this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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internet funeral
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it is truly devestating to see the state the internet and world is in. At least I know that communities are fighting back in many ways, although what they're fighting against is powerful, both in real life and the internet.
But hey, that's why I'm here, I believe in the fact that community projects (The Fediverse in this case) can thrive on their own, without having monetary incentive.
The internet has endless quality content (including porn) for free and is still a place where you can have fun while being completely anonymous.
The world has never been more peaceful and prosperous.
I don't get how either is worse than, say, 20 years ago. Stop being so fucking pessimistic all the time. It is what you make it.
While the number of wars is less than 20 years ago there is an uneven but increasing trend for the past decade. Last year casualties were also more than at least 89 apart from a huge spike in 94. Amount of refugees has also been increasing in the past decade a little bit faster than the world population has.
Despite these facts, globally things are not at least yet out of hand. At the same time, there are many countries, especially in the West where current politicians are dismantling social security nets and human rights legislation. We are also increasingly seeing the effect of climate change on conflicts and displacement. Famine is thankfully rarer than ever before but we are so badly behind on any environmental action that it is pretty much guaranteed to happen more and more. I might be less pessimistic if the climate crisis weren't staring us right at our faces. In general, historically things have gotten better and better with some lows. If we had time, we could probably sort ourselves out. There are also a lot of very smart people that could help with the existential threat but after the past decade, I don't trust that they will be allowed to fix it.
You can also only be almost completely anonymous if you know what you are doing. The majority of people don't know how. While data gathered from default users might officially be anonymized, the amount of data collected will often make you pretty easily identified. Zero-click spyware that has already been used against political opponents while not relevant to most average Joes do exist.
The world can't be pulled up by your bootstraps. Most defeating is that you can do anything in your power and things still get worse. Yes, I might have more than a touch of secondary trauma but activism these days feels like hitting your head on the wall repeatedly. You can't stop people from dying. You risk ending up in jail in too many countries that you once thought were civilized. And you are once again marching again Nazis when they sit in parliament in too many countries.
I think it's completely insane to say that any of that is worse now than it ever was. Luckily you only meet pessimism like this in sheltered online echo chambers, so busy whining about Elon Musk or "Google bad" or other irrelevant bullshit, that they can't see beyond their own bubble of ignorance.
The fact that Twitter is dying or websites are collecting more cookies is not a world crisis. The rest of these issues are just caused by USA's capitalist greed, and no amount of activism is changing that, evidently.
I didn't say it is worse than it ever was. Just saying it is not the best it ever was either.
My perspective comes from the fact that I am an aid worker and human rights activist. This has nothing to do with online discourse. My perspective is also not only found in online echo chambers. It is common among my colleagues. I am not referring to Twitter dying. I don't care about that. And yes, activism is at least in my field of activism pretty damn ineffective. That doesn't mean we should stop trying.
I do see a major connection between commercialized online spaces and our inability to effectively communicate and problemsolve as a society.