Back before Reddit was run by raging corporate sellouts
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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And that's why they had to get rid of him
A lot of people who said similar things back then are saying the opposite now that the right has learned how to fight back using these communications technologies.
In 2007 did anyone expect a resurgence in right-wing politics and activism was a thing that would ever happen in their lifetimes? It was but shortly after that people said the Republican party had been dashed to pieces, destined to regional party status.
He would be so disgusted in what Reddit has become, and the internet in general. Its shameful. Its so disheartening to me to see what the internet has become.
During its popular infancy, we were certain it would be governments that would kill the Internet. Remember Barlow's A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace? That's the sort of lofty hubris we embraced for it.
But it's not really normies and corporations killing it now, much as it might seem. And Barlow wasn't so far off in his threat estimation either. After all, it's authoritarian statists who are behind the Internet's twisting, and they're doing it for a literal ploy at world domination. What a bunch of catiffs!
Barlow's declaration, looking back at it now, reads as grossly naive. At least it looks that way across the smoldering cultural war zone that the Internet, hell the whole world, has become. We knew something terrible was probably coming, even back then, but having the US President fighting for the good guys is not part of what most imagined, I'm pretty sure.
Going to reddit is spooky the last few days. It's got a way different feel than it had even last week.
How would you characterize it?
The bots now talk to the bots.
u seem hopeful. but those are actually humans..
I used to get some amusement from the non-political stuff, but now it all just feels dead inside.
I wonder if this is what if feels like to live in a place like China, all the time.
I used to love that site when it was more about EarthPorn, science, and technology. OOOooOOOooOOOO we need an EarthPorn where people cant post titles saying I hiked 962 hours and 14 trillion miles after the sun went down to get this picture of the sun coming back up. So worth.
Then the FBI and MIT drove him to suicide.
really?. u dont think these people are hands on?
This reminds me of a two-pane comic I saw years ago that I really liked.
The first pane was a young hippie shouting "Open your mind! Seek the truth! Fight the power!" The second pane was that hippie in their 60's as a college professor saying something like "We know what's best for you! Conform and obey!"
NEVER FORGET: Obama killed Aaron.
I don't really know how a liberal with a good head on their shoulders can reconcile voting for the party that is threatening the freedom of speech and shitting on Aaron's legacy.
....Obama killed Aaron? Explain
Sources on the subject:
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (full documentary) (imdb link)
Aaron Swartz, and the question that none dare ask Obama
Obama Declines Petition on Aaron Swartz’s Death
If you watch the documentary you will understand the institutional failures that started from the top and resulted in Aaron's suicide. I find it at least criminal that no "journalists" have ever pressured Obama administration to issue an apology or did an "opinion" on the subject.
The freedom activists that did got the door shut in their face (see 3rd link) and no mainstream media outlet ever wrote about this.
amen