4 ms·

People, humane beings, have grown and prospered in the past because they were able to form and act as communities. We are good, really good at that. If you want

People, humane beings, have grown and prospered in the past because they were able to form and act as communities. We are good, really good at that. If you want a modern example of how effective functional communities can be, you can look at the Ukraine. Or at revolutionary war era Americans. Or hunting mastodons to extinction. As communities we do exceedingly well. If you take away our ability to form and act as communities then we lose this. The internet, which was supposed to be a way to be more effective instead has destroyed our ability to act as communities. Our way of building a common understanding has been destroyed by letting people track us and target us with lies. Who can trust the internet? No sane person would trust the internet. We have fanaticism on all sides. And yes it I do mean all -your side too. No matter which side you are on, your ability to see what you have in common with others is impaired. Have you listened to political ads on the internet, tv and radio. They are all of a kind "X is betraying you and has sold his/her/its soul to the devil" So vote for Y. There is nothing in those to build consensus or common understanding. There is everything to outrage us, embitter us, and divide us. This is the problem. Tracking ads are a social disease that can destroy our society by preventing us from having a society. And yes it is much more complex, but it is also just that simple.

jfalcon 4y ago
You are 100% correct. And the fact that laws on the books often do not reflect the times they're in. I'm still shocked by how we haven't put into effect a national GDPR yet at the same time that Newt Gingrich's "Anti-Cell Phone Listening" law is in effect. The law was outdated before it was even ratified yet is still on the books today. I think a bigger problem is the blindness in our tech culture to pursue that which takes away from us at scale without codifying limits or laws to enforce guard rails for when they're broken - and at a cost greater than the cost of "doing business" (like how Boeing is now facing Criminal charges for 737MAX after the Civil part has more/less gone the course).
account42 4y ago
The internet is no less made of people than any other community. The ads, the tracking, the fanaticism - that all is not done by the internet but by corporations and organizations that exist here in the real world. The problem is not the internet. The problem is that we do not hold people accountable for their negative externalities - on the internel and elsewhere. I do agree with your more general point that a lot of todays ills stem from individualism, aka a lack of focus on community though.

jfalcon 4y ago

You are 100% correct. And the fact that laws on the books often do not reflect the times they're in. I'm still shocked by how we haven't put into effect a national GDPR yet at the same time that Newt Gingrich's "Anti-Cell Phone Listening" law is in effect. The law was outdated before it was even ratified yet is still on the books today. I think a bigger problem is the blindness in our tech culture to pursue that which takes away from us at scale without codifying limits or laws to enforce guard rails for when they're broken - and at a cost greater than the cost of "doing business" (like how Boeing is now facing Criminal charges for 737MAX after the Civil part has more/less gone the course).

account42 4y ago

The internet is no less made of people than any other community. The ads, the tracking, the fanaticism - that all is not done by the internet but by corporations and organizations that exist here in the real world. The problem is not the internet. The problem is that we do not hold people accountable for their negative externalities - on the internel and elsewhere. I do agree with your more general point that a lot of todays ills stem from individualism, aka a lack of focus on community though.