...is that it eventually goes away. I'm not kidding. I won't doom/gloom about climate change, the disruption of lives (human and non) it will cause, and the infrastructural damage that will come of it - but I am of solid belief that items that require battery power, or electric, of any kind, will be made obsolete when climate change worsens.
Granted, build panels, "we'll be fine", and everything works ok. Ok, but what I am saying is...
The Internet, I want it to (kinda, sorta - I'm 50/50 on it) go away. It's likely a bigger burden than it is a utility in the world at this point. It's terrifying, and even life-ruining, to others. And the old concept of "we'll use it to leverage knowledge, resources to improve OUR day-to-day lives" is likely a relic of a time gone by. A missed opportunity. Unrequainted idealism.
So, with that being said, that the Internet has lost it's overall life-improving utility, or/and lost it's "to-be" life-improving utility - why bother?
Because. That's why. But still, the light at the end of the tunnel, when it comes to the WWW, is that the light is at the END of the tunnel. A digital respite.
Will this day come? High-minded (and gloom-y) train of thought there, and I hope it (end of WWW) doesn't happen, but I think (instinctually, I would say almost "know") that many an occurence will play out in my lifetime. Climate change, AI "eating the world" (as did software, as one put it), etc. to closing credits of the digital age.
But I digress, because coffee is on.
TY ~bartender, and keep a pot going for early-morning barhoppers. Quite a crowd we are ;)
I've been reading "How To Blow Up a Pipeline", and in the chapter I was reading at bedtime last night, the author, Andreas Malm, discusses the doomer position --- that because it's clear that even to the extent the climate crisis can be mitigated, it *won't be*, the most important thing people can do is learn to die well. Malm rejects this position because it's demotivating, arguing that there *is* hope, if climate activists learn to strategically escalate.
As for me, I disagree that there is hope, but also that we should let the lack of hope lull us into inaction. I just think that at this point, the proper motivation for activism is spite.
I have to assume someone has hit you with readdesert.org at some point.
Setting aside the question of the internet's harms, though I think there's an interesting discussion to be had around how much of it is actually cause by the internet vs the internet being a coping mechanism for loneliness.
I think we'll have the internet in some form or another for our current lifetime. Our current growth isn't going to be sustainable, of course. And we'll see further geopolitical splintering of the internet. But if nothing else, we'll have some form of data transfer like the internet, even if it's just a sneakernet like people in Cuba used to use. IMO, the more pertinent question: in a resource-constrained environment, do we want to maintain the constantly connected lifestyle? And if not, what do we want to scale it back to? Internet only on computers? Only at libraries? Thumb drives stuck in a brick wall?
Any sort of change brings new possibilities.
Wow, that book looks like a powerhouse of likely truths albeit speculation on specifics of what could/will happen is just that - speculation.
I may read it though. And thank you.
I always loved the Sneakernet form factor of information sharing. The ecological impact is no more dangerous than the chunks of plastic the flash drive are printed on (still, issues there - use metal?) but I think a Sneakernet is a flawed approach to an Internet replacement. The fact that everything is THERE (online) and one-click-search away is why people are willing to go down clickholes - external consorted effort to share physical media (even if digitized info on a physical thumb drive) would (I assume) be disregarded as not worth *most* people's time (it would be worth mine).
Anyhow, I heard of how there is/was a widespread Sneakernet in Cuba, and that microcomputers were/are used for a sort of widespread Intranet, and that even lo-fi/indie ISPs have been formed, and it's just as simple to make/use a system like that anywhere, though there's a 1000% chance that a Sneakernet system would not be looked at as long as we have (fast!) datacenters and instantaneous gratification. And, because....obviously! Haha
It, bad consequence from climate change, is inevitable though. The difference being between that of looking beyond the tip of ones nose, and looking at a square/realistic reality of how bad ecosystems have become and what is in the years ahead. I don't patronize the "rally change to fight climate change" narrative, because if people have a f*** about their lives and those here in the future, they'd be putting a fair amount of time/effort into at the very least COMING TO TERMS with how bad things are now. Currently.
Anyway, the WWW and consumer tech will play a tiny role in any of it. Be it a Sneakernet or anything else - it would fall very low on a priority list.
Hope all are well.
Later,
T
can't say i share a lot of the sentiment here. while i agree that there's definitely going to be an end to technology at some point down the road (not too dissimilar to the end of the universe; ergo the human race too) - i feel that technology does a lot more good than it does harm.
it's difficult, in my eyes, to separate traditional notions of good and evil from most things. something like TikTok for instance: "evil" because it's centralized, not FOSS, not self-hostable yada yada, yet it has the amazing potential of sharing information at phenomenal speeds. it can be a medium for misinformation and hate speech, yet it also thrives as a way of raising awareness about societal issues.
that's a lot of words (arguably waffle) to hint at what i'm trying to say: the internet is only what you, and other folks like you make it (not too dissimilar to society as a whole, eh?) - and any one individual can be optimistic, pessimistic or both simultaneously.
personally? i believe that the internet should be in the hands of general people and that the community should come together to make it a better place. i can't tell you how that would work, or claim that there wouldn't be discordance, but i don't think that it's worth throwing out a batch of apples over a few bruises - and i think that as long as people try to cultivate a space that's supportive of one another, then that's really the point.
i've never seen anything that involves a lot of people go flawlessly.
I mean, the WWW is decentralized by default, and you're right - the more people contibute (to anything) the higher the likelihood that there would be "too many leaders in the room", or too many egos and high-minded opinions thrown about. All knowing they are right, even if that becomes a unified chorus of wrong.
But with the TikTok example you made - I'd say digging through what a service like that is, in order to find "a" thing that is "good" about it would be the difficult endeavor. Using it (or any social media) to platform a societal issue is counterintuitive to even *wanting* to improve society - like injecting heroin in order to get close to a heroin addict to tell them how unhealthy heroin is!
"…like injecting heroin in order to get close to a heroin addict to tell them how unhealthy heroin is!"
Insightful and true, indeed!
i suppose that comes down to perceptions of the platform as a whole. my first thought, whenever i think of Tiktok, is something along the vein of "bad" because i've heard X or Y; seen J and K about why i shouldn't like/use/trust/install Tiktok - the majority of which have been valid arguments and informative.
i don't agree with you when it comes to raising awareness about a given issue, though. just because a medium has issues with it, doesn't mean that it's inherently evil. the TV, for instance, would "make folks' eyes go square" after watching cartoons for too long. now i can watch the news every morning if i want to. there's definitely pros and cons to talking about important stuff through a medium like Tiktok, but the technology that the majority of people use changes over time, and i think you'd be hard pushed to find a platform that caters for everything perfectly. from my (albeit limited) experience: it's vital, when wanting to improve society, to share information about /why/ society needs to be improved in a given domain, and /how/ it can be.
interesting to see your thought process, though!
I get the feeling that, like a famous tree that apparently did *and* did not fall in the woods, the internet ends the moment one no longer pays it attention, for said attention is its only life to any given observer.
gemini://textmonger.pollux.casa/
I feel similarly. My thoughts on this topic are very messy and I've been writing this piece for about 45 minutes now, but here goes:
I am a proponent of the computer and the internet (as it is in the very slim portion I use often - academic papers and software packages; even little forums like this one) being useful tools, but I agree that pretty much everything that extends outside of that little sliver is harmful.
In fact, I have no doubt that it is the root of much evil; the effects we're finally able to measure and they're showing very clear signs of destruction. I've reached the top of the hill and realized that what lies there is dangerous. Now I feel it's my job to warn others that the glorified hilltop is not safe.
I've trained for a while now to become a software engineer and, as the metaphor above describes, I've realized that the path I was taking is the wrong one. I think the modern internet is a large part of why this is the case; we all know it's bad for us and I don't want to help make it any worse.
I foresee the same thing you do, a cyberpunk-ish future where we don't do anything to stop it from accelerating and in a massive explosion (or a whimper) the digital age comes crashing to an end, writing our civilization off as just another chapter of earth's history. I try to stay as positive as I am negative, but as we sail further into the misty future, the harder it gets.
Until then, I'll be watching the digital stars in the sky.
https://jordanreger.com/tron_banner_sky.jpgVery well-written!
For me, I see most everything less so from a Dystopian perspective (I sincerely doubt we'll get anywhere close to a "society"/civilization as such, power (electricity) will be a forlorn delicacy of modern life by that point), and more from a "the-planet-is (or will be)-fried" perspective.
So, yea, the WWW and all this is great, but it's as the saying goes: "yea, it's great. Until it isn't." And I wouldn't (realistically) pin climate change, et al, on the Internet or WWW, either (that'd be dumb, as there are countless other (direct) causes for it - all human-made), not that datacenters don't add to it (climate change).
It's just amusing that we have all the civilized STUFF right now, only to bring up another phrase "the night is always darkest just before the dawn". Or maybe the "lightning is always brightest just before the blindness?" (latter phrasing by me). But, our cards (not just civilization, but (most) life on Earth) are dealt, so regardless of the "progress" of tech, the Web, AI, etc., we're more or less twilighting ourselves out of cash and cradle.
To my original post, I say the silver lining is that, though - the Web going away, or/and other (nefarious, unrelishing) elements of the modern world dissapating. There's pros and cons to everything, it's just that in the coming decades the pros/cons of EVERYTHING will be incomparable to...most of what people have experienced so far.
Until later
