A Summary of 100 Facebook Feed Posts

My public Facebook page (just called Vexen Crabtree) at www.facebook.com/VexenCrabtree/ has its own News Feed. It, like everyone else's, is full of rubbish. For a while, I have been meaning to quantify precisely how much of it is junk.

I have methodically looked at the first 100 posts on my news feed. Here are the results:

• 15 were from people and pages that I follow (yay).
• 1 was a random source, with a post I was interested in – well done, Facebook algorithm.
• 5 random posts from sources that MIGHT have been interesting, but not really. Nice try, algorithm.
• 74 random stupid meme and image posts that have absolutely no place in my feed, on sports and celebrities and pure rubbish.
• 3 from trash providers (celebrity magazines, gossip columns), no better than clickbait memes.
• 2 truly random ones that looked completely personal and not really designed for the public.

Summary: 79% of my feed is pure rubbish and stupid memes, 15% is from people I follow, and 6% are successful algorithm attempts to find something I might have liked. Of those, attempts only 1% are correct.

Broken down into groups are 20, here is a full list of what I found in those 100 posts. Each line starts with the name of the poster, and ends with the action that I took. For example, 'Hide All' means I selected “Hide All From This Page", as I very frequently do. It makes no difference. The volume of pure, utter trite on Facebook is drowning out every else.

(1) Zesty Supreme entertaining meme. Hide All.
(2) K Elias Photography. Nice photo. Pointless for me. Hide All.
(3) Extra Fabulous Comics. Just a meme. Hide All.
(4) Nightmare Customers and Non Payers: Nonsense meme. Hide All.
(5) A post from Haujobb, who I follow! Yay. Liked & commented.
(6) UK Heritage Frames. Post is a random meme about Monty Python, not even related to 'Frames'. Hide All.
(7) Random: Life Memes. Funny meme. Don't care. I don't want funny memes. Hide All.
(8) Random: SportsJOE.co.uk. I don't care. Hide All.
(9) Haujobb again. Yay. Like & comment.
(10) Random: The Language Nerds. Funny meme or something. Pointless. Hide All.
(11) Dorset Eye. A meme about Reform UK being fascist. True, I'm sure, but I don't want 'Dorset Eye' as a newsfeed. Hide All (a bit sadly).
(12) Hard Images. Pointless meme that I don't even understand. Hide All.
(13) Going Postal Gaming. Stupid meme. Not even related to gaming. Hide All.
(14) Do you even Science, Bro. Stupid meme. I don't want memes. Hide All.
(15) Uncuffed Memes Encore. Stupid meme. Hide all.
(16) Funny Story. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(17) Vintage Britain. A historical photo. History is good, but not in meme format thanks. Hide All.
(18) Arkansas Extreme Metal. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(19) Council Cuisines. Pointless food photo designed to get 'shock' comments. Waste of time. Hide All.
(20) Back to 80s. Random 'on this day' image. Nice and nostalgic, but, I don't use FB for this. Hide All.

First 20 posts: 18 were stupid memes, 2 were posts from people I follow.

(21) Football Funnys. Some try-to-be-funny meme about riots. Football is boring, meme is boring. Hide All.
(22) The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. An awesome bunch of people, doing great work. A post about finances in Eswatini, which is trying to stop misconduct getting in to the press. Important, informational. Liked and commented.
(23) Creatures Cosmos. A photo of 2 random people probably involved in film, raising a glass. Pointless. No information. Hide All.
(24) Moon Night-Core. Stupid meme that makes no sense and isn't about anything I know about. Hide All.
(25) Back to the 80s. Random Terminator meme. Awesome film! Love seeing the cast. But I'm not on FB for memes. I can't Hide All as I've already done it at number (20), so this time it's a X-to-Close (mark as not interesting). This has NO EFFECT, after having done it hundreds of times, my feed is still full of shite.
(26) I Will Go Slightly Out of My Way To Step On A Crunchy-Looking Leaf. Stupid funny image about an upside-down-book. Hide All.
(27) Memeenist. Football meme. Hide All.
(28) The Credible Hulk. They're always posting good informational posts about learning to think better. I follow them already. YAY, a non-random post! Liked.
(29) Sad Comics. Random meme. Hide All.
(30) Pizza Cake Comics. Whateven does that title mean? Stupid meme. Hide All.
(31) Deadpool FC- Ryan's Roaring Reds. Not interested in celebrities. Nor films. Nor memes. Nor football. This post was all 4. Why's this even in my feed? What sense does it make? Hide All.
(32) British Memes. Some meme about biscuits. Hide All.
(33) Descendants of the Moon. Random meme that makes no sense to me. Hide All.
(34) Skeptical Inquirer. Truly powerful and useful magazine, which I follow, and have read for over 20 years. Yay. Like and Commented.
(35) Dwarves, Elves & Men. Lord of the Rings meme. AWESOME films. But I don't go on FB to see random LOTR memes. Hide All.
(36) Britain For All. I follow these. Anti-extremism group. Yay. Post Liked.
(37) British Memes. Already done Hide All above, so this is a X-to-Close-Mark-As-Not-Interested.
(38) Theme Park Worldwide. Random holiday attraction photo from 1935. Don't care. Hide All.
(39) Best Comic. Random animal meme. Pointless, stupid. Hide All.
(40) We Got Talent. Meme of boy playing piano. Inspiring. But just yet more nonsense that I don't want. Hide All.

The previous 20 posts: 4 posts from people I follow (yay), 16 random stupid image posts that have absolutely no place in my feed.

(41) Psychology Love. Random quote meme. Life is NOT reducible to stupid one-liners. Hide All.
(42) Meme Extreme. Hide All.
(43) Psychology Love. Already done Hide-All, so this time X-to-Close.
(44) Dark Secrets Of The Witch. Stupid meme about Twitter, FB and Apple and WiFi. I don't want meme-posters. Hide All.
(45) Dellima. Random photo of children and text about reading books. A meme in text format. At least there is actual text! But still pointless churned-out read-for-inspiration nonsense. Hide All.
(46) Secret Yorkshire. Random cultural photo. I don't want mild-bits-of-random-history in image format. That's not how you learn. Hide All.
(47) IGN. Random promotional meme about Deadpool. Hide All.
(48) Financial Times. Informational current-events. Useful. Good. I don't follow them, but, I also don't object. Faceboko has, on post 48, CORRECTLY located an item I'm interested in from someone I don't follow. Well done, Facebook.
(49) Game Rant. Nostalgic tech photo. Pointless. Hide All.
(50) The Historian's Den. Random history meme. Simplistic stupid nonsense. Hide All.
(51) EUobserver. I follow these. Good news item, informational current events. Liked & Commented.
(52) Paflek. Pretty photo of superwoman. But why is it in my feed? I don't want celebrity-worship nonsense. Hide All.
(53) Star Wars Rocks My World. Film-based memes. Hide All.
(54) Know Your Meme. Hide All.
(55) Awkward Relate. Stupid mime about birthdays. Hide All.
(56) Sgt Scholar. I've seen a few from this poster, normally quite intelligent stuff with decent text commentary. ALMOST done Hide All because FB just shows a large meme. But the attached text is good. Not liking it, but also not hiding.
(57) I will trebuchet this individual into SPACE GULAG. What is this nonsense? Hide All.
(58) Order of the Sith. Film-based memes. Don't want. Hide All.
(59) Britain For All. Post from 3 days ago which I've seen before. I follow these. Not liking (only an average post).
(60) ABU NEIN. A post about the passing of a band member. But I've no idea who any of them are nor what ABU NEIN means. May be related to another band I've liked. But still irrelevent to me. Hide All.

Last 20 posts: 1 post from a random source I was interested in (well done, algorithmn). 2 posts from people I follow. 1 post from a random source that MIGHT have been interesting - it was average. 16 pointless memes on topics I'm not interested in.

(61) The Scientific Atheist. I don't follow these but I see posts sometimes, sometimes clever. They've degenerated largely to memes, but I allow them for now. Not liked, not hidden. Average.
(62) Best Comics. Memes. Hide All.
(63) Sgt Scholar. As above. Intelligence and informative history post.
(64) Old Classic Cartoons. Film-based meme. Hide All.
(65) Introverts are Awesome. Stupid meme. I don't want memes. Hide All.
(66) ESPN. I think this is a US sports channel. Don't want. Hide All.
(67) Animals Are The Best. Animal meme. Not even a good one. Hide All.
(68) Etesh Brayo. Philosophy meme. Philosophy is good, but can't be reduced to one-liner quotes. Don't dumb-down knowledge. Hide All.
(69) The SkepDick. A paraody of the awesome Skep Chic? In this case, a stupid meme. Hide All.
(70) Radio Free Europe. Random Kate Bush photo. She awesome. But I don't want entertainment swamping out everything else. Hide All.
(71) AsWithin SoWithout. Random quote meme. Hide All.
(72) The Economist. I follow these. Great informational post, with info-graphic. The post regularly. Why do so few show up in my feed? Liked.
(73) New Humanist Magazine. Yay, I follow these. Liked & commented.
(74) Game Rant. Random gaming meme. I've already done Hide-All, so this time it's X-to-Close-Mark-Not-Interested. Makes no difference though.
(75) Witty Comics. Stupid funny meme thing. Hide All.
(76) Matthew Schott. A truly random post about him being in Cyprus. Name is completely unknown to me. No idea at all why it's in my feed. Hide All.
(77) Britain For All. Anti-extremist group. Funny post with no content, but, I permit it. Not liked, not hidden. Average.
(78) Rene Stoldt completely random post. He's in Hamburg. FB may FINALLY be running out of random meme-factory-outlets to show me. Maybe, in another 100 hours of Hide-All activity, it will show me more posts from people I follow, and less random rubbish. Hide All.
(79) Entertainment Daily UK. Hide All.
(80) Britain For All. I follow these. Yay. A post about Nigel Farage and Andrew Tate's stupidity. Liked & commented.

Last 20 posts: 4 posts from people I follow. 2 random posts that were more-or-less stuff I was interested in. 14 pointless stupid memes.

(81) Il rock è la miglior musica del mondo. Random music meme. Hide All.
(82) The New York Times. Celebrity athlete post. I'll ignore, as NYT are potentially a good news source. Not liked, not Hide All. Average.
(83) BEHEMOTH! Post from a band I've liked. Liked.
(84) Daily Highlight. Celebrity/film/advert/meme. Don't want anything on those topics. Hide All.
(85) Threshold. Their bio says 'we're here to update you on flight sim'..... what? Why is it here? Hide All.
(86) ͒͠O͒͠n͒͠ Crack ͡º ͜ʖ ͡º Ö́n̈́ Memes. Hide All.
(87) The Brussels Times. I follow these. They post many times a day, so why do I see so little from them, and so much other random rubbish instead? Liked.
(88) Tim Mitchell. Random historical photo about John Cage, who I think is an actor. Don't want celebrity or film memes. Hide All.
(89) CBRPNK. Blade Runner meme. Awesmoe film, full of depth. But I don't want commentary in meme format. Hide All.
(90) Thinking Is Power. A pro-critical-thinking post. Yay! If they post more good stuff, I might follow them. Liked.
(91) ProgPower USA. Pointless funny meme. Not interested. Hide All.
(92) Cinephilia Memes+. Hide All.
(93) The New York Times. Acceptable (see above). Not liked though.
(94) Web Stash. Stupid meme. Hide All.
(95) The Holy Church of Love Island. A celebrity-themed-meme that makes no sense to me. Go away! Hide All.
(96) Council Cuisines..Eat out & takeaways. A food post or meme or something. Can't really tell. Pointless. Hide All.
(97) The Credible Hulk. Yay, I follow this. Liked.
(98) Andrew King utterly random post. Why is this here? Hide All.
(99) OK! Magazine UK. Trash. Hide All.
(100) The far side. Endless comic photos. Hide All.

Final 20 posts: 2 random post that I could be interested in. 3 posts from pages I follow. 15 stupid memes and trash.

An introduction to the biblical book of Jonah

An introduction to the biblical book of Jonah.

God punishes Jonah with a storm and has a monstrous fish eat him, until he relents and preaches to the city of Nineveh that it will be destroyed. He didn't want to, because he didn't think it would be destroyed, and he didn't want to be a false prophet. After being bullied into it, God changes his mind, and doesn't destroy Nineveh.

The teachings in the Book of Jonah are that God punishes those who are disobedient and rewards those who are obedient, and if you murder someone at sea then all is well as long as you fear God. Also, if you are in an unequal relationship, it is best to simply do as you are told, else, things will only end up harder for you. It's not the Bible's finest moment.

Historically, the book lacks legitimacy. Nineveh was the capital of the great Assyrian empire and at no point did the events of Jonah 3:5-10 actually occur - not a single trader, traveller, statesman or historian note that the entire population suddenly gave up its old ways and embraced a new religion.

http://www.humanreligions.info/jonah.html.

The Food Chain and God: The Natural Evil of the World

A new page! "The Food Chain and God".

A good god could, if it wanted to, have designed all life so that it is directly sustained by manna from heaven, with no need for consumption of biological matter. But almost every form of life must by its very nature capture, kill and eat other living beings in order to survive. Without this murderous torment, life is impossible. If not by direct consumption, then, organisms must still acquire biological matter at the expense of others: the competition for food is also a case of living beings being required to outdo each other merely to survive. There is no way to live life along a principal of do no harm.

If life was created, and not simply the result of undirected unconscious evolution, this is surely the worst possible way to have created life. A god could not have created a more vicious cycle if it tried: tying the very existence of life with the necessary killing of other life is the work of an evil genius, not of an all-powerful and all-loving god. Either no god ever instigated life or guided it, or, such a god is monstrously evil.

The contents menu is:

1. The Arms Race: Poisons and Resistance
2. The Despair of Darwin
3. Non-Biological Energy and Balance

What is Fundamentalism?

Fundamentalism is the approach to religion that sees believers embrace an early form of their religion, to consider it beyond criticism and worthy enough to be enforced without having to accommodate modern evidence or logical arguments against it. Fundamentalists of text-based traditions treat a core holy text as infallible and inerrant. Because beliefs are given absolute importance, fundamentalism is often sectarian and intolerant: every doctrinal interpretation results in schism and division.

http://www.humanreligions.info/what_is_fundamentalism.html.

Buddhism, Confucianism, Humanism, Jainism, Taoism, Raelism, Scientology and other movements are all religious but don't have a belief in god(s). This confuses westerners in particular, who often equate religion with god-belief to such an extent that they can't imagine being religious without it. "Atheist Religions"

The contents menu is:

1. An Introduction to Atheism and Secularism
2. Introductions to Some Atheist Religions
   1. Buddhism is an Atheist Religion
   2. Confucianism
   3. Humanism
   4. Jainism
   5. Taoism / Daoism
   6. UFO Religions
3. Atheist Religions Tend to be Kinder and More Compassionate Than Theist Religions

Human Rights and Freedom in Ethiopia

The first round of international treaties on human rights began in the 1940s after the founding of the United Nations. For the following few decades, Ethiopia regularly signed and ratified almost all such treaties, except a few. However since 1989, it has signed only two, and, ratified only one.

For full details and statistics, see: Human Rights and Freedom in Ethiopia by Vexen Crabtree.

Five updates on pages on Christianity

1. Iyyobh, in the Jewish Book of Truth - Known to Christians as the Book of Job: I've added a paragraph to the introduction on this page on the theological problems in the story of Job, and 2 sections to this page: (1) God Testing People in The Bible, and (2) God as the Author of Evil: Are Satan and God Interchangeable?

2. Jesus Did Not Exist: I have added a long introductory paragraph, and added multiple quotes from Bart Ehrman and a bit from Karen Armstrong. This page needs a lot of work - there are several important books and authors on this topic that I ought to be mentioning (for example the dry Richard Carrier and the impassioned Acharya S). The parts on the birth of Jesus and on his death will be revamped too at some point.

3. The Book of Revelation: Some notes on authorship and symbolism.

4. The Birth of Jesus and the Christmas Story: Pagan and Unhistorical: I have revamped this page... given it an introduction before the menu, added notes from Prof. Bart Ehrman on historical proofs, and added a few other bits throughout the page.

5. Incest in the Bible: Adam and Eve and Their Children, and Noah and His Family: I've added a note on Warren Steed Jeffs, the President of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a spin-off from the Mormons).He got himself on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" on account of the scale of his sex crimes within his congregation, including sex with minors and incest. And I've added some paragraphs on the Parsis (Zoroastrians) in Hong Kong, where religious inhibitions against marrying outside causes severe problems with the 100-strong community. Zoroastrianism and its dogmas influenced Judaism, Chritsianity and Islam.

Current stuff

In order of priority, I am:

* Looking after my little boy while I'm not at work. Finishes in about 16 years.

* Doing final course essay for Religious Education module going towards degree. Finish in early October.

* Penultimate RE essay (1000 words, easy). Finish in a week.

* Studying/revising for Com Sys Eng degree; including Microsoft and Cisco CCNA exams - during the week. Finishing them all in December.

And stuff I sqeeze it when taking a break:

* Programming Moggy, my music playing software.

* Light maintenance / editting of web domains and occasional programming/improving of Ziggy, my content-management software.

And stuff which has been completely abandoned for a number of years, mostly because although they were fun, they just take too long:

* Baphomet Method (music project)

* SquaddieWars (Facebook game, asp.net platform)

Uni

I am mostly studying at the moment, and not doing website stuff. This year I'm doing a foundation degree in Communications System Engineering, for which I'm always revising for Cisco and Microsoft exams, and I'm doing another module towards my Open University degree in social sciences with religious studies.

The Gospels and the Crucifixion - Differences in style

I have updated "The Crucifixion Facade" by Vexen Crabtree (2002) with a few biggish quotes from Bart Ehrman on the gospels' accounts of the crucifixion. Whilst there are well-known contradictions between thses accounts (who'd have thought that various people could have thought Jesus' last words were so different?!!), Ehrman's quotes summarize the totality of the style of these differences, and is the best summary on this topic. Find the quotes in section 3 of that page.

Anti-Jewish Violence by Muslims, in Europe

I've added a new section to "Anti-Semitism: 2000 Years of Christian Love" by Vexen Crabtree (2004):

10. The Growing Violence of Muslim Antisemitism in Europe


The European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia's report on the subject of growing and violent anti-Jew crimes in the EU found that that largest group of perpetrators were young Muslim males. Because of this, the EUMC withheld publication (until it was leaked). The report summarized country-by-country events, including large rallies against Jews by hundreds of Muslims chanting "kill the Jews", and no end of other incidents. Throughout the West, violent anti-semitism is correlated with Muslim immigration.

“Since 2000, anti-Semitism in France has been epidemic. Synagogues have been burned down, schools vandalized, shops attacked, rabbis beaten, children assaulted, school buses shot at, [...]. At Muslim demonstrations shouts of "Death to the Jews" have become common. [For example in 2004] an assailant shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Great") stabbed another seventeen-year-old Jewish boy in the chest in another suburb of Paris [as he left a Jewish school].”
--Bruce Bawer (2006)

How to fix newspapers

I have added a section to my critical page on the Mass Media, with regards to newspapers and cheap sensationalist journalism, and their negative effects on individuals and society. Here is a bit of the next text, view the rest by clicking on the title, above!

• Stronger international laws against the public spreading of disinformation. Broadcasters should be placed under extra legal obligation to check facts. Many journalists avoid legal trouble by claiming that they don't know what stories are true or not. So, if it is scandalous and it will sell, then, they publish it without checking (or admitting) their sources. There needs to be an international body that specifically deals with mass-media outlets, proscribing to them a greater responsibility to check their facts, with the ability to suspend printing or publication once a certain amount of abuse has built up.
  
  
• Journalists should be required to be a member of a journalist association, which they get kicked out of if they produce very low quality information. Many developed countries already have such associations. It should especially be the case in wire agencies, from which most other news outlets get their news.

Some methods of curbing the press's abuses are good-hearted, but occasionally dysfunctional:

• "In 2008 the Slovak parliament introduced one to guarantee the subject of a story the right to reply, of the same length and prominence as the original" - this sounds good, because the idea is that the press will have to print criticisms of itself in its own papers with such frequency that they will be compelled only to publish accurate information. There is however a very unfortunate second part to that law - the right to reply stands even if the facts were correct. This would seem to me to lead to a barrage of responses from politicians and lawyers that abuse the right-to-reply principal, in effect, ending the ability of the press to be critical. In a healthy democracy, the press must free to be critical of governments and institutions.
  
  
• In Poland, an old law gives sources the authority to withdraw or edit quotations right up until the point of publication41. So when a paper tries to quote someone out of context, as they are often eager to do, the subject can withdraw their quote. Unfortunately, it seems like it can again be abused by officials to ruin newspaper stories in order to hide truth.
  

In short, it appears to be very difficult to concoct laws that allow individuals to protect themselves against ridiculous press stories, but where instititons and democracies are still subject to critical journalism without fear of recriminations. What would be an ideal is a world where consumers, as pointed out above, avoid the more outlandish papers, and where editors and journalists only try to produce responsible pieces. Unfortunately, neither is likely to happen.

United Kingdom: National Successes and Social Failures

I have redesigned my website on the UK; it still has the same-old pages on British trash culture; religion, secularisation and religious minorities; UK immigration, and summaries of why others in the world might dislike us British, and what the UK gets right as a country (our down to Earth nature lets us avoid extreme politics and fundamentalism, for example).

Vexen Crabtree's New Pages in 2005

2005 Dec 28	"Christian Prayer" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 24	"Satanism: The Natural Religion (Forget the New Age!)" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 18	"Blasphemy Laws in the UK" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Dec 11	"Christmas: The Multicultural Celebration" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Aug 29	"The Goodguy Badge": Vexen's page on LaVey's term describing the shallow things people do to look and feel 'good'
2005 Aug 16	The International Date Format (ISO-8601): Vexen's appraisal of the YYYY MMM DD date format
2005 Aug 15	Doubled size of ""If there is a God, it Must be an Evil God" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Aug 14	"Satanism as the Worship of Truth and Reality", according to Vexen
2005 Aug 13	How does Acupuncture Work? Scientific studies included. Summary by Vexen
2005 Aug 07	"Military Drill: Its Theory & Purpose" by Vexen Crabtree Vexen Sociology: The Importance of Current Events is Amplified by our Egos
2005 Jul 20	Pornography: Vexen on the porn industry
2005 Jul 20	Hellraiser films; Reviews and Commentary on Hellraiser, the Cenobites, Pinhead. By Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jun 04	If Vexen Crabtree was God, what would he do? And why doesn't God do these things?
2005 May 28	"Cultural Religion and Scholarly Religion" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 May 03	Vexen shows that Biblical Christianity Completely And Specifically Denies All Free Will
2005 May 01	"Satanism is a Different Religion to Christianity!" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Apr 24	New website on politics and countries, including new essay "Which Country Sets the Best Examples in the World?" by Vexen
2005 Apr 10	God never needs to "test" us, it already knows what we'll do
2005 Mar 22	"Prayer is useless and satanic, not godly" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Mar 20	New dream pages: Dream Interpretation, The Biology of Dreams and Nightmares and Night Terrors
2005 Mar 19	New page on "Homosexuality" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 31	"Fascism and Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 27	"Equality, Egalitarianism and Social Stratification in Satanism" by Vexen Crabtree
2005 Jan 25	Friedrich Nietzsche on Vexen's A to Z of Satanism page
2005 Jan 06	List of pages on Buddhism by Vexen

Archive of Vexen Crabtree's Live Journal entries in 2005