinkedIn isn’t about logging off a platform; it’s about waking up from the illusion we’ve constructed. You can’t change the external world without transforming the internal one. The algorithm is just a mirror, and most people are still busy brushing the reflection.
The illusion is not that the world hasn’t changed—it’s that we think LinkedIn proves it hasn’t.
It's still the Yellow Pages. It's a reference work like a dictionary, Wikipedia, or anything else that puts information in one place for our navigation. We used to buy maps at the gas station, and now we use GPS in our cars or on our phones. It's information to me and not a substitute for humanity, thoughts, or beliefs.
Yes, I get what you’re saying—it functions like a dictionary or a GPS. A tool. A neutral delivery system. But here’s where it gets interesting: the tools we build shape us just as much as we shape them. LinkedIn isn’t just a place to find someone’s email or job title—it’s a curated version of reality, filtered through algorithms and intention. It’s not just a mirror. It’s a hall of mirrors, showing who we want to be, what we think we should be, or what we’re afraid to lose.
We used to navigate with physical maps. Now we outsource our sense of direction to satellites and apps—and in that shift, something subtle changes. We stop feeling our way through space, and start following something else.
So yeah, it’s information. But it’s never just information. It’s information with gravity.
And that’s what I’m poking at—not the surface of the tool, but the way it quietly shapes what we believe is real.
Well said — that really gets to the core of what information is: a perspective/opinion-laden version of data. And while we don’t understand how that opinion/perspective is formed, all we really know is that it’s shaped by a business model that profits from selling data, the “users” — giving us back only a sliver of its value in the form of a “platform”.
haha, love this! Sadly this is not exclusive to leadership posts on LinkedIn...
Good for you. Well said.
Ron....As much as I would like to say LinkedIn and social media do not matter, the evidence says information finding and storytelling went all in with the internet more than 25 years ago. LinkedIn seems to have replaced the Yellow Pages. It's where people go to see if I am still alive, in business, at the same email address, and what's happened in the time lapse since they last decided to not let relationships fade any further. Other startups after LinkedIn, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many others never got any traction with me, so there's no "letting go" of something I never added to my attention in the first place. Marketing got a bad name because of so much slime; still, if we want to serve certain kinds of people, we have to figure out a strategy to appear in a time and space that intersects with their search for us. I'm still working on it and appreciate all insights as to how others may have achieved this.
Georgia,
LinkedIn is a mirror of our collective reality—and yet, that reality is itself an illusion. Much like the Matrix, LinkedIn is a simulation, designed to keep us distracted, passive, and entangled in suffering. But here’s the twist: it’s not LinkedIn that created us—we created it. It is a reflection of our beliefs, shaped by the mind, and projected outward.
In that sense, LinkedIn is us, symbolically speaking. Leaving LinkedIn isn’t about logging off a platform; it’s about waking up from the illusion we’ve constructed. You can’t change the external world without transforming the internal one. The algorithm is just a mirror, and most people are still busy brushing the reflection.
The illusion is not that the world hasn’t changed—it’s that we think LinkedIn proves it hasn’t.
But I know better.
Do you?
It's still the Yellow Pages. It's a reference work like a dictionary, Wikipedia, or anything else that puts information in one place for our navigation. We used to buy maps at the gas station, and now we use GPS in our cars or on our phones. It's information to me and not a substitute for humanity, thoughts, or beliefs.
Before I go to sleep…
Yes, I get what you’re saying—it functions like a dictionary or a GPS. A tool. A neutral delivery system. But here’s where it gets interesting: the tools we build shape us just as much as we shape them. LinkedIn isn’t just a place to find someone’s email or job title—it’s a curated version of reality, filtered through algorithms and intention. It’s not just a mirror. It’s a hall of mirrors, showing who we want to be, what we think we should be, or what we’re afraid to lose.
We used to navigate with physical maps. Now we outsource our sense of direction to satellites and apps—and in that shift, something subtle changes. We stop feeling our way through space, and start following something else.
So yeah, it’s information. But it’s never just information. It’s information with gravity.
And that’s what I’m poking at—not the surface of the tool, but the way it quietly shapes what we believe is real.
Well said — that really gets to the core of what information is: a perspective/opinion-laden version of data. And while we don’t understand how that opinion/perspective is formed, all we really know is that it’s shaped by a business model that profits from selling data, the “users” — giving us back only a sliver of its value in the form of a “platform”.