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All the sad young terminally online men

derekthompson.org

61–70 of 79 posts

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#61
post #4

I often wonder what the internet would look like if we just banned paid advertising. Facebook, instagram, X, TikTok, they’d all have to start charging users to stay alive and I don’t think anyone would choose to pay for the brainrot. I’d like to see us remove the incentives these companies have for just gluing us to our phones.

For those of us online in the 90s we don’t have to wonder It was literally a utopia before business came along. Every site was built from passion, with no expectation of getting anything in return. It was a global community centered around sharing knowledge. I’d go one step further and ban the consolidation of platforms by billionaires. The open internet no longer exists or will ever exist again

I am younger, being part of online forum communities in the late 2000s (primarily video games and art centric ones) and I truly pine for the era of the internet free from algorithmic feeds, infinite content scrolls and profit incentives. There was some profit incentive, but it was purely for administrative purposes to keep the site up.

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I couldn't find the part of that web page where they said anyone was inherently evil based on their race or gender, or that young men were "the problem", or that anyone was "excluded". Maybe you can point it out for me. I didn't follow each and every link there, so I might have missed it. In fact, they specifically call out "young people and students" as a priority! Inclusion of groups A, B, and C does not imply excl…

They were complaining about the "who we serve" messaging not specifically listing "White" and "Men", much like people whine that the phrase "black lives matter" is exclusionary to whites. Or like the people that complain when a restaurant adds a single vegan option with messaging "happy to serve vegans!" as if it invalidates the complete rest of the menu.

Grievance Culture is real.

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#63
post #4

I often wonder what the internet would look like if we just banned paid advertising. Facebook, instagram, X, TikTok, they’d all have to start charging users to stay alive and I don’t think anyone would choose to pay for the brainrot. I’d like to see us remove the incentives these companies have for just gluing us to our phones.

Social media is probably somewhat responsible, but I don't think it's the biggest problem here. It's the fact that Gen Z is checking out on life, for many people there is no hope of owning a house even if you give up all luxury spending and grind, it's impossible for many on a typical job. It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces. Every business needs to pay increasing…

I was a terminally online youth in 2000s, both before and after social media and proliferation of smartphones.

Money is not and issue here. I was a middle class youth in a developing country, and internet was expensive. People who didn't have the means simply didn't go online. Contrast with the present, even lower income people have smartphone with free carrier provided Facebook. Radicalization is much easier now.

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#64
post #4

I often wonder what the internet would look like if we just banned paid advertising. Facebook, instagram, X, TikTok, they’d all have to start charging users to stay alive and I don’t think anyone would choose to pay for the brainrot. I’d like to see us remove the incentives these companies have for just gluing us to our phones.

Social media is probably somewhat responsible, but I don't think it's the biggest problem here. It's the fact that Gen Z is checking out on life, for many people there is no hope of owning a house even if you give up all luxury spending and grind, it's impossible for many on a typical job. It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces. Every business needs to pay increasing…

> We are living in an era where the old and rich have taken over and continue to extract every last drop of wealth from the people who have the least.

Exactly as capitalism always intended. We are finally reaching the dream of the system, arent we happy all!?

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is probably somewhat responsible, but I don't think it's the biggest problem here. It's the fact that Gen Z is checking out on life, for many people there is no hope of owning a house even if you give up all luxury spending and grind, it's impossible for many on a typical job. It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces. Every business needs to pay increasing…

“It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces.” It was a very narrow window of history, if at all where this wasn’t true. Like I spent most of my teen years at people’s houses or backyard or parks and it was fuckin great. All my best memories were spent doing nothing with people I liked. Even my clubbing years while fun were relatively forgettable compared to the mischief…

> Even my clubbing years while fun were relatively forgettable compared to the mischief of running around with my teen friends not spending money.

When people say that hanging out is getting expensive they didnt mean when they were 10-15 or so. Its easy to not spend money at those ages. Its not when you're 20+. You cant run around the neighbourhood anymore, or eat stuff your parents bought

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is probably somewhat responsible, but I don't think it's the biggest problem here. It's the fact that Gen Z is checking out on life, for many people there is no hope of owning a house even if you give up all luxury spending and grind, it's impossible for many on a typical job. It's also getting increasingly more expensive to hang out with friends in physical spaces. Every business needs to pay increasing…

> We are living in an era where the old and rich have taken over and continue to extract every last drop of wealth from the people who have the least. Exactly as capitalism always intended. We are finally reaching the dream of the system, arent we happy all!?

I feel like this is a lazy answer because there have been plenty of examples of eras where wealth equality was much better, for long periods of time. And they weren't periods of radical communism or whatever.

We just didn't tax the middle tier of workers so intensely while giving everything for free to the ultra rich. That isn't really a part of capitalism itself. It's just the specific scenario we ended up in today.

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#67

[flagged]

> If you've been told your whole life that you're inherently evil for your gender, told you're inherently evil due to your race, cannot earn enough for a dignified life supporting a family, see no path to owning your own home, have watched as your country has been flooded with millions of military-aged foreign men, have few to no serious dating prospects, and watch powerlessly as laws are passed to persecute you for…

[flagged]

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've been told your whole life that you're inherently evil for your gender I'm sorry, I'm nowhere near an expert on gender theory but even I know this is BS: nobody is telling young men they're "evil for their gender." What they are told is the fact that they live in a patriarchy. Nobody is held personally responsible for being born into the patriarchy, and the patriarchy is just as toxic to young men as it is…

> I'm sorry, I'm nowhere near an expert on gender theory but even I know this is BS: nobody is telling young men they're "evil for their gender." What they are told is the fact that they live in a patriarchy. Well sure, this is the actual text book answer for people who understand it. Today's young people are not responsible for the systems they were born into. This includes young men born into a patriarchal system.…

> A lot of them also go on to internalize a message of "man is the problem."

The thing is, for young women men really are a problem. And no, most arent. But a relatively small number is, and they are a massive danger to their lives and wellbeing. And its really hard to figure out which ones are OK and which ones arent.

Re: All the sad young terminally online men

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've been told your whole life that you're inherently evil for your gender, told you're inherently evil due to your race, cannot earn enough for a dignified life supporting a family, see no path to owning your own home, have watched as your country has been flooded with millions of military-aged foreign men, have few to no serious dating prospects, and watch powerlessly as laws are passed to persecute you for…

[flagged]

And that's a bad thing how?
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