11–20 of 33 posts
Oh, to be young again and believe in palpable nonsense like this: "markets are conversations" or "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy" or "we are immune to advertising" etc. Happy days.
I realize now that the leaders/notables of the movement were, for the most part, morally bankrupt careerists who all went to work in surveillance advertising. The worst are the lawyers but lots of the hackers are just as bad. The academics and activists moved from digital rights issues to identity social justice issues when it became trendy. Nobody gives a fuck about digital rights any more, if they ever did to begin with, and the only people who are left behind are embarrassingly out of touch with the real state of affairs.
I no longer think that the internet is a force for good in the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you believe now?
I'm not the one you're asking. But what I believe now is this: The Cluetrain approach largely lost. But the Manifesto did in fact represent how a lot of people felt. The complaints about what the net has become are, in essence, because the human approach lost and the impersonal corporations took over.
Oh, to be young again and believe in palpable nonsense like this: "markets are conversations" or "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy" or "we are immune to advertising" etc. Happy days.
I was thinking more like "Oh, to be young again and be able to have the memory of a twenty-something me again. Happy days." I saw the headline, and struggled to remember any details of the book, and ended up having to read a summary of it. I only remember reading the book and talking about it with coworkers during the dot-com craze.
Perhaps you remember the feeling and perhaps that you had fun buzzy conversations? That would mean those were the important parts, not the actual substance of the essay. Nothing wrong with that.
Perhaps you changed a bit as a result, even if you can't remember precisely what spurred the change. Nothing wrong with that either.
And I bet there are books you read back then chunks of which you remember (and other parts that are gone). Probably you remember the good parts.
I don't think your memory has necessarily gotten any worse -- if anything (given you're in your 40s by inference) it's probably gotten functionally better.
There was a scene of very well-meaning academics and young people in Cambridge around the Free Software/Free Culture movement and the Berkman Center in the early/mid/late 00's. There was a lot of idealism and a belief that digital interconnectedness was going to change the world for good. At the time, it was really fun and inspiring to be a part of. I realize now that the leaders/notables of the movement were, for th…
I personally think we are living through the "Empire Strikes Back" period -- a period where the conventional powers (political think tanks, advertisers, ideological and state propagandists, etc.) have learned to attack the Internet using its own systems (social media, forums, memes, etc.) and the Internet hasn't yet learned how to defend itself. This is probably peaking now with "peak social" and the explosion of hip and effective social media based state and political propaganda. I don't know what "Return of the Jedi" will look like, but I think it's likely coming. Some of the problems that need to be solved are technical but many are just a matter of people learning how to mentally filter BS in the new Internet era.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is like one of those movies that did not age well. Sort of like Mighty Ducks and Fight Club.
Oh I was about to watch Fight Club again, sad to hear that it didn't age well.
Oh, to be young again and believe in palpable nonsense like this: "markets are conversations" or "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy" or "we are immune to advertising" etc. Happy days.
There's been a lot of work on non-hierarchical networks but it's still a little too early. Unfortunately the block chain bubble also sucked all the air out of the room by causing decentralization to be connected with financial scams in many laypeople's minds and redirecting everyone's attention toward cryptocurrency me-too projects.
Oh, to be young again and believe in palpable nonsense like this: "markets are conversations" or "hyperlinks subvert hierarchy" or "we are immune to advertising" etc. Happy days.
All three of those notions failed because nobody yet understood the awesome power of network effects compounded by aspects of digital communication (incompatibility, fragility, performance benefits of hierarchical trees, security concerns) that encourage the formation of gravity wells in networks. There's been a lot of work on non-hierarchical networks but it's still a little too early. Unfortunately the block chain…
There was a scene of very well-meaning academics and young people in Cambridge around the Free Software/Free Culture movement and the Berkman Center in the early/mid/late 00's. There was a lot of idealism and a belief that digital interconnectedness was going to change the world for good. At the time, it was really fun and inspiring to be a part of. I realize now that the leaders/notables of the movement were, for th…
We tend to overestimate the impact of technologies in the short term and underestimate them in the long term. The Internet visionaries overestimated how rapidly the Internet would change the status quo. Instead the status quo came and colonized the Internet. The night is young though, and we have generations coming up right now that don't know what one-way broadcast media even is. The printing press took a long time…
The only real resistance I can think is Tor, but it turns out that the cost of being able to buy psychedelics online is global child rape gangs and a nationwide Fentanyl problem. Not a great trade off, in my opinion.
I don't see any technological way out of this mess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All three of those notions failed because nobody yet understood the awesome power of network effects compounded by aspects of digital communication (incompatibility, fragility, performance benefits of hierarchical trees, security concerns) that encourage the formation of gravity wells in networks. There's been a lot of work on non-hierarchical networks but it's still a little too early. Unfortunately the block chain…
All of them failed because they're all wrong. Markets aren't conversations, they're power relationships. Hyperlinks reinforce hierarchy (see: what news is surfaced vs. what is hidden,) And nobody is immune to advertising, behavioural science relies on this
Markets are conversations when the participants are relatively equal. Barter and informal commerce in voluntarist/anarchist communities would be somewhat close to a pure example. Power relationships can be thought of as external to markets but markets are certainly influenced by them very heavily.
Hyperlinks do create hierarchy but for the network effect reasons I discussed. I also think the hierarchical nature of the DNS system is a culprit. I prefer non-hierarchical cryptographic addressing for this reason, but it has yet to see a mainstream implementation.
I agree that nobody is immune to advertising. You're right about that one. I didn't highlight it as different from the others.