You know what feature would make sense to have online for mind-sanity? A toggle that disables all comments or interactions on your posts, and enables them again when you toggle it on. So if you are really not in the mood to reply to any comments, or see any notifications, then the saner is to stop the comments or the interactions. Not to hide them from you, when you know that they are there. But to stop them entirely. That’s the piece of mind I’d like to experience from time to time.

Also, when you present something in-person, usually you give a speech/presentation, the ones interested listen, and at the end you do a Q&A for a few minutes. You select a few who are interested to ask questions, and engage with them for a limited time.

That’s sane for the one giving the lecture. A human cannot cope with more than a few people poking at them with questions.

And yet online we do not have these features. If I publish a video or a book, then even 10 more thoughtful questions can draw hours or days of your life in terms of back and forth engagement.

This is not healthy.

I do a lot of digital stuff (these “presentations”) and what I do is not very popular at all, and yet even I get overwhelmed quickly when 3-4 people start to comment all at once and reply, and comment, and reply, and you try to joggle between them. If you want to engage with those who poke at you with questions and points, then it is truly overwhelming. This is why there are no comment features for our books on tromsite.com. If we release a book we will do a TROMcast about it and that’s the Q&A for like a few hours. And I can get mentally ready for that. And you can come there and express your criticism. Simple and sane.

The paradox is that I’d rather see thousands of comments because that would make me ignore them all, rather than a few that somehow I feel obliged to reply to.

I would like to be able to post a video/book or make a long post, and close the comments entirely, or have them open for like the first day or two. This way I can keep myself a lot more relaxed and sane, and those who want to engage with me can still do it, in a saner way. Because you see, you may think that I cannot handle criticism or whatever if I would close the comments, but the reason is 180 degrees to the other direction: I want to be able to properly engage with those who disagree, and I cannot do that if more than 5 people disagree with me at the same time.

Imagine you give a presentation in front of an audience. And after it is done tens of people start to yell questions and criticism at you all at once. This is chaos! But that’s the Internet!

The Internet is a bazaar. A marketplace. Where comments are not just “comments”, they are “engagements” and thus a measure of the trading power of a video. More of that may mean more currency or other products in return. Success online means more. More likes, more views, more shares, more people shouting about what you do. And no one dares to stop people from commenting because they lose a trade advantage, Youtube and other platforms, monitor such “engagements” and based on that and other measurements, they will boost or not your video. And since most humans are there to trade their content, then they won’t want to stop people from commenting for this reason alone. We see trade affecting everything indeed. We can’t have nice things when what drives us is to trade trade trade.

If we were to focus on the content and the interaction only, the we would invent and prioritize such tools to make it easier for those who create and publicize content, to engage with those who want to criticize their work.

And yes you can disable comments on youtube, and maybe other platforms allow that too. Yes you can create your own website and not allow any comments, but on the fediverse for example and on many other networks, you cannot do this. And I am talking about more than just those options, I am talking about the ability to easily mute all of your digital presence, and to be able to do so for a period of time too (an hour, a day, a week, whatever) and re-enable it afterwards. I am talking about how the Internet is not designed with this in mind, and that’s my most important point.

Funny enough while I was writing this post I got 4 more comments in the notification area:
#tromlive
That after I replied to several not long ago. It is like being interrupted while writing for a presentation, and after you publish it you get the usual: all comments at once chaos. Not a good way to treat human minds.

Please don’t be put off by this post of mine. Comment, is fine. If I get bothered I won’t reply or ignore you and such. It is not the best set of tools at all, but then I also not want to make you, whoever you are, concerned that if you comment you bother me. At times you will, but until we have better tools it is what it is. And not all comments are bothersome of course, mostly those that disagree with what you posted, since they require an answer from you….

But damn….would be so amazing to be able to truly silence your online presence and no one to be able to comment or whatever on any of your posts, videos, and so on. To at least have that ability. How great that would be…..

#tromlive

So the TZM frontpage still talks about a future event in 2021…

I saw them a little active on Twitter this past year or two, since I can follow via Friendica. But not much going on. It is sad to see such movements dissolve….

Also TVP...last “news” on their website was from 4 months ago, and that’s a news that I am really surprised to see it coming from TVP….

Jacque and Roxanne were so against associating TVP with any such low tech and local project…idk what happened there….

As for their RBE website that was announced as this big thing….is dead. If you look at their “progress” then for the past 3 years is none. Same percentage bars that I never thought amount to anything…see the same page via waybackmachine.

The previous news was still about this and was almost a year old, and the one before, 2 years old. So their only news is once a year.

They also post on Twitter from time to time, but all are recycled old posts….

TZM without Peter felt empty even years ago. It was Peter Joseph that created this basically, and the one active and so on. He is still active, mostly ranting on Twitter although he was banned weeks ago so no more Twitter rants. I think he found refuge on Facebook…worst place out of all. Told him to come to the Fediverse but ofc he will never reply to my 5 emails I ever sent to him. I can’t follow him now since I need a FB account to do so, and fuck that.

He still does his podcast tho and I keep an eye (or ear) on it. I’ve heard he works on Zeitgeist 4, and he released some 2 years ago a docu-drama thingy that for me was too artistic.

But hey, the guy tries and is one of the 2 or so that are still active since 2010s when we all kinda started to scream out loud.

Same TVP is dead without Jacque Fresco…he was the soul of the project. After he died, TVP died too.

It is sad to be honest…both of these organizations had a lot of good/important things to say, even if I disagree now with some of the things they say. I have collaborated with TVP for some 4 years, and been close to a bunch of TZM people for several years too. But now, from what I can tell, both of these are truly dead. Again, unfortunately.

I wish I could see them being active again, and screaming how this monetary system fucks things up. Of course, I’d be annoyed that they don’t talk about trade and just “money”, but hey we have a lot more in common so we could work on that. Or could we? Because I could not work that out with TVP….

2009 to 2014 or so were “magical” years for me, in the sense that my (our) screaming was loud and loud. TZM and TVP were huge, they had world tours with lots of people coming at their talks; Zeitgeist documentaries were getting millions of views, and TROM came out as a new thingy that attracted hundreds of thousands of eyeballs. Occupy Wall-street, protest against money and the rich…the Internet was fuming with these.

Felt like a global movement against money. A step closer to “trade”. I feel this nostalgia thinking about this…almost like I am getting deeply sad….because then I felt like things are rolling, and greater things will happen.

And here we are more than a decade later….silence.

But TROM never died and I plan to push it harder and harder.

TROM continues and we work on a huge ass documentary + other things. 30+ active projects under the TROM umbrella, and more to come. We are not dead, we’alive and kicking. Screaming, doing. All that. And I am making reserves of motivational juice so that I am going to use that as a rocket booster after TROM II is released. I want to challenge “the world” with this “trade is the origin of most problems”. I (we) have a lot to fucking say! I am still young, and I am still motivated. I have time and energy. I have not gave up!

#tromlive

When Snowden showed us the NSA leak,
When Putin’s exposed by Navalny the “prick”,
When COVID-19 hits hard like a brick….

The active of us, they scream and they try
The rest of the world, observes and goes by,
The climate, the plastic….we’re going to die?

Scientists tell us, there is no more time:
the bees they are dying, the ocean is hot,
the corals are bleaching, the people are fucked;

The voices of all who tell us the truth,
Became like a music, repeating on mute.

And who has the time to care or to act,
When Putin decides it is time to attack: bombs and guns, dead people in slums; fake news, fake clues, fake people, CONFUSE!

Remember Iraq and Afganistan? The Syrian migrants, the sound of a gun?
Remember the lies, remember the dead? Remember the suffering and the tears you shed?

Now go back to bed!
These problems you see, they will never end.

And when you wake up, just use your “smart” phone
One thumb is enough to scroll all alone,
And read yet again, how others still scream,
And how nothing changes, the future is grim.

A scandal, a war, corruption, or all,
They roll day by day, tiktoking away,
What’s new for today?

You’re busy all day, consuming, consumed
Confused and abused, your anger diffused
I hope you’re amused!

Made by me after watching this documentary.

#tromlive

If you call a software “free” then you should not trade for it. It means, it is given to you without any conditions attached to it. You should not give your data to them, your attention (ads), your currency and so forth. You can’t say “free software” and sell it.

That’s not free in any universe, and the language is confusing. Call it Software with the Source Code Open (public). Public Source Code Software. And then you can talk about what you are allowed to do with it, such as you can modify it, copy it, distribute it, etc..

If say Mozilla calls their VPN as “free” as in “the source code is open and you can ‘fork’ it”, but they charge money for the service….it makes 0 sense. I can “fork” the code, ok, but can I use it with their VPN servers? No. Then what is the point of that!? Call the VPN client as “Public Source Code Software” that can be Edited/Shared/Copied or whatever “license” you want to attach to it. And call it a day. I am not saying they do that, but I see in their FAQ this:

Weird to say their “competitors” are “free” VPNs. Anyhow…

Imagine if I say “We have free applepies come and get some”.

You come to my place and I say “It costs you 15$ a pie”. Because you see, the recipe for the applepie is free, you can come and get it and make your own applepie, if you buy the ingredients and cook it yourself….

This would be ridiculous. I can call my applepie as “free applepie recipe” and I’d be a lot more clear. But that’s how they are doing with many “free and open source software” that are sold. Imagine the fuckery.

I am quite annoyed by this “free software” as in “freedom” but not “free beer”, whatever the bullshit. Look, if this X piece of software is called “Free Software” but I have to trade my data, or currency, or attention to it, then it is EVERYTHING but free.

Insane how the word “free” makes 0 sense nowadays.

At the end of the day, if humans were not to forcefully live under a trade system where ownership and the accumulation of stuff is important for trading reasons, they would not give a shit about these. They would make some software and whatever, forget about licenses. Take it, fork it, share it, who the fuck cares. The only reason they care about it today, is because they can lose their trade advantage. If you take my shit (software) and trade it, I will lose. ’cause I also have to trade for food and stuff. So this system forces us to be scumbags with each other.

I created a lot of books, all are available here https://www.tromsite.com/books/ – are they “free”, what license are they under? People ask.

Fuck this nonsense. I do not trade them so I do not care. They are there and are trade-free for anyone, you do not have to give me anything in return. Do what you want with them. That’s how we all should be. And I had to invent this trade-free thing/idea simply because the “free” had no more meaning in today’s world.

The struggle is real, companies, charlatans – well merchants of all shapes and forms – are gonna maximize their trade advantage and skills, and in doing so they are abusing, raping, concepts like “free”.

• If a software is only available to you for a limited amount of time, then you have to trade currency to use it, IT IS NOT FREE.
• If a software locks certain features unless you trade currency to unlock them, then IT IS NOT FREE.
• If a software puts ads into it, so you have to trade your attention, then IT IS NOT FREE.
• If a software mines your data, IT IS NOT FREE.

Got it? 😁

We have a trade-free library of hundreds of apps here https://www.tromjaro.com/apps/ – these are properly “free” apps. That’s the difference.

Humans…wasting their time on this planet with licenses, rules, laws, fuckery….focus on solving cancer, explore other worlds, understand the nature, etc..

#tromlive

Around 2005-2007 I was swimming in the online world. I had my own blog, and I was following other blogs too. Seemed genuine. You were following brains, and some were interesting. Others followed your brain. It was nice.

Even when it came to videos I was using at least 3 platforms, one of which was Youtube. Posting on Youtube could get you random views and lots of engagement, out of nowhere. It was more real. At least that’s how it felt.

In 2011 I was able to release an Internet documentary. It went a bit viral. Others released similar documentaries/videos back then and they got a sort of reach. We were screaming about how fucked up our society is, and some of us also about what we could do to change that.

It kinda worked.

I remember those “activists” who would go out on the streets trying to make the rest aware of similar things. Like these guys:

EVERYTHING IS OK 1 (Corporate Property)

And I was thinking….man they have no chance to make anyone stop and listen. Because they were in the middle of a movement. Like a physical movement. People moving from their places to other places. Jobs. They were out to trade. Trade their skills, time, energy in order to be able to have a roof over their heads, access to food, healthcare and so forth. Mostly via the currency called “money”.

These zombified people had no time to listen and think. Imagine a subway full of these workers….they NEED to go to their job. Are obliged to. They cannot stop.

So I thought it is pointless to intervene in that environment. That’s why I chose the Internet. The Internet felt more like a park. A place where people went in their free time from their jobs, to explore new things. it was new. And not so busy.

That’s why it worked to create new things and have others pay some attention to them.

Not anymore!

The society we live in is based on trades as I keep on saying and as it is so obvious. You trade, I trade, your mom trades, your dad trades. Everyone is forced, compelled, and incentivized to do that all of their lives. This has created a rat race, inequality, and overall shitty behaviors, zombifying all humans.

And now the park has become the subway.

The trade world took several years to fully migrate from the offline to the online. Now we do not have blogs anymore since Facebook provided humans with an easy way to share their thoughts, photos and videos, at the expense of trading for that. They lied that their service is free. Humans had to trade their data, attention (via ads), and currency to reach more people. But Facebook took off and no one would bother having their own blog.

Youtube was not a video sharing platform anymore, but a video trading platform. You could convert your views into currency, and youtube inserted ads into your face to make you a better consumer. You traded again your attention and data to youtube.

Facebook became a place where you trade with them, but also where people did not simply post their thoughts there, they used their reach to trade for currency or products. What posts? There you see ads with ads. Youtube ironically called their users as “creators”, while these zombies all they cared was how to make more views (again) to trade for a new car, a new house, paying the rent.

Google, Facebook, and a few more companies started to orchestrate the Internet. What you search, what you see, what you do not see, what incentivizes you to post a video or to write a post….all directed by a few companies that all they wanted was the same old thing: to trade.

What was once a park, it is now a subway full of zombies that go somewhere, to trade. Attracted like a powerful magnet, the idiots go to TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, and the like, all because they are sucked in by a combination of tremendous power and influence from the part of these companies, coupled with the non-interesting life that most workers have, and lastly the fact that on these platforms many can become traders themselves.

The Internet is not a park, is a subway. Even worse, it is a bazaar. A place mostly full of useless shit where the sellers harass you to buy their shit.

That’s the Internet now. All of those Youtube “creators”, Instagram “influencers”, Facebook Pages, and so on, are most, if not all, merchants. Most of the online content is shit, for the sake of trading it. Most of the platforms are bazaars. There is no more park anymore. Most care about the views, the engagement, the likes…platforms care to optimize for these, for ads, for money making. It is an ugly place.

That’s how I feel.

Watch this video about Youtube and tell me….is this a “video platform”!?

How the YouTube Creator Economy Works

So now if I want to say something important to humans, and I want to do it online, I feel like those people in a subway practicing their “activism”. Seems pointless. Everyone in the online world is going somewhere: check the Twitter, check Youtube, watch Neetflix, see what friends posted on Facebook…there is no more casual walk in the Internet world to discover new things, to stop and listen for a bit.

But yeah….despite this I am continuing my work. I will release a new documentary this year, even if I know very well that it won’t have any big impact. I continue with the 30+ projects that we have. I see no alternative. I could choose the Online over the Offline in 2007. But now what can I choose?

It is ok, this species will disappear eventually and our trace in the Universe won’t exist. At least that makes me more relaxed to think about. 😀

#tromlive

I and Sasha. I am 1.8 meter tall, she is a meter and a half. She is quite short, but I really like that. Together we are 3.3 meters tall.

Not that it matters but we are also more than that. We want to reach higher and higher. I spent the past decade fighting in the online world with this society. Trying to make people aware of the fuckery of this world, but also showcase how to perhaps think differently about this society, through the perspective of trade. Then how we can do awesome things via this trade-free approach. She spent that time traveling and learning a lot about the world, the offline one. And writing about it on her very interesting blog. She gathered so much knowledge that she also wrote a 300+ pages book about….the world basically. And again how to approach it differently.

So she has a massive book ready to be published (currently 2 people are proofreading it), and I have tons of active projects (tromsite.com plus tromsite.com/tools) and have finished 2 hours out of 4, for the TROM II documentary that can be a really interesting one. Cannot wait to release it.

So, we are very active. As much as we can.

We are also financially fucked because in this society it does not matter if you are engaged and try to be informed, and be a good human overall. It does not matter if you want to do, and do good things that are valuable for hundreds or thousands of others. Does not. And we are very aware of that.

The focus is always how to be a better trader. Chase the trades!

But we can’t give up! And we try not to!

Because we have so little money and we live with my parents, we can’t continue not to make any money. The donations for TROM are dropping and dropping for the past many years. So we decided to take the matter into our hands and try to trade ourselves a bit in order to support these projects of ours, together with the help we still get from donations.

So this is what we are doing and we hope to “succeed”:

UNO – I have launched a new project: WebApe. I am trying to make websites for money. I can build pretty much any sort of website (this is my “skill”) and I have a decade plus of experience with that. I charge monthly but provide a lot.

If I manage to get some 10-15 websites then we are saved! I will make enough to support both of us. Because we need very little. We spend less than 300 Euros on food a month. We don’t eat out ever, we do not use drugs or have other bad habits :D. So if we can get some 1k Euros a month then we should be fine.

So far, thanks to @Alexio who is a long time TROM friend, I managed to get 3 long term projects. And my “mission” for these next months is to get more.

DUO – Due!? I don’t know. On top of this we are trying to work in cleaning in weekends or any other “gigs”. The retarded part is that @Sasha is willing to get a summer job here, but no one can employ her because she does not have the right papers. She is from USA, married with me (having a Spanish residency), but she cannot get the papers because I (the husband – I hate these words) am poor. I need to make over 1k a month for Spain to allow he to work…. So we do not have money, and the gov in Spain is like “then she cannot work”….but if she worked we would have the money….

This world is so retarded. So we are trying to make money but it is difficult as you can see….

TRES – WebApe + summer gigs + donations. Donations. They are super important. If we can get at least some 300 Euros or so a month, and with our savings (around 2k now) we can survive till February when Sasha can get the papers. Here’s another retardation: so Sasha cannot get the papers because I am poor. She cannot work to make us not poor, because she has no papers. BUUUUT if she can manage to survive in Spain for 3 years WITHOUT leaving Spain, she can get the papers!!! haHahA. Stay here! But you cannot work! If you want papers, you need to have money. But you cannot work here to make money. Also cannot leave if you want the papers. This is me jumping very high:

If you think that this photo-insertion makes no sense now, it is the same with this system. Makes no fucking sense.

Anyway, if we know that she can get the papers in February when she will have completed the 3-years-stay-without-money-in-spain, she can then work to make some money….

Basically we need to be able to support each other until February/March so then to be able to try and keep on supporting each other….

My hope is that I can make enough websites to support us, so that then I can reach a point when I only manage these websites and have enough time for TROM. So that I can finish that documentary, so that I can scream more, louder and better.

Also at the end of this year I will have to make a donation campaign to help me pay for all TROM servers + backups. That’s around 1k Euros a year. Not that much considering that we provide so many tools and content.

So TROM donations + WebApe + summer gigs + a yearly campaign for the server/backups + getting Sasha’s “permit” to live and work in Spain in February, is what we need to be able to “make it” in this trade bullshit game. If we do not see any drop in donations we can make it. We try folks. It is difficult. We should not be forced to do any of this. We were already engaged and active and doing good things….but our situation is the perfect proof to support our work, because it proves that this trade-based society is the root of most problems and fucks things up.

We are at war with this society. And we know that.

Stay curious and furious! #tromlive

I just tested it and posting from Friendica to my WordPress blog seems to work now. This is amazing and it is yet another set of amazing features Friendica has. My blog is my own personal place. My home. My thing.

But Friendica has become like a backyard with neighbors. A place where I can keep in touch with others, with the news, and so forth. But also a place where I can share my thoughts in seconds. No need to visit my blog, log in, and create a new post. It is a lot easier on Friendica. Coupled with the fact that I can add inline media on Friendica, and it makes it easy to create simple posts. I can have some basic text editing such as: bold, italic, underline. And I can even add markdown

Links are of course a thing, and quotes are handy:

Like so

Our Friendica instance has custom designed themes so that it makes it look more modern and easy to navigate. I am using the Dark Purple one:

Ok. So how do you post form Friendica to WordPress?

Go to your Friendica Settings – Social Networks

Then add your WordPress URL and the /xmlrpc.php after it. Add your user and password and click save.

Then, when you make a post, click the Permissions tab and select to post on WordPress:

You can even select to auto-post on WordPress by default via the same Friendica Settings – Social Networks setting.

In any case this is so awesome! Thanks to the Friendica developers. I keep on Saying Friendica is super underrated. #tromlive