does anyone else feel enslaved?

When I was growing up the internet was a place to be liberated from the world say what you want to say, be whoever you want and form genuine communities with shared interests. Now the internet feels like a tool to enslave the mind with identity echo chambers and any deviation leads you to being banned and blocked shunned and silenced within a void that is inescapable. Novel unique websites coded manually by hobbyists running servers for free in the commons allowing people access to the free flow of information under the banner of “information should be free” has largely gone away with corpratisation. I miss the days when the internet was populated largely by nerds aiming to make a better world not this controlled censored hell hole of profiteering.

Jimmycrackcrack,

At the risk of sounding like exactly what you decry, I’m going to pick on your choice of language, hopefully it will seem like it’s for good enough reason. I largely sense a similar, regretful shift in the way the internet is experienced and have some mixed feelings about it, but I would be very cautious in using a term like ‘enslaved’. When you choose to fire up your own high-tech information device to access the publicly available internet and you don’t find the experience exhilarating or thrilling, or fulfilling, in comparison to some relatively rose-tinted view of the same experience had during your childhood can you honestly say that that is similar to enslavement?

However, semantics aside, yeh it’s kind of a shame some of the quirky rough around the edges character of the internet has changed a bit since it became more mainstream and since corporate participation has refined and figured out how to extract much more efficiently from it. That said, as is often said when this sentiment is expressed, the old style of web is still there, you just don’t see it. Nothing stops people from hand coding a website if they want to, but it’s unlikely to be the top of any given search result from Google, and we all use Google. Similarly, unlike decades past, there is just so much stuff on the web that these types of things will likely not be noticed. There’s kind of a paradoxical relationship with how much more in general is available online with how much less varied our consumption of it is. Pretty much every web experience through a browser is going to start with www.google.com, either through the page itself or a default search bar and after that for many it’s going to be facebook, or reddit or amazon. Out of billions of pages, it tends to come down to about 4 for most and then a smattering of other larger media presences accessed via the portal of one of those 4. It can seem like there’s nothing else there in such a case and though not really true, it kind of in practice is true because you’ll much less likely find someone’s home made hobbyist website through major portals than you might have when by virtue of little else being available, that’s what a search engine returned or word-of-mouth recommended.

How bad a thing this is, is nuanced. The web is vastly more useful than it ever was, although the forces at work that made it so seem to be engaging in cannabilising themselves and one another and crippling their own utility in the never ending quest for more profit. I miss some of the feel of the earlier web, although when I was coming of age and using it heavily in the early 2000s, it was very well established already so I don’t have quite the same basis of comparison as someone who might have used it throughout the 80s or 90s. I think I have detected something of a shift away from the ‘edgy’ persona adopted by most on forums, but then it’s hard to separate my usage and interests at the time from the general web itself. I think, for one thing, there still remained even in the early 2000s, a nicheness and ‘geek’ culture to those who spent time on forums that tended to skew the demographic towards teenage boys although I have no evidence for this, this has gone unless you seek it out. I personally haven’t really had too much of a problem with shunning and banning, in fact that type of thing tended to happen more in my earliest web experiences where there seemed to be more places that had issues with swearing, however I have seen a similar puritanical streak that results in this. However I’ve only really perceived that on major platforms as they’ve reached their stage of the life cycle where they can cash-in and must become investor and advertiser friendly. That arc, a more recent arc in my opinion does match what you’re saying but I view that more of a change in how those specific platforms rather than the web itself operate. So it’s harder now than maybe 5-10 years ago to speak your mind with little to no consequence or backlash on a major platform whose reach and influence amplifies that opinion to millions and millions of people. I think you have about the same capacity to speak your mind now as you ever did on the web, but lost the ability to use corporate machinery to do it and not also expect human beings to react to it and to even be silenced when doing so flies against the interests of the owners of the corporate machinery.

Jack,

“Enslave” is a bit harsh, considering there are about 38-50 million people who are currently slaves en.wikipedia.org/…/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

We’re choosing to allow a lot of the things these companies are doing to us; but we could choose to walk away at the cost of some shiny things.

Cethin,

“Choosing” something doesn’t always prevent slavery. Wage slavery, for example, is a perfectly reasonable use of the word, though still not as bad as chattel slavery or other forms of slavery. It basically implies the non-existence of meaningful choice. However, you’re perfectly correct to say the OP is not enslaved in this case.

livus,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

Wanted to say something like this, I'm sympathetic to OP's sentiments but I don't like words like "slavery" being used as metaphors.

vikinghoarder,

Its a bit strange because, before, a few of us were here and getting to know the internet and everything it had to offer.

Nowadays, everyone is on the internet but most of them are confined to the apps they use and what those apps show them.

So it seems people are being silently manipulated without ever knowing there are many more things out there, but even then, the will to explore new things might not suit them, and they prefer to “live in the matrix”.

Internet mass manipulation is getting ever more developed and used as a tool to achieve an agenda.

Millie,

You just described AOL in the 90s.

HappyMeatbag,
@HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org avatar

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE gna gna gna skssssssssshSKSSSSSSSSSSH

TheButtonJustSpins,

I heard this in my brain.

livus,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

This, they just described what it was like being on the internet and not being on AOL but seeing them all happy in their You've Got Mail walled garden.

nottheengineer,

I agree and now I find myself moving my entire digital life off of big tech platforms and towards free software to escape this madness.

The good old internet still exists and lemmy is living proof. You just need to dig a little because the corporate search engines won’t show you. sdf.org for example is a nice little corner of the internet.

Eddie,

As long as the internet remains open, even if it’s in our own private corner, then we’ll always have a place to go, even if the place changes. If Google’s “internet DRM” ever becomes a thing, we’re completely fucked.

ricecake,

net neutrality/bandwith per site did not change much thankfully at least i wasn’t affected

brihuang95,
@brihuang95@sopuli.xyz avatar

Same here, I’ve become extremely disillusioned by how dystopian big tech has become. It’s a nice change of pace to use platforms like Lemmy or Mastodon where it’s just every day people running instances rather than a place for big tech to collect and profit off your data

RoundSparrow,

I miss the days when the internet was populated largely by nerds aiming to make a better world

The BBS and early Internet days were dominated by people who read non-fiction books. RTFM was a common saying in those days.

does anyone else feel enslaved?

“Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?”
Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death

Foresight,

Take thy upvote with grace

MedicPigBabySaver,

Yeah, buddy… Tik Tok wrapped in a bow.

ricecake,

RTFM is offensive now

MystikIncarnate,

I feel enslaved pretty much all the time. Whether you’re watching TV, listening to the radio, surfing the web, or simply existing somewhere that other people exist, like going to work, there’s so much hidden oppression that goes unnoticed.

Sure, the internet is a haven of free speech, but free speech isn’t free, and I don’t mean in the way that people have fought and died for it, though they absolutely have. Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences. So if you go on the internet, and talk about doing the illegal, and the police come and arrest you for plotting to do the illegal (eg, murder, or any number of traitorous acts), you had the freedom to say those things, but not the freedom from being held accountable for saying them.

On top of that, you’re constantly bombarded with information, especially on the internet about what products to buy to “improve” your life. Buy buy buy. Be a good consumer of goods and services. Don’t learn to do things yourself, you’ll get hurt or die, just… Pay someone else to do it, so they can do it “right”. Anything from plumbing to automotive repair, to cleaning your own house, just pay someone. The electronification of everything adds DRM to most everything so now you need to spend thousands of dollars on training and tools just to fix your own damn tractor, and companies like John Deere want us to believe it’s for the best to do it this way, so only certified experts do the work so it’s done correctly. But who said it needs to be done how they want it done, or that their way is better?

At work, if you start speaking your mind, you’ll find yourself in front of HR very quickly. You have to restrict your impulses, movements and speech to only what your co-workers will allow for, and what management wants you to be able to do, you’ll get paid what they want to pay you, and be happy about it, or you’ll find yourself destitute.

Yeah, we’re “free” to select from a hundred horrible options of how we want to be oppressed, and slave away until we die, bombarded with “experts” who charge a small fortune just to see if that pain you have is indigestion, or pancreatitis, which will kill you in a matter of hours, or not.

We’re free to live how others are willing to accept that we can. Buying our way to a mediocre existence, filled with existential dread, suffering, and little more than robbery, but because we have the illusion of choice we think that’s freedom.

Everything is a system of control. Whether you buy a house, get a job, or simply look at the TV, or the world around you, you’re bombarded with information on what you should do, what you should say, how you should dress, what to think, where to go, and exactly how to enslave yourself to a system you didn’t create, that wasn’t made for you to succeed in, that will never stop holding you down, and takes everything from you. That includes, and is not limited to, drivers licensing, billboards, advertisements, employment, bank accounts, religion, consumerism, malls, shops, the news/media, the music you listen to, and yes, especially the internet.

If you can’t see that this is the case, you’re probably too blind to realize it. You’re being dazzled by the flowery language and rhetoric of the situation, thinking you know things, when all you know is what they want you to know. Companies are the root of the problem, deeply engrained in the capitalist dream and consumerist culture.

But hey, the weather is kinda nice today, so let’s enjoy that while we can and not think about the hell that is a life in today’s society.

forgotmylastusername,

Nobody really indexes those types of sites anymore. I suppose a lot of those site operators are more than happy to remain separate from the big tech net.

socsa,

Only to the sweet siren’s call of Casamigos Brand Tequila!

gaytswiftfan,

“enslave”

??

are you serious with thos wording? and if everyone agrees with your opinions would you have still made this topic?

Foresight,

I still would of posted regardless

Foresight,

You know the more intimidation you try to shut down discourse the more I want to throw it in your face.

AnarchoYeasty,

They said elsewhere they are tired of being called out because they hate the LGBTQ flags. It’s a troll looking to claim to be a victim.

amio,

Well, I've had a look at the way you argue - maybe you should, too. It's not even about specific views or opinions, although full disclosure, I disagree strongly with quite a lot of it. The way you discuss things looks extremely insincere.

Foresight,

Course it’s about specific views and opinions if I discoursed the opposite it would all be given a complete pass like how I was up to 3 years ago and prior. I changed my approach and how I look at things and all a sudden I get all this abuse and harassment for just having an opinion.

amio,

So when I talk about your style of discussion seeming insincere, this... is exactly it.

Foresight,

Why does style matter, you don’t like my style so you can say I’m wrong? Or exploiting the fact I communicate differently? Or are you coming up with excuses to defend your ideology?

HotDogFingies,
@HotDogFingies@kbin.social avatar

Can you seriously not see how your "opinion" hurts people? My opinion is that dicks are icky and no one should be allowed to have one. Me and millions of other like-minded individuals are going to vote this into law. Lots of people are going to bleed out and die from their dick removal. Let's talk about how awesome my hero is, they cut thousands of dicks off and encouraged other people to do the same! That makes you feel good, right? No? Why are you so mad? It's just my opinion!

Foresight,

So let’s do away with democratic principles of discourse because a tiny few doesn’t like a opinion?, how is society meant to advance without discourse or communicate? Are you suggesting everyone should live in fear of reprisals because a group threatens violence? It is wrong, I don’t like a lot of other peoples opinions and you know what I do? I move on, why would the opinion of pineapple belonging on pizza bother me, I would not be offended by an opinion that much that it requires banning and harassment. Just move the hell on.

HotDogFingies,
@HotDogFingies@kbin.social avatar

Dude, what?

Foresight,

Well if you can’t discuss things how is society meant to move forward?

Foresight,

You know slave holders also had that same opinion to have control over their slaves.

HotDogFingies,
@HotDogFingies@kbin.social avatar

Um.

Foresight,

You are aware that slave holders used to chop the men’s penis off to stop them reproducing to control their numbers right?

FaeDrifter,

It sounds like your actual problem is that you hate the freedom other people have to disagree with you and critique you, and you would prefer to enslave everyone else into conforming to your ideology.

Foresight,

No stop assuming and jumping to conclusions

FaeDrifter,

You’re really telling me that on your own post full of assumptions and jumping to conclusions?

You need to take some of your own medicine because hypocrite doesn’t look good on you.

Foresight,

I try my best but I’m just highlighting the problems

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

I mean the problem is capitalism, not people's identities. Everything is run to extract profit, rather than out of genuine interest.

Foresight,

Identity a product of the individual in liberalism the prevailing ideology of capitalism, sure let’s ignore people’s selfservicing interest and greed…

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

I'm not even sure what you could mean by this. People have identities. People gathering and forming community based on those identities isn't because of greed. And they exist even in collective cultures.

Foresight,

Well I’m sick of the atomised individualistic society.

Aatube,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Personally the diversity of all things good is part of why they are nice; I consider myself a socialist, but that doesn't mean everybody has to be the same. But even if we ignore that how would you iron everybody out into the same thing?

Foresight,

It’s not diversity when segregating into smaller identity echo chambers and classifying people based on their sex, race and ethnicity etc. I prefer society that over looks these petty things for a broad multicultural unity amongst the masses not strasserite fascism.

Aatube,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

Things without extremes exist. dividing into smaller groups based on what you believe is basically diversity, and I don't see that you have made the case that these groups are echo chambers. Plus a lot of people believe your argumentative style is very disruptive and ban you for that; I can see why: you always use very extreme, loaded words to label things

Foresight,

Well I’m not in favour of returning to segregation of the Jim crow era, putting people into groups where they only see and hear information that confirms their confirmation bias is an echo chamber. And I’m not going to stop doing what I think is right because a group doesn’t like my style, being disruptive is literally the whole point of political agitation, what do you expect me to do? Pipe down, use a style and language that is pre-approved dictated that allows for no challenge to the status quo under the excuse of sensitivity so no changes are made, maybe try changing the economic base instead of forcibly changing the individual otherwise all your doing is playing whack-a-mole.

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

Yes. So am I sick of our atomised society. But for goodness sake try to identify why that occurs.

The problem is capitalism. Because we are all fooled into competing with each other over scraps, rather than banding together into communities that are better able to provide support within themselves.

The fault isn't that people explore their identities and find community that way.

Foresight,

Yeah capitalism with the prevailing ideology of liberalism with peoples identity of the ego leading to individualised atomised society.

darq,
@darq@kbin.social avatar

You genuinely sound like a bot generating word-salad.

Foresight,

Well I’m unwell and doing my best, never tell the NHS mental health that you are moving towards a more conservative position within the left wing sphere.

corvus,
@corvus@lemmy.ml avatar

You should try lemmy, it’s almost everything what you describe you are missing. Jokes aside, I think that what you refer is mainstream internet, which like music is usually shitty if it’s mainstream, to find the good stuff you have to take your time to dig deeper. Internet is an incredible tool and it’s being used both to enslave and to free people.

Foresight,

Funny, yeah years ago it was easier to find interesting unique content. To quote slavoj zizek “when you think you escape it into your dreams, that is when you are within ideology”.

JoYo,
@JoYo@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m interacting with more people in a day than most people have in historical lifetimes.

I have more bosses to track their preferences. It feels like there’s more people checking my career. They have more people to try to balance autonomy with direction.

There’s more politicians talking past their constituency than ever before.

It just seems like the goal to reduce the suffering around me will always be a drop in the ocean.

Foresight,

Yeah it’s overwhelming, I think we should just turn the internet off for a month nation wide.

queermunist,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

So much of the internet is only functional because of the unpaid labor of volunteers

Foresight,

And they claim socialism/communism doesn’t work…

newIdentity,

It doesn’t because everyone has to be this way. Not only a few. Else they’ll just get taken advantage of.

JesseoftheNorth,

"My right to spout my ideologically inconsistent dog shit opinions is clearly more important than the rights of women to decide what to do with their own bodies. This is the worst kind of discrimination; the discrimination against ME. It's literally slavery. Woke women with blue hair challenged me on my idiotic opinions and I felt like they were being mean to me. You can't disagree with me though, because I'm a Marxist-Leninist and I throw out buzz words like planned economies. Believe me bro, trust me bro."

Foresight,

You lot are really creepy with your judgements, generalisations, assumptions, stalking and harassment. Maybe if you took the time to understand that communism is stateless their would be no need to implement rights because there would be no government as we think of it today.

Aatube,
@Aatube@kbin.social avatar

It's supposed to be a stateless condition but the Marxist-Leninism intermediate is just giving most power to a small vanguard that could turn corrupt really quickly.

OurToothbrush,

Look up marxist leninist-castroism which believes the role of the vanguard party is to provide resources and education to the people in order for them to lead themselves if thats your problem with vanguard parties and you otherwise believe in communism.

JesseoftheNorth,

So you believe that there should be no rights for other people, but YOUR right to free speech should never be limited. Gotcha. Either you’re a complete imbecile, or a troll. Probably both.

Foresight,

Communism would be the resolution of contradictions that cause conflicts therefore no need to pass rights because no state which means no one to enforce such measures, a law in communism would be fictitious as it would just be a writing on paper.

JesseoftheNorth,

Balance out that Marx and Lenin with some Bakunin and Godwin.

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