[2/*] In the beginning, when arose the "Hacker ethic" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_ethic …), we already had the world that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are recreating. There were central media authorities, and they told you what was true, and most people had little other access.
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[3/*] The idea behind decentralized computing, and why it was so exciting, was that it offered an opportunity for people to bypass media authorities and communicate directly with each other.
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[4/*] People completely forget this today, but unmediated access to computers at that time was seen as a major benefit to people whose identities were unwelcome in the mainstream; because computers kept you anonymous, no one could know your race, gender, nationality, etc.
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[5/*] Having seen that potential, when I was growing up, I've always thought of computers as the place where people can escape from the demands of social conformity, whatever they happen to be in that era, and be who they actually are.
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[6/*] So you can perhaps imagine why it would seem shocking to someone like me when so many people clamor for faceless, unaccountable corporations to insert themselves into your life, and for them to exert control over what you can and can't say to each other and publicly.
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[7/*] But the thing I realized just today that was so depressing is _of course that's going to be true_. The reason it was that way in the first place was because the majority of people must have wanted it that way. Most people _don't_ want other people to be themselves.
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[8/*] If most people _wanted_ other people to be themselves and express themselves, our _mainstream_ media would have always reflected that! Why this was not obvious to me, I don't know.
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[9/*] So this leads to obvious depressing conclusion: the more people engage in computing, the more it becomes just like mainstream media. Because if anything else were to be true, it would have already been true of the media that came before it :(
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[10/*] So you don't have to wonder what the future of communication looks like! It looks just like the past. If books were banned, movies will be banned; if movies were banned, YouTubes will be banned.
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[11/*] So computers didn't really offer anything different. The only thing they were was _new_. And something new has a brief period when the majority of people aren't using it, so their desire to force people to conform isn't applied.
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[12/*] I'm not sure if that makes me more or less depressed. It's a depressing thought, but maybe also one that is slightly motivating: it means we can always make a new - albeit shortly lived - place free from the demands of social conformity.
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[13/*] We just make a new medium for communication, and for a brief time, before it becomes popular, people will be able to be themselves there. The depressing part is, of course, that it will only last for a short while.
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