Waning… you could be referring to the rest of vapid mainstream socials… and I agree that’s waning or already lost, but I have great faith in the Fediverse. You do not?
I think this is a good alternative to spaces like reddit, but so far this reminds me a LOT of early reddit or digg, meaning it will go in one of two directions - fade off into obscurity or get popular enough to get eyed by capital and political forces and eventually digested. Eventually all online spaces are going to be either completely compromised by populations of grifters and bots, or they will be the last holdouts of “pure” online communication, slowly declining in numbers until they’re like so many empty servers and forums out there already.
I mean, it could very well hold out if there are enough dedicated people who work to preserve the space and moderate it effectively, but my experience in moderating tells me that it’s often a losing game once there’s blood in the water. People have a hard time keeping up with and staying dedicated to upholding consistent values in moderation. I’ve seen huge spaces fall just because the mods got tired of pruning and shepherding the flock, so they get replaced by less dedicated people, who then get replaced by subversive forces with entirely different motivations.
I suppose it’s possible we could train and maintain benevolent AI systems to guard against the armies at the gates, but even that is just an escalation of a back-and-forth war between the last vestiges of human creativity and collaboration, and the tidal forces of commercialization, political manipulation and mental manipulation, which are going to be far more powerful than we can even imagine.
I remain hopeful that spaces like this will subsist long into the century, but more and more I am doubting our abilities as biological beings, products of evolution, to preserve anything that matters.
(My old days of reddit fame were a lot more optimistic and cheery. A lot has happened.)
Yeah… seeing in the century time frame… I’m barely able to fathom six months or a year. I can see Lemmy growing at its current rate for a decade without becoming dog shit for certain.
There is a percentage of the mainstream getting fed up with dogshit. They are sniffing around.
I’ve imagined that there may yet be a strange “golden age” of underground, tightly controlled “human internet” using new methods to verify users across a network of sites and forums. It would be small, with some kind of gatekeeping system like a one-time fee you pay just like the glory days of Somethingawful, and maybe some kind of video-chat with administrators to get cleared to participate if you’re a human and an adult who can form coherent sentences. If it works well and people participate and form even a somewhat active community, I could envision such a network becoming an incredibly trendy, underground movement that would feel a lot like the olden days of usenet and IRC and AOL messenger/chat rooms, but with today’s access to technology and communication tools.
I can’t imagine such a thing would last too long. Maybe a few years before someone finds a way to compromise it. Humans are just too good at finding ways to tear things down rather than keep building.
Somehow you are making me feel more responsible for supporting this instance… how much are people donating?
I realize that was not your intention… and I don’t really use this place that much… but I am heartened by the thoughtfulness and generosity of the people that will share an old thread like this… Like… I don’t know you but I like your thinking. I often feel that I have a lot to learn from the folks here.
Do you go back to the system of interconnected BBS systems that allowed you to have a friend a thousand miles away and you could send emails back and forth? And play space trader? This is how far I go back. Pre-aol
While I got connected shortly after the force of nature known as AOL washed over the nation, and we all were ushered into a world of instant messages from long-lost relatives and “A/S/L?” from strangers, I did play around a lot with the older systems, I learned DOS, IRC and some of the later iterations of BBS’s that later evolved into message boards of various kinds where you had no idea what people were sharing until you actually open the file.
As a result, I quickly learned how to reformat my drives and clear trojans, I got a crash-course in Windows and how networks and computers work out in a trailer deep in the desert, I wish I could say I capitalized on that and became a pioneer of technology or a wealthy entrepreneur, but I was a sheltered, homeschooled, Christian kid until I could escape and have a real life way too late in life.
I am curious though, what brings a fellow old-timer to a place like this? I am here usually feeling like I am surrounded by kids, or at least very young and socially isolated people, the kind who often retreat to sites like Lemmy for the comfort of a community that largely won’t push back on them or make them feel threatened, which I understand fully, despite not believing it to be a healthy indulgence over long periods of time.
The handful of “mature” people I’ve talked to have been… less than convincing. But like I said, I am not usually here to make friends so it hasn’t bothered me. You seem a curious soul and curiosity is a rare, rare bird lately. People come to the internet to speak the mind for attention, rarely to learn and even more rarely to learn about other users.
Waning… you could be referring to the rest of vapid mainstream socials… and I agree that’s waning or already lost, but I have great faith in the Fediverse. You do not?
I think this is a good alternative to spaces like reddit, but so far this reminds me a LOT of early reddit or digg, meaning it will go in one of two directions - fade off into obscurity or get popular enough to get eyed by capital and political forces and eventually digested. Eventually all online spaces are going to be either completely compromised by populations of grifters and bots, or they will be the last holdouts of “pure” online communication, slowly declining in numbers until they’re like so many empty servers and forums out there already.
I mean, it could very well hold out if there are enough dedicated people who work to preserve the space and moderate it effectively, but my experience in moderating tells me that it’s often a losing game once there’s blood in the water. People have a hard time keeping up with and staying dedicated to upholding consistent values in moderation. I’ve seen huge spaces fall just because the mods got tired of pruning and shepherding the flock, so they get replaced by less dedicated people, who then get replaced by subversive forces with entirely different motivations.
I suppose it’s possible we could train and maintain benevolent AI systems to guard against the armies at the gates, but even that is just an escalation of a back-and-forth war between the last vestiges of human creativity and collaboration, and the tidal forces of commercialization, political manipulation and mental manipulation, which are going to be far more powerful than we can even imagine.
I remain hopeful that spaces like this will subsist long into the century, but more and more I am doubting our abilities as biological beings, products of evolution, to preserve anything that matters.
(My old days of reddit fame were a lot more optimistic and cheery. A lot has happened.)
Yeah… seeing in the century time frame… I’m barely able to fathom six months or a year. I can see Lemmy growing at its current rate for a decade without becoming dog shit for certain.
There is a percentage of the mainstream getting fed up with dogshit. They are sniffing around.
I’ve imagined that there may yet be a strange “golden age” of underground, tightly controlled “human internet” using new methods to verify users across a network of sites and forums. It would be small, with some kind of gatekeeping system like a one-time fee you pay just like the glory days of Somethingawful, and maybe some kind of video-chat with administrators to get cleared to participate if you’re a human and an adult who can form coherent sentences. If it works well and people participate and form even a somewhat active community, I could envision such a network becoming an incredibly trendy, underground movement that would feel a lot like the olden days of usenet and IRC and AOL messenger/chat rooms, but with today’s access to technology and communication tools.
I can’t imagine such a thing would last too long. Maybe a few years before someone finds a way to compromise it. Humans are just too good at finding ways to tear things down rather than keep building.
Somehow you are making me feel more responsible for supporting this instance… how much are people donating?
I realize that was not your intention… and I don’t really use this place that much… but I am heartened by the thoughtfulness and generosity of the people that will share an old thread like this… Like… I don’t know you but I like your thinking. I often feel that I have a lot to learn from the folks here.
Do you go back to the system of interconnected BBS systems that allowed you to have a friend a thousand miles away and you could send emails back and forth? And play space trader? This is how far I go back. Pre-aol
While I got connected shortly after the force of nature known as AOL washed over the nation, and we all were ushered into a world of instant messages from long-lost relatives and “A/S/L?” from strangers, I did play around a lot with the older systems, I learned DOS, IRC and some of the later iterations of BBS’s that later evolved into message boards of various kinds where you had no idea what people were sharing until you actually open the file.
As a result, I quickly learned how to reformat my drives and clear trojans, I got a crash-course in Windows and how networks and computers work out in a trailer deep in the desert, I wish I could say I capitalized on that and became a pioneer of technology or a wealthy entrepreneur, but I was a sheltered, homeschooled, Christian kid until I could escape and have a real life way too late in life.
I am curious though, what brings a fellow old-timer to a place like this? I am here usually feeling like I am surrounded by kids, or at least very young and socially isolated people, the kind who often retreat to sites like Lemmy for the comfort of a community that largely won’t push back on them or make them feel threatened, which I understand fully, despite not believing it to be a healthy indulgence over long periods of time.
The handful of “mature” people I’ve talked to have been… less than convincing. But like I said, I am not usually here to make friends so it hasn’t bothered me. You seem a curious soul and curiosity is a rare, rare bird lately. People come to the internet to speak the mind for attention, rarely to learn and even more rarely to learn about other users.