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In Sunde's opinion, people focus too much on what might happen, instead of what is happening. He often gets questions about how a digitally bleak future could l

In Sunde's opinion, people focus too much on what might happen, instead of what is happening. He often gets questions about how a digitally bleak future could look like, but the truth is that we're living it: "Everything has gone wrong. That's the thing, it's not about what will happen in the future it's about what's going on right now. We've centralized all of our data to a guy called Mark Zuckerberg, who's basically the biggest dictator in the world as he wasn't elected by anyone. Trump is basically in control over this data that Zuckerberg has, so I think we're already there. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and I don't think there's a way for us to stop it." One of the most important things to realize is that the problem isn't a technological one. "The internet was made to be decentralized," says Sunde, "but we keep centralizing everything on top of the internet."

dTal 9y ago
This is an important thing to bear in mind - it's happening now, we are being spied upon, soft-censored, self-censored, and opinion-corraled. Facebook's news feed is a far more sinister mechanism for social control than any Pravda, since it is transparently tailored to each user. And it's proprietary. So we're robbed of a primary weapon against propaganda: the ability to collectively discuss it. However... >Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and I don't think there's a way for us to stop it I think that's going too far. I can think of far worse scenarios. We have GNU/Linux. We have Free encryption software, and BitTorrent. We have a social backlash against Facebook, people that recognize the problems and are organizing to combat it, a dim vision of a decentralized future that many software projects are struggling towards (IPFS et al). And none of these things are illegal. Yet.
cJ0th 9y ago
He's dead on except it's not just FB it's also western governments who not only don't interfere (as he points out) but have given up on championing freedom and now go in the exact opposite direction. When it comes to damage control its the latter we have to influence because it's the governments who want to take away what's left of the decentralized web. Maybe a decade ago or so everyone in the western sphere was mad concerning how China, North Korea et al. control their citizen online. But now there is this international trend of slowly but surely limiting the usefulnesses of the free Internet by pretending to fight some form of illegal activity. They're after encryption (to "fight terrorism"), they are after free speech (to "stop hate"), they block websites ("just" to fight child pornography) and so on.
ilaksh 9y ago
Things tend towards centralization in capitalist or communist societies. When need to rethink things to avoid that by leveraging technology to allow for diversity and evolution, with holism where it is needed. I think in terms of the internet the answer is meshnets.
- btschaegg 9y ago
  If you like Dan Brown-Style books (and are able to overlook a couple of blatant technology-based plotholes), you might like Daniel Suarez' books "Daemon" and "Freedom™". They toy around with a couple of related ideas.
- cJ0th 9y ago
  > I think in terms of the internet the answer is meshnets. No it's not b/c that would assume the average person is willing to learn about meshnets.
  - jononor 9y ago
    Why? The average person doesn't need to know about TCP/IP to use current centralized networks
    - cJ0th 9y ago
      correct. Perhaps the word "learn" wasn't a good choice. What I meant is that people have to be willing to change their behavior because mesh nets are not something a powerful entity is going to force them to use.

dTal 9y ago

This is an important thing to bear in mind - it's happening now, we are being spied upon, soft-censored, self-censored, and opinion-corraled. Facebook's news feed is a far more sinister mechanism for social control than any Pravda, since it is transparently tailored to each user. And it's proprietary. So we're robbed of a primary weapon against propaganda: the ability to collectively discuss it. However... >Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and I don't think there's a way for us to stop it I think that's going too far. I can think of far worse scenarios. We have GNU/Linux. We have Free encryption software, and BitTorrent. We have a social backlash against Facebook, people that recognize the problems and are organizing to combat it, a dim vision of a decentralized future that many software projects are struggling towards (IPFS et al). And none of these things are illegal. Yet.

cJ0th 9y ago

He's dead on except it's not just FB it's also western governments who not only don't interfere (as he points out) but have given up on championing freedom and now go in the exact opposite direction. When it comes to damage control its the latter we have to influence because it's the governments who want to take away what's left of the decentralized web. Maybe a decade ago or so everyone in the western sphere was mad concerning how China, North Korea et al. control their citizen online. But now there is this international trend of slowly but surely limiting the usefulnesses of the free Internet by pretending to fight some form of illegal activity. They're after encryption (to "fight terrorism"), they are after free speech (to "stop hate"), they block websites ("just" to fight child pornography) and so on.

ilaksh 9y ago

Things tend towards centralization in capitalist or communist societies. When need to rethink things to avoid that by leveraging technology to allow for diversity and evolution, with holism where it is needed. I think in terms of the internet the answer is meshnets.

btschaegg 9y ago
If you like Dan Brown-Style books (and are able to overlook a couple of blatant technology-based plotholes), you might like Daniel Suarez' books "Daemon" and "Freedom™". They toy around with a couple of related ideas.
cJ0th 9y ago
> I think in terms of the internet the answer is meshnets. No it's not b/c that would assume the average person is willing to learn about meshnets.
- jononor 9y ago
  Why? The average person doesn't need to know about TCP/IP to use current centralized networks
  - cJ0th 9y ago
    correct. Perhaps the word "learn" wasn't a good choice. What I meant is that people have to be willing to change their behavior because mesh nets are not something a powerful entity is going to force them to use.