Yeah let’s spread misinformation and romanticize the past so we can blame our problems on bad actors and bad times rather than recognize and address the systemic causes that have pervaded social media since its inception.
sorry for being so salty and sarcastic, in a weird mood rn
Fair point. My rebuttal: The system here is manifold, a lack of general awareness and understanding, the legislative framework in most places, and most importantly, capitalism. The owners of social media are the most replaceable part of that, if Meta and Zuck imploded today, some other for-profit crap would fill the void
Nah you’re right. I’ll admit to having a bit of nostalgia for the old timey corp platforms of my youth, but tbh what we have now (with fedi) is better.
I do still think there was and is real value in independent little niche forums hosted on random domains, not federated to anything or linked to any social media or platform or anything. Just a cozy little phpbb or discourse between friends.
forums are the best. i encounter ex-redditors here on the threadiverse who are like “well at least discord is better than old school forums” and i’m like “what am i missing that everyone thinks old school forums are so horrid”
I don’t get it either, but I’ve seen the same perception. My own partner said “but aren’t forums… dangerous?” like BRO we MET on a forum and you think that?? They thought all forums were reactionary chans, and what they used was just a website where people chat.
Valid question but IMO, no. replacing Zuckerberg Musk etc would do nothing to solve the fact that capitalism runs social media as a for-profit enterprise
You shouldn’t let consumers off the hook entirely. Every time some idiot buys new mop they saw on TikTok or a Dubai chocolate bar they are pumping money into the system and reinforcing the idea that spying on us and clogging our space with advertising is a viable business.
IMO ad blocking is not only a quality of life improvement, it’s a moral imperative.
i was thinking of doing an essay about this very concept. advertisers are complicit in, and profit from, a multitude of disasters, both natural and human made. all ad dollars are blood money
It’s part of what I find so frustrating with the American discourse on drugs. We talk about the drug trade in the United States as if innocent victims in America are being poisoned against their will by foreign bad actors.
In reality American consumers have pumped so much drug money into their neighboring countries that the cartels are a threat their governments.
The cartels and the dealers are very bad guys, but the consumer’s hands are not clean.
having grown up in an area ravaged by the drug trade i’d say you’re on the right track but missing the mark a little. the drug trade is fueled by people who are absolutely desperate for any relief from the ravages of the reality we live in, and frequently who starts people on a drug course is a doctor prescribing opioids in a high risk case.
what i think most americans miss is that the drug trade’s perpetrators are not foreign cartels, but domestic tax evaders and billionaires. the republicans are sicking ice on immigrants and using fentanyl as their justification, but the opioids are grown here in america largely along the appalachian spine. the flow of drugs is less into the us than people estimate and has more to do with exports than imports than most realize.
if the republicans REALLY wanted to cut down the drug trade, here’s what they’d do:
fund programs that economically elevate poor americans and prevent people from being totally desperate and destitute like SNAP, WIC, and housing vouchers
invest heavily in early education
combat organized crime outfits by utilizing the tools that are best at stripping them of power: utilizing anti-hate laws to help minorities feel safe, celebrating multiculturalism, creating multiuse public spaces that are free to use like parks, rec centers, and playgrounds
but of course conservatives won’t do any of that because if they did they wouldn’t be conservatives. they profit from all these broken systems being broken, so they keep them broken.
Yeah let’s spread misinformation and romanticize the past so we can blame our problems on bad actors and bad times rather than recognize and address the systemic causes that have pervaded social media since its inception.
sorry for being so salty and sarcastic, in a weird mood rn
Systems are made of people. So yeah, remove the bad actors and you already have a better system.
Fair point. My rebuttal: The system here is manifold, a lack of general awareness and understanding, the legislative framework in most places, and most importantly, capitalism. The owners of social media are the most replaceable part of that, if Meta and Zuck imploded today, some other for-profit crap would fill the void
Nah you’re right. I’ll admit to having a bit of nostalgia for the old timey corp platforms of my youth, but tbh what we have now (with fedi) is better.
I do still think there was and is real value in independent little niche forums hosted on random domains, not federated to anything or linked to any social media or platform or anything. Just a cozy little phpbb or discourse between friends.
forums are the best. i encounter ex-redditors here on the threadiverse who are like “well at least discord is better than old school forums” and i’m like “what am i missing that everyone thinks old school forums are so horrid”
I don’t get it either, but I’ve seen the same perception. My own partner said “but aren’t forums… dangerous?” like BRO we MET on a forum and you think that?? They thought all forums were reactionary chans, and what they used was just a website where people chat.
But yeah discord sucks.
Forums were a bit painful to use comparatively, having to page through threads trying to find info lol, necro bumping, spam bots…etc lol
I do remember running a cracked version of vbulletin on a rando free hosting site tho for my friends lol
Are the people running modern social media not part of the system?
Valid question but IMO, no. replacing Zuckerberg Musk etc would do nothing to solve the fact that capitalism runs social media as a for-profit enterprise
yup! the real problem is the venture capitalists who run the internet as a financial market centered around the attention economy
You shouldn’t let consumers off the hook entirely. Every time some idiot buys new mop they saw on TikTok or a Dubai chocolate bar they are pumping money into the system and reinforcing the idea that spying on us and clogging our space with advertising is a viable business.
IMO ad blocking is not only a quality of life improvement, it’s a moral imperative.
i was thinking of doing an essay about this very concept. advertisers are complicit in, and profit from, a multitude of disasters, both natural and human made. all ad dollars are blood money
It’s part of what I find so frustrating with the American discourse on drugs. We talk about the drug trade in the United States as if innocent victims in America are being poisoned against their will by foreign bad actors.
In reality American consumers have pumped so much drug money into their neighboring countries that the cartels are a threat their governments.
The cartels and the dealers are very bad guys, but the consumer’s hands are not clean.
having grown up in an area ravaged by the drug trade i’d say you’re on the right track but missing the mark a little. the drug trade is fueled by people who are absolutely desperate for any relief from the ravages of the reality we live in, and frequently who starts people on a drug course is a doctor prescribing opioids in a high risk case.
what i think most americans miss is that the drug trade’s perpetrators are not foreign cartels, but domestic tax evaders and billionaires. the republicans are sicking ice on immigrants and using fentanyl as their justification, but the opioids are grown here in america largely along the appalachian spine. the flow of drugs is less into the us than people estimate and has more to do with exports than imports than most realize.
if the republicans REALLY wanted to cut down the drug trade, here’s what they’d do:
but of course conservatives won’t do any of that because if they did they wouldn’t be conservatives. they profit from all these broken systems being broken, so they keep them broken.