From: n0_m0d3m@tuta.io   
      
   On 10/17/25 21:30, Feanor wrote:   
   > n0_m0d3m wrote:   
   >> As we return to these hallowed grounds, I ask: Where do we go from here?   
   >>   
   >> The enemy isn't the foretold Great Firewall; it's the Great Algorithm   
   >> shaping the feeds of billions. AI is pushing us from High Tech/Low   
   >> Life straight into High Tech/No Life. Meanwhile, the tech-priests are   
   >> already colonizing Mars, and they don't need us.   
   >>   
   >> When threads about vintage ThinkPads get more attention on /g/ than   
   >> actual, useful dialogue, I can barely find the energy to seethe. If we   
   >> genuinely want to revive the scene, let's start saying something new,   
   >> arguing about opinions, and move on from comfy nostalgia.   
   >>   
   >> Are there any freaks left who can still see what's coming, or are we   
   >> resigned to larping in the ruins?   
   >>   
   >> Full sentences are punk as fuck after all *8)   
   >>   
   >> ~m0d3m~   
   >   
   > I recall the splendor of the ancient days of MySpace, which is where I   
   > learned that style of ephemeral social media is tricksy and unhealthy.   
   > Post-Google, I never fell for the videotube "recommendations", always   
   > have had add-ons to modify the UI, or simply download videos. I have   
   > also been aware of curated Big Google results forever, so I just use   
   > other search engines.   
   >   
   > I am not sure if the following is even appropriate here, but TL;DR: All   
   > of this is just flash-in-the-pan dreck to be supplanted eventually.   
   >   
   > I first took your words to mean something different, but I will still   
   > lay out what I thought. My own vision of the future is that we are still   
   > in the infancy of the possibilities of computing. At the very beginning   
   > when computing reached the public sphere (I am thinking the 60's) there   
   > were many possible paths forward. The path which industrialized society   
   > took is only 1 of many. Computers could look and functino very   
   > differently, nearly alien to the modern eye. This applies not only to   
   > computers, but even the food industry, or anything which is mass-   
   > produced. Everything could be very different.   
   >   
   > Imagine if light bulbs were still those forever-lightbulbs. It wouldn't   
   > be profitable! Only in a world where scarcity is extinct, will computers   
   > and humans reach their full potential.   
   >   
   > The current computer paradigm sucks, and I am going to go out on a limb   
   > and say that 99% of people can't think outside of it, and I don't blame   
   > them. We are still stuck inside our short mortal tenure on this planet,   
   > trying to get-rich-quick and get out. Vocal whiners blame politicians   
   > for their 4 selfish years, as if they themselves have not raped   
   > eternity. Popular society has not been thinking long-term for decades.   
   > We have built a house of cards on the foundation of sand. Like the   
   > entire west coat of the US - doomed to be cataclysmically destroyed by   
   > earthquake even though they could prepared. Entropy and mortality ruins   
   > all things and forces blinders on the present moment. From TV   
   > commercials to videotube ads. From programs on paper, to "apps". Just   
   > within our lifetime we can see the evidence of decadence. The texts we   
   > can read from Ancient Egypt talked about their own history, where they   
   > admitted the were only standing on the shoulders of giants - that their   
   > society at their present time was a only pale reflection of the glory of   
   > the past - thousands of years before them! They hijacked the pyramids   
   > and merely lived next to them like we might live next to ruins. Entropy   
   > had deleted the skill of pyramid building from their culture. When they   
   > tried to make new pyramids themselves, the new ones sucked.   
   >   
   > When western conquerors went and installed modern infrastructure in   
   > Africa or wherever, the local people used it. And when the conquerors   
   > left, the locals kept using it... until it crumbled and fell into ruin.   
   > The locals didn't know how to maintain it, they don't know how to do it   
   > from scratch. Like giving an iPhone to Victorian England - it would mean   
   > nothing and be useless. I just watched a video of an Indian dude   
   > restoring an ancient Hindu site, and he admitted "dude we don't know how   
   > they built it. We're only restoring this stuff as a facsimile with cheap   
   > materials and cheap labor."   
   >   
   > So it is now. My father always said that animals take the path of least   
   > resistance. Modern people are coasting off of an ancient, outdated   
   > paradigm, and only focusing on Now. There is no thought to innovate or   
   > take a risk until Weak Men Create Hard Times. Nobody knows assembly   
   > programming, nobody knows C, people only know how to "program"   
   > applications for these toys called smartphones which make people so   
   > dumb. The core skills have become extremely niche or even outdated.   
   >   
   >  >“I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten   
   > our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And   
   > we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast   
   > quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that   
   > invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people   
   > asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really   
   > asking any of the questions.” -Graham Hancock   
      
   Nailed it.   
      
   It's not a fight against a Megacorp; it's the slow slide into decadence,   
   a population hurtling toward Idiocracy. We're living next to the   
   pyramids, not knowing how they work, doomed to use cheap materials when   
   we try to copy them.   
      
   If the elite are automating away essential knowledge, then mastery of   
   the fundamentals becomes an asymmetric advantage.   
      
   When the slide feels so good—TikTok with a dash of Fentanyl—it's going   
   to be hard to wake the masses. I'd be content with a place where we can   
   share the knowledge that makes at least a few of us harder targets.   
      
   So, what knowledge do we steal and share before it's gone?   
      
   ~m0d3m~   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)