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I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

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Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#91

Post by dangus »

SilverElfin wrote: post #3

This is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram. And he’s totally correct. The Internet was much better before the 2000s and the social media era. And when the people who remember it aren’t around, those remaining won’t have any idea that they’re missing something. He’s also totally correct in calling out the obvious lunge towards authoritarianism from European democracies - this must be stopped immediately: > Once-free…

I think it’s questionable to trust the guy who founded Telegram this much.

The opinion given about Germany leaves out a lot of the nuance. I think that Germany is taking a unique approach that actually seems to make sense:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-online-hate-speech-pros...

I would argue that the American approach to a more absolute form of freedom of speech, plus the manipulative potential of the internet, plus psychological differences that exist when humans socialize online compared to in person has made a really negative cocktail of societal harm.

The USA is sliding into authoritarianism in part because it explicitly allows grifters to spread outright lies and slander via their corporate platforms and there’s no recourse because of the first amendment.

News outlets like Fox News don’t have to even attempts to be news in their concept, they can go to court and claim that their programming is an opinion entertainment show and spread information they know to be lies. They’ve only really been caught in this scam legally once in paying out the Dominion civil defamation suit settlement and they only had to do that because they were defaming a specific company.

The US elected a literal internet troll as president. And that’s not a good thing.

I think there is something admirable in the approach Germany is taking, and as long as it is implemented well it is absolutely possible to balance free expression with protecting society from vitriol.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#92

Post by cykros »

Grazester wrote: post #43
seydor wrote: post #24

The freedom interlude was a byproduct of the end of the cold war. We lived a rare period of trust between people across the world. Now we need to find a new framework beyond national trust but I don't have ideas. Durov himself lives in an unfree country

What unfree county is that? He certainly doesn't live in Russia if that is what you are alluding to.

Is there a free one?

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#93

Post by oblio »

lostmsu wrote: post #89
oblio wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you grasping at straws, at this point? The rule says: don't insult. Is it so hard to verbally destroy a person's stance on something without insulting the person itself?

It might be if the other side is allowed to insult.

Are we talking about kids in a backyard here or about "powerful people", presumably engaged in a political struggle?

Has insulting anyone ever stopped anything?

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#94

Post by zingababba »

_hao wrote: post #80
NiekvdMaas wrote: post #70

Related: Lex Fridman just dropped a 4 hour podcast with Durov https://youtu.be/qjPH9njnaVU?si=_pkEi-SDML08AASJ

Two intelligence assets talking to each other. Both have quite similar backgrounds with dubious credentials. A history of lying and obfuscation. I wouldn't trust anything Fridman or Durov say.

I don't know how anyone sits through ten minutes of Lex speaking let alone multiple hours.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#95

Post by splix »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #46
Grazester wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What unfree county is that? He certainly doesn't live in Russia if that is what you are alluding to.

He lives in the UAE.

I think for the past couple of years he lives in France. By force, so it's not very straight to recognize it as a free or not.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#96

Post by AlexandrB »

pogue wrote: post #88

"The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets." Who?? What's he talking about?

Probably referring to Lucy Connoly[1] and the general numbers of speech arrests on the UK[2]. "Imprisoning thousands" may be an exaggeration though.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yl7p4l11po

[2] https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-stru...

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#97

Post by lostmsu »

oblio wrote: post #93
lostmsu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be if the other side is allowed to insult.

Are we talking about kids in a backyard here or about "powerful people", presumably engaged in a political struggle? Has insulting anyone ever stopped anything?

The answer is, unfortunately, yes. The problem is the court of public opinion can easily be swayed by insulting someone, and if that someone can not insult back, that's a political instrument that gives asymmetrical power to the current rulers.

Re: I'm turning 41, but I don't feel like celebrating

#100

Post by mikewarot »

I agree that we're doomed, but I think the key decision that doomed us was made deep in the NSA in the 1980s, when they decided to bury the idea of Capability Based Security, and just let MS-DOS and Unix take over computing after the rise of the microcomputer. They had discovered and then fixed the problem with ambient authority after it arose during the Viet Nam conflict, giving rise to Multilevel Security.

When the Microcomputers came, and everyone ignored mainframes, they decided to step back, and let everyone have their foolishness. It was far easier for their jobs if the let operating systems that trusted everything take over the market. The Soviets copied our moves, and made themselves vulnerable. They figured they would retain the institutional knowledge and wisdom, keeping their own internal systems secure by design.

But they didn't plan on retirements and changes of administration, and the end of the cold war. Once that shock happened, they didn't reconsider. They didn't reconsider again when the world became networked, and connectivity for almost everything became persistent. There were multiple points at which they could have changed course, quietly pushed systems that were secure by design, but they apparently haven't.

So now we're in a world where you can't trust anything newer than an IBM XT with dual floppy drives. Where firmware can be updated with persistent worms, making it permanently untrustworthy. Into this world, we all carry spying devices in our pockets and purses, that can be repurposed by any intelligence agency, or sufficiently motivated person for that matter, into tools of oppression.

I think that a sufficient shock might pull us back into rationality, and cause us to seek sane computing strategies we can trust, but I don't give that good odds at present, 5% or less.

We don't have privacy, and you'd have to be an old fool to actually speak your mind these days. We're falling right into the thing we feared the most when I was a kid, a repressive Soviet style oligarchy where you can't trust anyone. You especially can't trust any computing devices.

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