The Future of the Internet

[Yevrah]

We've touched on this in other threads, but I'm now convinced it's the most dangerous thing that's ever been invented and that Tim Berners-Lee, will, in time come to be remembered as the man who invented something that irreparably damaged the world.

On a micro level it's already an appalling thing for the mental state of kids, teens and anyone else susceptible to the narcissistic bullshit companies on it encourage. Higher up than that it acts as a wealth of disinformation which is clearly being peddled by foreign powers looking to destabilise western societies and on a macro level it's being used to perpetrate attacks that (were they conducted in physical form) would be considered acts of war. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/17/us-government-cyber-attack-hack-russia

So how will it go? We may have turned the world into an uninhabitable toxic swamp before any cataclysmic worldwide impact is seen, but my bet would be that we won't have done before the internet gets there first.

[phonics]

The internets fine, corporatisation of the internet leading to it all getting thrown into 4 websites is what makes it really easy to use maliciously

[Yevrah]

The internets fine, corporatisation of the internet leading to it all getting thrown into 4 websites is what makes it really easy to use maliciously

Which wouldn't be able to happen if the internet didn't exist... Your argument is akin to the pro gun lobby saying guns don't kill people, people do.

[phonics]

Not what I said at all.

[Yevrah]

Our response to misuse of it is dreadful as well. I could post a video making any and all outlandish claims on any number of sites and in all likelihood the worst that would happen is it would be flagged as being factually incorrect. Whereas, an idiot posts something completely unnecessary about a man who has done great work for charity and he's facing a criminal charge.

[Lewis]

I think people and institutions just need to realise that the internet isn't [yet] real life, and that a great many of the people driving the online discourse are at best maladjusted and at worst out-and-out mentally ill. If you can keep your kids/life/business out of that - or at least act as if you have - then you should be alright.

[Boydy]

Without the internet we wouldn't have this lovely little community here so swings and roundabouts.

[Yevrah]

Without the internet we wouldn't have this lovely little community here so swings and roundabouts.

There is that and it's probably the only example I have of something on the internet being an unqualified force for good. And even then, we've had our moments...

[Spikey M]

There is nothing Human Kind can't make the best and the worst of and the Internet is no exception. Even football is used to unite people and for people to bash other people's faces in because they're wearing the wrong coloured shirt.

We're hard wired to need a family or a team and equally as hard wired to need an enemy. Take that onto a largely faceless and anonymous platform, charge it with algorithms that expose you only to material that confirms your own beliefs and... voila.

On the whole, it's still a force for good. It's not as if things were ticketyboo before 1989 and we would have to make some rather hefty steps backwards if the Internet were to die tomorrow.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The internet is just a medium, not a thing in and of itself. What is does is basically turbocharge the world, massively increasing the speed at which everything happens - shopping and reading and listening and watching, but also resentment and anxiety and bullying.

There is a good moral argument to slow a lot of those things down, but there's much more money to be made at pace, so there you are.

[Baz]

I am pro-internet.

You can like the internet but not like certain parts of it, so saying Tim Berners-Lee will be remembered as the man who invented something that irreparably damaged the world is very narrow-minded. He created something incredible, and won’t be remembered for just the negative side of it.

[Don]

What I'm concerned by is the advancement in bots. Very very soon we will not be able to distinguish between bots and real parties. Now that isn't a problem for those who have managed to break free from the shackles of social media but they are the few. For the many, you're going to see these problems of misinformation and disinformation be amplified tremendously both in bolume and efficacy.

We are close now. AI will replace us for everything. Those wise to its detrimental effects will fight back by rejecting technology. Once their closely monitored communities are ready they shall wage a war and humanity's fate will rest in the hands of teenage boy.

[niko_cee]

Teenagers aren't going to be the ones rejecting surveillance culture/technology. The John Connor in your scenario is more likely to be an Internet 1.0 Yev-type figure. He'll need your brooms, your clothes and your mobility scooter.

[Lewis]

'What do we think chaps, is the liquid metal Terminator the best ever?'

[Spikey M]

Where did our amazing bot go phonics?

[phonics]

Started creating threads so we had to unplug him sadly.

[Raoul Duke]

Without the internet we wouldn't have this lovely little community here so swings and roundabouts.

And instant access to weapons grade pr0n

[niko_cee]

I think it was the crux of a Stewart Lee bit (maybe on comedy vehicle) but I do wonder what adolescence would have been like with such unfettered access to unbelievable filth. Probably not good all in all, although you'd have had a hard time explaining that to me at the time.

[Raoul Duke]

Think of the next gen who'll probably get a combo of high-res VR and super realistic deep fakes.

[Shindig]

They won't get VR. There's too many hurdles for that to clear. Deep fakes are shite but it's the kind of shite stupid people love.

You know what the internet does a number on? Autistics. Easy, wrong-as-fuck social interactions that don't do them any favours.

[Lofty]

The internet is already evolving rapidly and moulding the next generations for better or worse. Kids now want to be a youtuber, games streamer or instagram influencer. And the access to super filth will definitely cause problems. I saw an article a while back interviewing teenagers about their sex lives and basically they all mirror porn scenes, every woman under 21 is getting a spunk facial most of the time and the most lol finding was the girls saying 'I expected the penises to be bigger and last longer after watching porn'.

Everything is amplified and polarised, fake news confusing the masses. Imagine if we had the internet and social media of today during WW2, probably be just as much arguing between ourselves as there is now over things nowhere near as significant. It can be easy to forget what a cess pit the internet can be in the relatively refined environment here, but the likes of 4chan, 8chan etc make the facebook comment sections look like the House of Lords.

I'd argue the internet only really got going in the mainstream from the fringes in the mid 2000s. Now it has it's tentacles in every facet of our lives and it will only tighten it's grip. Look at the the major world events that have only happened due to the internet influence already, I think by 2030 we will have seen far more of this bleed into our reality from online.

That said I don't think there is any coming back from it so may aswell strap in and enjoy it where we can.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The only coming back from it will be if governments decide to switch it off, as they have tried to do in various scenarios around the world.

[niko_cee]

I'd like to think that as we age with the internet (ours [loosely used term] probably having been the first generation to grow up with it in some way or other) that a majority people will become more savvy and understanding of it (in my experience there is a high propensity for 50+ technotards to be a major source of the social media problem revolution) but there are worrying trends with the young as well so there is the danger that we are the only ones who ever really got it and it probably should have been held back from everyone else.

Less facetiously, I think people/society will tend to adapt to it as much as it adapts to us going forward, but the first big wave of social (from 2005 onwards) has hit hard with the scope of its engagement (it having reeled in so so many numpties).

[Jimmy Floyd]

The internet 1995-2005 was basically utopia, wasn't it. Badly designed utopia.

[Shindig]

Behold my GeoCity.

[SvN]

The internet peaked for me around 2001. I loved that every topic had its own website and community, rather than everything just living on Twitter, Reddit, whatever.

Plus, we had the novelty of the personal website. Facebook ruined that.

[Shindig]

Political discourse was better because it was confined to message boards like Soviet Empire instead of EVERYWHERE.

[Disco]

It's amazing just how different it is, how much more carefully you have to look for stuff that isn't just traditional media funneling you back to same half a dozen sites. Shitty social media killed a lot of the actual communities that formed in that 10 years or so from the mid-nineties on and everytime a new 'thing' appears it is inevitably snapped up and commercialised (live streaming for instance) and the innovation is pushed away.

[Manc]

I enjoyed Ego Death. Yet to get involved with Hive Mind.

[Jimmy Floyd]

And yet here we still are, after TWENTY years. This year we'll exceed the reign of King Xerxes in longevity.