Does anyone else feel as if it's over when it comes to really owning your own things?
As of now:
- You don't have the option of having a phone with decent specs and replaceable parts
- You have to have really good knowledge in tech to have private services that are on par with what the big companies offer
- You have to put up with annoying compatibility issues if you install a custom ROM on your android phone
- You cannot escape apps preventing you from using them if you root your device
- Cars are becoming SaaS bullcrap
- Everything is going for a subscription model in general
And now Google is attempting to implement DRM on websites. If that goes through, Firefox is going to be relegated to privacy conscious websites (there aren't many of those). At this point, why even bother? Why do I go to great lengths at protecting my privacy if it means that I can't use most services I want?
It sucks because the obvious solution is for people to move away from these bullshit companies and show that they actually care about their privacy. Even more important is to actually PAY for services they like instead of relying on free stuff. I'm not optimistic not just because the non privacy conscious side is lazy, but because my side is greedy. I mean one of the most popular communities on lemmy is "piracy" which makes it all the more reasonable for companies not to listen to privacy conscious people.
I wouldn't say that this is the endgame but in this trajectory, privacy is gone before 2030.
You will forever have these feelings, if you have a better world than the status quo in mind. Be careful to not be overwhelmed by them, if you suffer too much long term you could give up or become a cynic. Nothing is perfect, we strive to make better systems (and smartphones).
“Just pretend this dystopia is a utopia and you’ll be fine!”
Nuance status: out the window
I find it hard to play make believe as an adult.
I mean “You’re right. Everything is fine.”
You threw out the baby with the bathwater here.. they're saying you can be hopeful while still facing reality. Hopelessness like this is useless. Woe is me, let's do nothing. Worthless perspective tbqh
Who said I do nothing?
I’m on the leadership board for my local political party’s senate district as a Table Officer.
I help field manage and campaign with leftist candidates door knocking weekly (edit: and my candidates win).
I’m pretty involved.
Maybe I do those things because of my “worthless perspective”… but… what do you do?
How are you making change? What are you doing besides throwing insults at a person who is helping, especially when volunteers are so hard to come by?
Edit: As you can tell, I’m all “woe is me, let’s do nothing…”
Your perspective stated above doesn’t align with my idea of someone who would be politically active. I’m glad you are fighting the good fight instead of simply participating in slacktivism, and I wasn’t trying to imply that you personally did nothing. I’m implying that your stated perspective above discourages action by instilling a sense of hopelessness.
I am also politically active although not to the degree you are; I participate in protests and mutual aid as well as other smaller forms of political activism. I do as much as I can given my mental health, which is an ever increasing amount as I grow and heal.
If you are participating in politics, you should know that perspective and optics are massively important. Saying “we’re all doomed and there’s no point!” can be harmful, actually. Maybe it helps motivate you, but for most people it’s disheartening.
Awesome, but who said there’s no point? Like, literally. Where?
Maybe you implied that from what I said, but there was no such verbiage.
It’s important to be clear in communicating. I’m sorry that you misunderstood one throw-away line and made an assumption of who I was based on that.
And thank you for the reply, sincerely.
While the fault may be mine for my assumption, it's also good to analyze why someone might construe your comment in that way. Have a nice day!
I appreciate the tone! Have a good one.
Where is the soma we were promised?
No just don't pretend we live in a dystopia, things could be worse. Could be better as well though...
Lmao but it's real??? They don't need to pretend.. are you aware of the DRM situation?
Who’s pretending?
If you think this is a dystopia, I have a lot of books for you to read.
There's a lot of dystopian shit going down, but (assuming you hail from a first world country) we are definitively not living in one.
Wean yourself off news media, limit your consumption of it. They literally make their money through keeping eyes watching. The easiest way to do that is to keep viewers feeling like there are ongoing crises constantly and to stoke visceral emotional response in their readership/viewership as much as possible.
This is not some issue siloed off to news organizations that lean to one political side or the other, it is an inherent result of how they all generate revenue in the modern age. They are all optimizing for ad impressions.
These are hard times, not end times.
Your suggestions are appreciated but they were not asked for - I don’t like pretending.
My wife is a journalism major and I’m very involved locally in politics.
Weaning myself off the news won’t make the planet any cooler during this time.
Weaning myself off the news doesn’t stop those with money and influence from being above the law.
Weaning myself off the news doesn’t change anything, except make me less informed.
Ignorance may be bliss to some, but to others it’s just ignorance. Downvote away, but honestly I’ll stick to this until we have an actual Utopia (without slaves).
Fuck yeah, this is the right attitude. It absolutely takes more mental effort and acuity to shift through the piles of absolute bullshit produced by modern media to generate rage and clicks and engagement, however, expending that energy to do so is so fucking important.
Checking out and being like "the news makes me too upset" is kind of part of the problem. Honestly, if you're not fucking furious every minute of every day for the horrors modern humans suffer under the richest nations on the planet, you're not paying the fuck attention, and that's on you.
And here we have an intense difference in world view.
If you're actually "fucking furious every minute of every day", you have a serious emotional issue. And you're hiding behind this idea that reading more news has any reflection on mental acuity to justify it. Effort, hell yes it takes more effort, but fuck off with elitism over your righteous anger.
You don't need to sift through all the piles of absolute bullshit to stay informed, or to be aware of all the horroble shit in the world. It doesn't take a concentrated effort to be aware. It does take a concentrated effort to stay emotionally invested in things that don't directly effect you, and I'm of the opinion that effort is much better spent taking action, or simply doing what you can to better your small slice of the world every day.
Unfortunately it is extremely unlikely for any of us to have significant impact on large scale issues in the world. Stay reasonably informed, do what you can, and get on with your life. No sense in wallowing when there's far better uses of time and energy.
My man are you for real? You commented in a public forum on the internet. You're going to get unasked for feedback/advice/shit talking/commentary. That's just how things work.
And no one's asking you to pretend, whatever you mean by that. I'm assuming you mean that it's impossible to accept that this world is not a dystopia, so doing otherwise requires one to pretend?
I'm asserting that we are not living in a dystopia as you and many others repeatedly claim. Maybe you disagree, but it's not something that I personally have to pretend. Again I'll repeat the last sentence of my last comment: These are hard times, not end times.
Plus, there's a whole spectrum of news media exposure between "drinking from the fire hose" and "burying your head in the sand". Everyone should stay informed, but there's a lot in the news that only serves to get emotional response over things that have no impact on your life, where knowing of it does not convey any significant value besides emotional effect.
I have seen far too many people actively contribute to their own mental issues due to feeling some obligation to engage in news that has no direct impact on their lives, or that they can do nothing about but worry. Additionally, being aware of the emotional and psychological effects of media exposure does not make you in any way immune to it. I know way too many people suffering from depression and anxiety related issues directly and significantly exacerbated by how much they consume news media, which is why I have a hard time keeping my trap shut about this.
Moving past that, being married to a journalism major is not the supporting argument you may think it is. Of course you would bristle at the idea that news media may be harmful when you are married to someone who spent years training to be in that industry. I'm not saying any of this as an attack on journalists themselves or as an attack on caring about what is going on in the world. Ideally journalists and news organizations serve a vital part of keeping people informed, which is vital to a good society and proper political process. Unfortunately the entire way that news media makes money to continue to exist in the modern era is entirely dependant on optimizing for views, which means optimizing for emotional impact.
Your slightly condescending tone is obscuring a decent message. I agree with you.
You have to at least be able to imagine a utopia to begin creating one, just being unhappy about our collective distopia isn't gonna help anyone. Systems created and made up of people can be destroyed by people, it's very difficult but it can be done, and if we think we're in a dystopia there's good reason to destroy some systems.
Thanks for the reply. I help locally :)
People who use the word Utopia like this don't seem to be that familiar with what Utopia was actually described to be like in the story the word came from.
I think "utopia" is actually a pretty apt description of what tech companies would like society to be like. An isolated island, with strict hierarchies if who control who, severe punishments for dissenters, a slavery based economy. Removal of the people who become a burden through willing euthanasia or other means, a lack of private property, with travel between sections restricted by internal passports. It seems control and a hard-working, sheepish population are what Utopia thrives on.
By all means, I think the Chinese state is the closest to the description of Utopia. Utopia is quite dystopic!
See below, my dude. Said w/out slaves… I read the book in 11th grade.
Cynicism, i.e. the view that everyone else has base motivations, is the definition of a self-fulfilling prophesy. You're cynical? Well, soon everyone around you will be too, and where will we be then? All the politicians are crooks and phonies? Well, they sure will be soon if everyone voting for them thinks that. In fact, as far as I can see, cynicism is the rule across the world, and look at the state most countries are in. For comparison (there aren't many), check out the world's least cynical countries - i.e., those with the highest social trust, where people believe that "others are basically good", where they trust their politicians. I won't name them (you can guess them) but those countries just happen to have the best indicators on pretty much every measure of success - not just economic wealth but also all the social indicators and indeed happiness. To me at least, the connection is plain obvious. Being a cynic is a choice, and a completely counterproductive one if you want to see good things in the world.
Skepticism, on the other hand? I'm all in on that.
I disagree.
/nihilist
Yeah I guess it never really was perfect. But this one really caught me off guard since I took it for granted that the web is more free than the walled gardens that Google and Apple make. But the FOSS community is making some cool stuff these days that we gotta focus on.