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The internet is already over (2022)

samkriss.substack.com

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Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#181

Post by _heimdall »

avh02 wrote: post #134
weitendorf wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small private communities are contrary to some of the most important, biggest promises of the Internet (and the web): that it would be open and really big. It was supposed to be a place where some kid in rural Africa with only 8 years of schooling could learn how to be a software developer, or where people could naturally find and join communities too small to have a local presence (eg people really into collecting v…

> that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and similar lack of thought process) until it was too late.

Oh people have known for a long time that the average person has crazy ideas. There's a reason the US election system isn't by popular vote, our founders believed that "the mob" couldn't be trusted and there needed to be a electoral escape hatch to make sure reasonable people were elected.

With that said, what's the problem with people having ideas that seem crazy and baseless? Does it really harm you at all if someone else believes 5G causes covid? And does it harm you enough to say that their speech should be limited rather than free?

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#182

Post by _heimdall »

leovingi wrote: post #161
avh02 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and similar lack of thought process) until it was too late.

>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing the state of the internet, please avoid nonsense exaggerations like this.

A coworker of mine tried to convince me of this during the pandemic. I guess she realized I was a bit more antic establishment than normal and thought I'd like that hypothesis.

It was a small minority, but there were (and are) absolutely people who believed this. They also usually explain it poorly, I think their idea really is that 5G radio signals caused disease but it gets morphed into a claim that 5G somehow created the virus that caused the disease.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#183

Post by benfortuna »

imiric wrote: post #151

This is an overly wordy article, that I think misses the mark. The internet _as the Western world knows it today_ will not be the same in a few decades. But then again, it's hardly the same today as it was 30 years ago either. A few things affect this: - Advertising. It's everywhere and corrupts every form of media. Content is made to appease advertisers, and web services are built to extract data from users. The int…

The Internet (and especially the Web) is not so much the content, but how it is linked. Without a doubt the way we link (quality) content and hide the drivel should|will|MUST evolve. And that evolution may produce something unrecognizable from the Internet of today.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#184

Post by _heimdall »

mrkramer wrote: post #13

My take on declining online social engagement is; a lot of people like to consume online content passively e.g. just reading Facebook posts or watching a YouTube video without actually liking or commenting. Another thing is; increasing number of people came to realize that privacy does matter and they refuse to participate in online dramas that can damage their reputation or harm their mental health.

The biggest single mistake we collectively made online is deciding to engage online at all with our true identities. Privacy is only a real concern because so many things we do online can be tied to our real lives.

Get rid of identities and the fire hose of click bait social media and I'd expect the internet goes back to something much more similar to what we often see people wax poetic about, a smaller web that's people goofing off and writing random stuff on their own site.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#185

Post by leovingi »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #179
leovingi wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing the state of the internet, please avoid nonsense exaggerations like this.

>literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. So not literally nobody?

Given that the original comment implied that the reason we could not have an "open and really big" internet is because of the handful of oddballs that thought 5G towers caused Corona, yes, it might as well be literally nobody.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#186

Post by red-iron-pine »

suzzer99 wrote: post #102
nickdothutton wrote: post #77

We got the Internet that advertising built. This was not how we (well some of us early 90s and before) users assumed it would pan out. It has been my experience that private Internet communities (groups, forums, messaging chats) are where the quality discussion happens these days. Away from the advertising and the controversy seeking (and anti-tech) mainstream media reporters.

Like this site, one of the highest signal to noise ratios on the internet because no one has any incentive to game it.

lots of signal-to-noise -- you're just not looking in the right HN posts.

lots of bots, and lots of spam, esp. in specific threads.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#187

Post by chipsrafferty »

samastur wrote: post #20
shoubidouwah wrote: post #2

If Sam Kriss spent two years to write any of his blog posts into a book, he'd be Nietzsche. Still makes for a sparkling bit of thought, easily reread.

No, he wouldn't. The whole thing is all blitz and little substance of someone who seems to be over-read and under-thought. It's best described in his own words: a handful of sugar instead of a meal.

Someone has never read Nietzsche lol

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#188

Post by chipsrafferty »

samastur wrote: post #53
luzojeda wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delight us with your arguments against what the author states in his posts instead of just ad-homineing.

I'm not going to deconstruct the whole thing to appease a stranger, but let's just take the first point of the argument: That it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the internet. Setting aside what does "end of the world" actually mean, who's making this statement? Almost nobody is, since practically every instance is someone referencing somebody else with little commitment. Essentially this is a…

> It obviously can't be true since end of the world in any reasonable understanding contains end of the internet.

No, it obviously can be true. I can imagine many ways "the end of the world" could occur. Also, maybe it's not crystal clear what "the end of the world" means to you, but for me, and likely other people, it means the collapse of human civilization, which could happen from nuclear war, climate change, etc.

Just because "the end of the world" would include "the death of the internet" doesn't imply that by imagining the end of the world you're also imagining the ways in which every aspect of the world get destroyed. When I imagine the end of the world I don't focus on what happens to say, Paris, specifically, but I do know, implicitly, that the end of the world would include the end of Paris.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#189

Post by chipsrafferty »

shoubidouwah wrote: post #28
samastur wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he wouldn't. The whole thing is all blitz and little substance of someone who seems to be over-read and under-thought. It's best described in his own words: a handful of sugar instead of a meal.

It also was how N. saw his thoughts at times. An evidence, disgraced for being explained. And stylistic flamboyance around a theme is hardly foreign to philosophers, this one in particular (any chapter of Zarathustra can be read as a blog post in the same way). I still advocate that style - and being drunk with style - can lead the writer to singularly original and contemporaneous ideas. Language is a dynamic object,…

Agreed, and for me, the main thesis of the article was that we should create things that we want to create, without concerning ourselves about how much engagement, reach, impact etc. they will have.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#190

Post by chipsrafferty »

api wrote: post #15

This person is just, like many others, mistaking the death of public social media and the open web for the death of being online. All the interesting activity has retreated to Discord, Slack, Telegram, Mastodon, Signal, private and niche boards, game chats, etc. This stuff is all taking place in private rooms and small silos. If you aren't in them, you don't see it. Reddit still has a bit of a pulse but is probably o…

The public internet IS the internet
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