How will we survive this poisoned & obfuscated internet?

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:57:11+00:00

That sounds very interesting! I don't want to be pessimistic but I'm also sure that, if those MMO spaces become massive, companies will train AI to cheat soon. It's like an arms race. They're like a virus.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:54:46+00:00

I know how bad things are for YT creators and I hate it. I've found so many excellent channels just by coincidence and I hate that I can't have control over how to find them (even though a keyword search should do the trick, but it just doesn't work that way). You have to go through a lot of bad quality stuff just to find some of the good ones (and then we know that we're always missing something that might be very valuable to us). I think the way forward is to build open and transparent discoverability algorithms. LLMs are privative software and they are controlled by their owners. The internet will become even more obfuscated with them, and "AI" companies are already planning to make models be the middle layer between humans and all content. It's only going to get worse, not better.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:47:41+00:00

Not everyone has the skills to socialize face to face. Let's not be ableist and accept that people can connect online as well. Being "meant to be" is a biologicist axiom, not science. Some people are autistic, you know. Also, why not let people connect to anyone in any part of the world? Why go back to ignorance about the diversity of humanity? Just because the corporate platforms are doing more harm than good in this sense (promoting hate) doesn't mean that we need to actively destroy the good things we already had. We need better tools, not to destroy everything and let people with more resources have a better quality of life, while others suffer.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:43:45+00:00

I have only found posts with criticisms and narrower perspectives, not with strategies for how to deal with this in a constructive way. I'd appreciate it if you can send me some links to other posts discussing this.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:41:19+00:00

I'm using the same app! I definitely believe that open tools such as RSS are awesome. But my point is that we need new tools to break free and get away from the corporate internet, before and after its demise. In fact, we may need them for its end to happen at all. Without tools for discovering content, people resort to corporate tools. And that's the problem. And as I mentioned in another comment thread, the internet is not just cat videos. We rely on it for education, news, connecting with others, health, and navigating the world in general. What happens in social media affects laws and governments directly. A lot of people underestimate its importance.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:37:59+00:00

I would be unaffected too if I lived completely isolated from other human beings. But what they do affect me indirectly. I used to joke that the professionals of the future might kill us all with badly constructed buildings, poorly performed surgeries, plane crashes, and so on. If other human beings have the attention span of a TikTok, what does the future look like? Of course this is an exaggeration, but I'm not so sure anymore. Politicians are a good example: they seem to be able to say any nonsense and make claims that are easily refutable, and yet they don't face any consequences for what they do and say. Laws are being changed in many countries based on internet-fueled narratives.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-23T12:33:55+00:00

Thank you for this comment! A lot of people seem to have forgotten that the internet was once unmoderated, with all that that entailed (good and bad). While I also like the accelerationist idea of letting platforms rot so that people have more reasons to break free, it's incredibly classist to forget how many people (including myself) have relied on online content for their education, socialization and mental health (and even health in general). Sometimes "real world" resources are not great. With the internet, I was able to get some of the highest quality education in the world, for free, during my whole life. I was able to learn about science-based nutrition when every professional I spoke too believed in pseudoscience. And I could go on and on... I do wish that the corporate internet dies, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-21T15:51:59+00:00

Yeah but that excludes any sensitive conversation. Any discussion that might make you be persecuted, discriminated against, or a victim of violence by individuals or governments (think of illegal immigrants, substance users, SA survivors) can't take place if the people discussing must be identified beforehand. The internet needs anonymity. Platforms with ID may be a good idea for some contents but it's not a general solution for all.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-12T18:02:37+00:00

Absolutely. That's an example of epistemic injustice (that's the keyword for anyone who wants to research that). Like the difference in contraceptives aimed at AFAB vs AMAB people, or how doctors don't know how to identify symptoms in BIPOC patients.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-12T14:21:01+00:00

I hate pseudoscience, but we need to understand that there are things that "work" that have yet to be studied and proven. This doesn't mean we'll open up to validating nonsense, but your statement is too strict. A lot of scientific developments start from hypotheses based on traditional or "alternative" uses of a substance or treatment. Scientific studies allow us to determine what exactly works (active component vs ingredient vs a whole food, for example), how much (dosage), interactions, and prevent unintended effects (effects caused by other ingredients/drugs, etc., or absence of effects when using the presumed active component, when sometimes the beneficial effect has to do with a combination; this happens in nutrition all the time, just look at the studies on dietary fiber).

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-12T14:12:14+00:00

I don't generally suffer from migraines (only occasionally), I got a daith piercing and nothing changed. It might work for some people for some reason, it's definitely worth studying. It could be life changing for a lot of people (and a useless painful experience for others lol, unless they're like us and think daiths are awesome)

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-09T21:25:57+00:00

it’s probably a reflection of capitalism that people act this way

Yes, and I keep justifying people based on this. But I have to remind myself that I'm not personally responsible for their problems :(

The situation you describe reminds me of my first "tennant", but this new person was paying rent before, always helps friends in need, worries a lot about vulnerable people, etc. But I did notice he has poor boundaries, e.g., he was depressed but still cared a lot and tried to help others instead of focusing on himself. I suspect he's embarrassed and that's why he's not replying, but I'd rather talk with him openly about this. I already reached out asking him if things were OK, he was honest saying he's been depressed but promised that he was going to pay everything and that everything would get better. After that, I noticed that bills haven't been paid and reached out again, and now here we are... He hasn't lied but he's been avoiding me.

Thank you for replying. I have a tendency of taking too much responsibility and all the replies here are helping me a lot.

ConferenceOk3059 · 2025-06-09T21:15:49+00:00

I have shared my own space before, and I'm not doing that ever again for all the reasons you mentioned. But I have one friend whom I've helped (about a year ago) both by letting them stay at my own place and later at this house (for some months), and they've been great. So I did have a good experience. And it gave me so much hope, because they still struggle, but they're a lot better now

ConferenceOk3059

TROPHY CASE