11 Comments

Hey kids, I remember the internet when it was the wild west, but no, not life threatening.

These days it's a walled garden that's actually more dangerous.

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Yeah. It's an asylum (in the pejorative sense), framed by a suffocating anti-aesthetics.

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"It’s going to throw everything it can at us, but at the end of the day, the spectacle is just an illusion. It’s powerless without your acquiescence, and there are a hundred ways to look away from it and start building self-sufficiency and resilience."

It's always nice to see the picture end with a positive message about our power as individuals to change the model. For all of us who enjoyed the era where corps were dismissive of the Internet and mocked users writing content as unqualified bloggers. There is a power in the nostalgia and keen reminder that freedom allowed us to build communities organically and not only can we do it again we must. Yes, let's roll! :~)

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"There is a power in the nostalgia and keen reminder that freedom allowed us to build communities organically and not only can we do it again we must."

Precisely. We need to realize our own power, and start building from that. Growing our own food, coding our own platforms, forming real relationships.

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I read your writing. I appreciate it. Thank you.

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Thanks yourself. Will check out your work as well.

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Memories of zines and anarchic wanderings through the groaning city as she slumbered, running along terrace house roofs to waken the sleeping souls, and not once ever thinking we might be watched, surveilled, or indeed that anyone particularly cared, or needed to care.

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I know, right? No satellite watching from above, never thinking twice about what you communicated to your friends and neighbours because you might get penalized by an automated digital censorship.

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I read all your posts, but this one I really resonated with. I’m into philosophy myself, but when you write from a deeply personal level, it’s holding a mirror to my own thoughts. I also just realized I can get out of my email and actually like and comment on your writing, so sorry for spam liking everything. I’m new to the Substack family.

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Thank you. It really means a lot to hear. I was raised on Feyerabend's quite personally framed philosophy of science, so I guess that's where I'm cribbing from. But it does bring some relevant experiences into view sometimes.

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Jan 10, 2022
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I think it does. And I think this longing is the root of the emergent nostalgia of the last five or six years. We just need to realize that our agency isn't lost. That this is a paper tiger.

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