by unexaminedlife on 4/28/21, 4:26 AM with 6 comments
I've been thinking recently about the state of the country, all the crazy news I read and the perspective I've gained from it all (especially during and now shortly after the "Trump years").
What I've sort of come up with is a way of reasoning about the situation we appear to have gotten ourselves into.
One part of the premise is that, even though it's been in full fledged use by most of the country for a few decades now, the internet is still in its infancy. If we really think about this the internet has brought so much power to so many people we're really still trying to figure out all the powers it has (and will) bestowed upon the World.
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS...
by speedgoose on 4/28/21, 9:17 AM
by softwaredoug on 4/28/21, 11:19 AM
If you learn about 19th century US politics up until the early 20th century things are not so rosy. Just learning about how horrible reconstruction was gives a lot of context. The media environment in the 19th century also resembled more closely the internet today: heavily decentralized with all kids of spurious insanity being promulgated.
Yes things are divisive now, more divisive than when I was a kid, but it’s probably better understood in this context.
by unexaminedlife on 4/28/21, 4:26 AM
One of the undeniable facts about the internet is it has brought all classes of society to the playing field. There are still some things out of reach, especially if they cost alot but the internet has made it possible for companies (or individuals) to empower others almost at will.
So, the question then becomes "what are we supposed to do with all that power?".
I sort of think there have been a lot of directions different countries have taken in terms of how they are enabling their citizens. But one thing seems certain, the US govt has mostly been hands-off in terms of how the internet is used by its citizens.
On the other hand you have malicious governments who now have the ability to leverage the lower classes of their societies in "new and innovative ways". I think about just how "hands-on" a government needs to be with its poor in order to produce the kinds of mass deception they're trying to create. These are quite possibly Manhattan Project levels of efforts going into these mills (or whatever they're called these days).
I don't really know at this point if we can fault our government for not being more hands-on with how our lower classes are utilizing the internet. We are trying at the corporate level it seems for example with Twitter and Facebook blocking the virality of fake news, etc.
What I think we should really be asking our elected officials is how can we not be more pro-active in stopping these (likely) massive projects that are happening in other countries and making the information public for all to see. In fact I'm even wondering whether or not many of our elected officials even know the depth of it due to the (possibly) top-secret nature of the intel.
But when I piece this all together I get the impression that there is a lot of pro-active coordination in foreign countries leveraging their lower classes to fight this cyber war. On the other hand I see our lower class (and likely to some degree middle and upper classes) as being full on manipulated by what's going on out there.
We really do need more transparency around what the highest levels of our government know about this stuff in order to enable us to leverage this information at the federal, state, and local levels.
by NumberCruncher on 4/28/21, 9:09 AM