< The hopeful thing about the Internet...

~jr

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.jpg

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~tffb wrote:

Very 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