The real brain melter was the societal culture shift.
I grew up witnessing “the end of history” with my own eyes. People were getting wiser and kinder year after year, decade after decade. It was like a feedback loop of positive changes, the only way was up.
Then 2010s hit and I’m still processing the 180 degrees shift. I read dozens of books about nazis, authoritarianism, societal memory, cults, fucking roman empire. But I still have cognitive dissonance every time I open news feed.
Eh, I still think people are generally pretty nice to each other. The problem is that when that same nice person goes online, they behave differently. The more time we spend online, the more impact that “alter ego” has on our “IRL” personality.
So what we need is more IRL connection, but we’re instead spending more and more time online.
The real brain melter was the societal culture shift.
I grew up witnessing “the end of history” with my own eyes. People were getting wiser and kinder year after year, decade after decade. It was like a feedback loop of positive changes, the only way was up.
Then 2010s hit and I’m still processing the 180 degrees shift.
Fucking thank you! This has been hard for me to put into words. (I’m on the older end of Gen-X)
From “The Hunt for Red October”, to “you shouldn’t have started the war against russia then.”
Red Dawn to half+ our leadership bowing down to him, and a president calling him a good guy.
God damn what a wild ride.
The internet came way too quickly, or at least it evolved way too quickly for us. We should still be on 56k and surfing Limewire for what may or may not be what we’re actually looking for. 24/7 access to everyone all around the country, and world, was too fast as well. We can’t acclimate that fast. Our brains weren’t ready for it.
Holy shit thank you. You finally put it into words for me. The shift of 'the internet is the greatest tool for knowledge, to what it is now, some cancerous corpo bloated bullshit that ignorant people are harnessing just to find others to support their shitty beliefs. Been such a hard thing to watch and understand how the fuck we got here.
The shift of 'the internet is the greatest tool for knowledge, to what it is now, some cancerous corpo bloated bullshit
Spot on.
The worst part is that anyone who wasn’t around for the first 10ish years of the web has never seen how real and optimistic and grass roots and delightfully human it was.
I’m reminded of this article from a couple of days ago in the Globe and Mail, specifically as a response to Musk’s anti-empathy comments: Empathy is not a Weakness, it’s a Strength
Empathy is easily used for propaganda as well. All those “immigrants are going to r your wife” and “radical elites transing your children” are the appeals to empathy that work very well (there are examples from the left too lets be honest, they’re just less unhinged)
IMO you need empathy, rationality and introspection: empathy to feel for your fellow human, rationality to not fall for the grift, introspection to realize in what ways you were an idiot and self-correct.
The wave of scepticism that will inevitably come in 2030s will weed out the grifters, but I doubt it’ll last. Time is a flat circle afterall.
Facebook and unregulated social media. Up to now most governments in the world don’t even have a clue or idea that the internet is a very powerful tool that should actually be regulated because there are very evil people who will always act in bad faith to manipulate others for power and control. The Golden era of the internet is definitely over, I think 2016 was a defined shift that will be recorded by historians.
it’s all about how the regulations are designed… for the benefit of corporations? or regular people?
for example, there could easily be rules placing caps on the amount of advertising that’s allowed on any given platform. no fucking way now the government will ever put that cat back in the bag now that the 20 percent of GDP comes from tech monopolies fueled by advertisements.
The real brain melter was the societal culture shift.
I grew up witnessing “the end of history” with my own eyes. People were getting wiser and kinder year after year, decade after decade. It was like a feedback loop of positive changes, the only way was up.
Then 2010s hit and I’m still processing the 180 degrees shift. I read dozens of books about nazis, authoritarianism, societal memory, cults, fucking roman empire. But I still have cognitive dissonance every time I open news feed.
Eh, I still think people are generally pretty nice to each other. The problem is that when that same nice person goes online, they behave differently. The more time we spend online, the more impact that “alter ego” has on our “IRL” personality.
So what we need is more IRL connection, but we’re instead spending more and more time online.
Fucking thank you! This has been hard for me to put into words. (I’m on the older end of Gen-X)
From “The Hunt for Red October”, to “you shouldn’t have started the war against russia then.”
Red Dawn to half+ our leadership bowing down to him, and a president calling him a good guy.
God damn what a wild ride.
The internet came way too quickly, or at least it evolved way too quickly for us. We should still be on 56k and surfing Limewire for what may or may not be what we’re actually looking for. 24/7 access to everyone all around the country, and world, was too fast as well. We can’t acclimate that fast. Our brains weren’t ready for it.
That’s the saddest thing about people born after the 90s. We expected the future to get better. Kids now are just hoping we don’t destroy everything.
Holy shit thank you. You finally put it into words for me. The shift of 'the internet is the greatest tool for knowledge, to what it is now, some cancerous corpo bloated bullshit that ignorant people are harnessing just to find others to support their shitty beliefs. Been such a hard thing to watch and understand how the fuck we got here.
Spot on.
The worst part is that anyone who wasn’t around for the first 10ish years of the web has never seen how real and optimistic and grass roots and delightfully human it was.
We really lost a lot.
We used to think pop ups were the worst that could happen. Good god were we wrong.
I think it’s lack of empathy as the root for everything.
Which I believe is opposite of human nature but here we are.
I’m reminded of this article from a couple of days ago in the Globe and Mail, specifically as a response to Musk’s anti-empathy comments: Empathy is not a Weakness, it’s a Strength
Empathy is easily used for propaganda as well. All those “immigrants are going to r your wife” and “radical elites transing your children” are the appeals to empathy that work very well (there are examples from the left too lets be honest, they’re just less unhinged)
IMO you need empathy, rationality and introspection: empathy to feel for your fellow human, rationality to not fall for the grift, introspection to realize in what ways you were an idiot and self-correct.
The wave of scepticism that will inevitably come in 2030s will weed out the grifters, but I doubt it’ll last. Time is a flat circle afterall.
I see your point but I don’t think you’re describing empathy as much as fear in your examples.
There are some who think time is shaped like a Jeremy Bearamy…
Facebook and unregulated social media. Up to now most governments in the world don’t even have a clue or idea that the internet is a very powerful tool that should actually be regulated because there are very evil people who will always act in bad faith to manipulate others for power and control. The Golden era of the internet is definitely over, I think 2016 was a defined shift that will be recorded by historians.
In fairness, most internet users would have been extremely against regulating social media until quite recently
it’s all about how the regulations are designed… for the benefit of corporations? or regular people?
for example, there could easily be rules placing caps on the amount of advertising that’s allowed on any given platform. no fucking way now the government will ever put that cat back in the bag now that the 20 percent of GDP comes from tech monopolies fueled by advertisements.
Early internet was very much regulated. I wish we could all just go back to usenet and no internet on phones.
it was only regulated by its uselessness… it was the wild west of shit otherwise.
Regulated by my uselessness…
KICK MIDWEST.SOCIAL cabinet_sanchez "Fuck youu’
Nice, you’re spot on. We bonded for a while… now we’re in entropy!