I used to love the internet, when it was much younger (late 80s, early 90s), unfortunately the whole world joined in, which was supposedly the dream, and for a moment, a sorta-reality. We have some explaining to do on what this big shitstorm really means for the world and what it does not:
- It unites the whole world and allows us freedom to communicate. Unfortunately "whole world" means we must also include the scum of the earth. I think us computer scientists got a real wake up call as to just how much scum is indeed on the earth. I wonder if we knew these numbers prior to this, would we still have decided to go ahead and make a network that connected everyone?
- It creates false opinions about people or categorizes them into groups. I am late to the party on purpose. Because I hate participating in current threads because they more often than not turn into an arguing gallery or a finger pointing contest, marked up with snarky stupid comments that don't even matter. I am here for one reason, to add my opinion, nothing else. I have had decades of trolls at my feet, and I am through. People think necroposters are all inexperienced or are just intentional asstrolls.
- The truth is, anyone who says that hasn't been online long enough to know the entire scope of things. You can't categorize people, and most of the internet is a machine for doing just that. In fact, it is encouraged.
- It promotes (and profits from) self-indulging behavior. Take content farms for example, they thrive on taking stupid "highly sought" information and group them up and target those groups for the sole purpose of turning ad profit. And the culture byproduct it creates is pure garbage. It encourages people to give in to gluttony of the mind. Many media sites are now crossing that line as well. And I won't even get into the whole porn aspect of the internet, another silent but deadly terror.
- It contradicts itself by circumventing freedoms and opinions. Opinions no longer matter in 2023. Comments were shut down across the last 5 years, everywhere. You'd be lucky to find a news media website that actually allowed comments from the general public. Why is this? Because of all the trolls, yes maybe. But more likely, because nobody likes being proven wrong in situations where their reputation is on the line. After all, we have entire companies whose task it is to go out and delete content that could mess up your reputation, illegal as that sounds, its legal. They even advertise on the radio, and have been for at least 10 years now.
- It destroys youth behind the scenes. Parents, don't kid yourself. If you let your kids have an internet connection in their room, or a phone, that is unrestricted, you are basically letting everyone in the world into their room. Whether you want to believe it or not. Would you let them bring in a crowd from the bad part of downtown, of course not. But by doing this you are. And most "restricted" connections are easily bypassed, all it takes is a little meddling. Kids learn how to get around such things from other kids at school. Grooming, trafficking, sex sites, you name it, it all ends up being right there for your kids to be exposed to. This highly correlates with items covered above in self-indulging behavior promotion.
- It is a playground for antinformation. Many media websites are crossing the line into providing facts on a sliding scale of their choosing. Leave out vital facts or explain things in the incorrect fashion and you can create the truth you want, as opposed to the actual truth. Skewing the data isn't anything new, but it is dangerous. It used to be just limited to television media, newspaper. Things we only gave a little of our time to. Now everyone from little children to the elderly are constantly exposed to this skewing of the data, thanks to IOT, which causes just about anything that plugs in to be connected to the internet which in turn means media has full access to deliver their unending batches of shit.
- It fueled the "spamdemic". I have never seen so many people fooled in all my life. I won't explain further. The people who are fooled are so hopelessly fooled even a black hole couldn't pull them in the other direction. It proves how scary misinformation can be when used by the media and government. Because you have been bombarded with videos and skewed data, you think its "gotta be right". But nobody actually questioned why, and those who did were roasted as all whistleblowers are. "How can we be lying if we are on television" seems to always win.
- It contributes greatly to the real pandemic: You know, the one where our governments are taking everyone's paycheck, cutting them in half by using a clever series of inflation techniques. Nobody questions it because it must be Russia's fault. Social media and news media are great platforms to further "fuel" this real pandemic. And anyone who opposes, even with a long list of credible sources, are thrown right to the wolves (or framed as a criminal, which ever comes first). If I were to blame anything, I would blame the pushers. You know, Google (not really google, Alphabet), AOL (and then Time Warner at the time), MindSpring. These companies made the push to get everyone on. Before this time, we had a network of people mainly interested in computers as a technology, many of which were scientists in some field or another. A few did learn enough computing to chat and communicate on newsgroups about something they were very into (like say, the titanic). Yeah we did still have a little bit of scum in there, but at least they were intelligent scum, not like the kind we have now. The government and news media walked in about a decade later like they were taking control of a crime scene and screwed everything up even further than AOL and MindSpring (and the companies like them) did--Coaster companies is what I called them--because they usually ended up being literal coasters for coffee cups. We had a dream, but this was not it, not by a longshot. The only hope we have left, is that the world will find something better, and leave, and then the ones who were here from the beginning can pick up the remaining pieces and try enjoy the time we have left here, if any. At this time though, all we can do is hope they might one day leave. So far, it is not looking good. I fear that many people have transformed into the other during this time. You've seen it right? It reaches beyond the WWW. Any remaining telnet, IRC, or other sites have become almost as bad, even the ones that have been there from the start. They have transmuted into the very filth we loathe. Some have because networks have forced them to, others by choice, its all the same, though. If you managed to read this "Why I hate the internet" and my take on "Why I think it is a shithole", then I thank you. I shall continue to hope that it may be like Pandora's box, with a ray of hope left when all other malevolent things leave. Somehow I feel unfulfilled in writing this, but I suppose that is how it goes. Good luck and take care, watch yourself out there in that cesspool!
TL;DR: aren't there too many people scrolling to the tl/dr section because they could care less to read a long post? why read at all?
In a german essay on the internet by a hacker group called chaos computer club, they described what they dreamed of the internet to be in the 80/90s and to me it was summarized in one word. Datengarten. Data garden. To me it means with work and effort from those who create and equally those who visit and consume and comment, we all can create a garden that we could all be proud of. Silly i know, knowing how as batmans buttler rightfully so said "some people just want to watch the world burn". How can we have nice things, if not everyone takes care on how they themselves contribute, being polite and at least trying to understand and if not giving the other (even only percieved as such) side the benefit of the doubt and not reading in your maybe insane minds voice the implid stance of someone who may not have been as good with words as you could be. Maybe the human you meet is a child and doesn't know yet, so why be rude and shout, if you could be calm and teach a valuable lesson as it was an innocent question that may have ticked you off. It could be someone old and how could someone young understand their position without knowing and on and on. It is as with the tower of bable, not different languages, but different voices from different universes that all think their own view is the only one that counts and anyone elses does not. Not seeing, that truth is at times depending on a perspectiv, but not having the mind or time to ask where the other comes from.
When i started out on the internet, it was around 1995 and it felt like rather a upbeat jolly place. That to me was lost not just by 9/11 but how the US, politicians and population reacted to that attack. First i felt their pain, but they lost me very soon with their agenda. That too me was the point where at least to me the internet lost its innocense as i went down for the first time a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, hate and propaganda, while what happened in reality was partially even worse. So yes i can see how you feel a loss for something that could have been, as i felt the loss of a promising future due to fascism, corporate greed, neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Everything afterwards seems like an extention and 2008 as a logical consequence. As studies have shown with such financial crises fascism has a field day and even now we feel its grasps. Here in germany, the ultra right demagogues get more power every year. just now we had an election that should give anyone chills, "but nobody seems to notice nobody seems to care ...". In the aftermath when the smoke clears again from the latest progrom, noone again wants to be responsible, but i see the corporations, their lobbyists and lawyers and their fat owners how they scuttle away like the parasitic rats they sometimes turn out to be and yet here i am using this kind of language making them feel anxious and therefor pointing towards socialisim as the evil and so i guess i need to clear my head and find another way to bring them around, see them rather as brothers, feel empathy for those who have everything in the hopes that some of them maybe feel empathy too and give others the chance to participate.
Still i haven't given up hope yet. There are good people trying to improve things. One scientist recently described how we could start with sorting out sociopaths, not allowing them into positions of power, may it be within corporations or governments. Maybe instead of then provoking wars, we get people who seek mutual understanding and have a respectful discourse and attend to relations like to a garden in reallife as on the internet.