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diff --git a/content-org/blog.org b/content-org/blog.org index 91829d8..ba3dd8b 100644 --- a/content-org/blog.org +++ b/content-org/blog.org @@ -7,10 +7,138 @@ #+HUGO_WEIGHT: auto #+HUGO_SECTION: blog -* 2024 [5/5] :@blog: +* 2024 [6/6] :@blog: :PROPERTIES: :EXPORT_HUGO_SECTION: blog/2024 :END: +** DONE I no longer love The Web +CLOSED: [2024-01-31 Wed 18:54] +:PROPERTIES: +:EXPORT_FILE_NAME: i-no-loger-love-the-web +:EXPORT_HUGO_CUSTOM_FRONT_MATTER: abstract I think I finally get why web no longer excites me +:END: +When I first started using The Web, sometime in the late 90s, I fell in love. +Unfortunately, the love is gone. +I don't feel inspired, or energized. +Most often I am anxious whenever a new fad enters the collective mind - be it crypto, NFT, VR or AI. + +It wasn't always like that. +I was deeply into new tech things. +I devoured magazines and news sites and whenever I found something new, it seemed cool and even though I would not be able to afford it, it still made me feel engaged. + +For a long time I've been trying to understand reasons for this change. +I now think there are two. + +*** Big tech + +When I think of inventions of the past, I think of small groups of people coming out with great ideas. +Be it Wozniak, Torvalds, Carmack, Knuth, or Stallman. +They were heroes, geniuses. +They gave their best and changed the world. +Nowadays, we've got Musk, Cook, or Zuckerberg on the forefront of the verge. + +We've still got folks driven by hunger and ambition. +But they are powerless against capital. + +"We're making something fucking cool" was changed to "we've made a great return of investment". +When I think of ClosedAI or Apple Vision, I am unable to admire the tech. +It is amazing, but I couldn't care less. +Instead, I wonder how will the drive for profit destroy it. + +Technologically we are already living in what cyberpunk fiction warned us about. +What we use, and what defines us, is owned by a few incomprehensibly humongous companies. +Google and Apple are trying to own the digital world. +Altman and Zuckerberg are actively racing who will destroy the society faster. + +We've allowed Silicon Valley to take the web from us. +One bite after another, we've given them everything. +Websites became social media profiles; IRC became Discord; email became gmail. + +But we all know that. +The web is enshifitified beyond recognition. +But this is not it. +This alone is not why I fell this way. +All of this could be easily reverted. + +This would break the web, but, by itself wound not be enough for me to loose faith in it. + +*** No longer a safe space + +The bigger problem is that there is no longer space here for people like me. +I joined The Web as an escape. +Most of the people I've met online were (at the very least) socially awkward. +It was different from now, in the sense that we treated The Internet as a completely separate place. +It was /our/ safe space. +We were not who were in the flesh word. +We were who we /wished/ we were. +Not for profit, but the heck of it. + +In 2024 *everyone* is on The Web. +The Web is omnipresent, it became intertwined with the offline world. +You no longer /log in/ as it is no longer a separate entity. +It's all one and the same. + +And with this all the problems of the /offline/ world polluted cyberspace. +The same people we were avoiding on our IRC channels, are the people who shape what The Web is. + +Personally I blame iPhone. +This is the device that removed the barer. +"No mater where you go, everyone is connected"[fn:lain]. +The Internet molded into the Flesh World. + +The web was taken from us, and with that, it stopped being a truly safe place. +No longer one can be their true self, as we need to promote our meat suites. +How many people lost their jobs due to some random joke? +How many people pretend to be someone, who /others/ want them to be? + +Yes, I was a troll and I felt that the web is /my/ control. +It was my escape, but it is no longer. +It is controlled by the same crowd who made my younger days much worse than it should be. + +[fn:lain] A quote from "Serial Experiments Lain" + +*** Escaping the failed escapism + +This is why I find /retro/ so appealing. +I join small communities which are connected not by superficial, or physical attributes. +I am not on the Polish web, nor on man web, nor on guys who can't grow beard despite being almost 40 web. + +These days I am into Emacs, and BSD. +Both are classic tech and people into them are into the same things I am into[fn:cool]. +It's easy to find privacy, and cyber-independence oriented folks out there. +And it is exactly what the web was. +A community of people who had a lot in common, despite having nothing to do with each other. +I've met people online who I connected on a deeper level, than to people who I've eactually met. + +On the web, I was not surrounded by classmates, or family. +I was surrounded by /my/ friends. +And we were playing on /our/ rules. + +Those rules are no longer accepted. + +It seems that by searching for like-minded communities I inevitably find people who are just much of a relict as I am. +But we are still on the hostile, soulless Web on today. + +I have a son now. +He is 5. +20 years ago I would not be able to curb my enthusiasm for showing him around the web, for sharing our passion for cyberspace. +In 2024, I am afraid of what he will find here because he is so much like me. +Will he find his own /safe space/? + +---- + +I am publishing this text with huge hesitation. +I know that most people won't agree, as they may see it as a personal attack. +It may be read as "not girls allowed". +It was not the intention. + +But maybe I am looking at this wrong? +Maybe there is silver lining somewhere? + +But hey, this is what /blogs/ are for. + +[fn:cool] Not to mention that they are extremely cool! + ** DONE Software devolution in the hands of Apple CLOSED: [2024-01-26 Fri 19:51] :PROPERTIES: |