State Of The Dead Internet | Jules

[numb3r_5ev3n]

The link to the video, since embedded videos crash screen readers. This goes way deeper than the "dead internet" meme, into a discussion of Active Measures. This is one of the best videos I have seen on this issue yet this year.

Comments

[flamingsword]

Thanks! I’ll throw it on the pile of videos to watch.

It's been Dead

[nyyki]

Sorry, I'm going to get a bit semantic here. So often people think of the world wide web as the internet and speak of it as if it's the totality of what that communication medium is. That's false.

Think about this -- when was the last time, if ever, you downloaded something from a FTP site? Did you ever read, much less post, on newsgroups under Usenet? Have you ever done an Archie or Gofer search? For most people, the part of the internet they use is TCP/IP (though we're at IP6 now, so that's mutated a lot) and email, though once again a lot of people use IMAP if they're using a mail program or app. The internet is, for all intents and purposes, like the Atlantic Coast Highway or Route 66 -- something that exists in rare pieces and locations, and also in history, but not in anywhere near the form it was.

I find it interesting that the 24 hour/7 day news services got a mention -- I've bee skeptical about news rooms for television services for about 35 years, and I got far more skeptical after I saw the divergence between occupiers posting to social media that showed such a different view than what the news services demonstrate.

I found the mention of demoralization as a control dynamic to be interesting.

There's a core question, and this goes back to Descartes -- what is real, and how can we know it is? Still, I got to experience digital communication when it seemed far morereal than it is now.

Re: It's been Dead

[numb3r_5ev3n]

I started using "The Internet" just as a lot of that stuff (FTP, Usenet, BBS) was being replaced by AOL. I did do some of it, but most of it was on early AOL back when I didn't know I had a technical bone in my body, and I was still entertaining a fantasy of running away to live in a commune of Elves in the deep woods. I did use IRC a lot.

It wasn't until a CompUSA recruiter literally hired me on the spot in the cafeteria of my local community college in 2000 that I suddenly realized I had an aptitude for this stuff.

Re: It's been Dead

[nyyki]

For me it was about music -- I got into computers because of music applications, though I also had a friend (still got him too) who coded a lot, and he introduced me to computer programming in BASIC (I returned the favor by introducing him to role-playing games).

I never used the search programs from back then, but until my XP machine cratered I participated on newsgroups on a daily basis. And before I started using the internet I ran a BBS for exactly seven years. -- it was connected via three different networks specific to the software and also using a complex batch file to FIDOnet. My former spouse also ran a BBS, and that's how we met, so I go back a solid distance with all this stuff.

In thinking about his video (who is Jules anyway?) I've come to the conclusion that any time someone says they want to make something more civilized and safer they're also planning to make it less adventurous and innovative. And there are people who feel this is vital to the world they live in; maybe so, but that world will eat the one I live in if given a chance.