[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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Replying to @cmuratori
That conclusion seems overly negative to me. There could be alternate explanations for why traditional media is the way it is; we could also be stuck in a local equilibrium and the right tech might trigger a preference cascade.
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Replying to @arcadio_g_s
If that were the case, one would assume that some previous media would have done it. Of course there is a first time for everything, so I would love for it _not_ to be true of some future technology. Social media, as we have seen, definitely isn't it, though :)
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Replying to @cmuratori
I don't see how you could "assume that some previous media would have done it" unless you equate media to just the channel. I think what makes computing different is that it also unlocks new sender-receiver relationships. But I def agree social media as we know it is not it.
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It's not equating, it's just recognizing that there have been many types of media in the past, and if none has done it, the expectation is that the _next_ one won't. It doesn't mean it _can't_, it just means that to expect something else is to be expecting the exception.
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Replying to @cmuratori
Ah I see where you are coming from. But another way to frame it would be that many times in the past a new type of media has arguably unlocked a revolution of similar magnitude (e.g. writing allowing async communication, printing press and universal literacy allowing 1:
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Replying to @arcadio_g_s
Computing definitely unlocked new things. Freedom from repression just isn't one of them.
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