I agree with the sentiment but I think there are key differences in generations. Thus far inaction has been a characteristic. Millennials have been a large enough cohort already to be making waves of change in this world. What has happened is naught but everyone waiting for the big moment when the big bad boomers just sort of go away or something. And then things will magically fix itself.

If there is any cause for much optimism for this generation we would have already been seeing massive changes under way. Instead we have marginal statistical increases in such things as polling progressively or voter turn out. That’s not exactly things to be patting yourself on the back for when you’ve been old enough to vote for 10 - 20 years. Certainly not if one is expecting something drastically different than baby boomers.

Combine that with the individualism which what I think sets the generation apart from the baby boomer. I think this generation is too self-involved that’s why there has been seemingly no collective actions. There’s wasn’t some big giant boomer conspiracy to fuck everyone over for the past 50 years. Though you’d that way with how millennials talk about it. This generation has thus far can barely be assed to accomplish coming out and voting for common interests. That’s simply what the boomers have been doing.

There’s advice I heard several years ago on the topic of political activism. There are local meetings and such out there but nobody shows up. Almost always everyone is sitting at home. The younger generations are waiting for someone to call them and tell them what to do. And it’s true. You have to tell them exactly what to do and keep reminding them.

Not surprisingly that’s how both sides (for real this time) won their respective elections with Obama and Trump. A success of the Obama campaign which is largely overlooked in social media discourse but what they did with younger generations was groundbreaking digital outreach. Then we saw the Republicans do the same in their own way by making the GOP fashionable among younger conservatives.

That isn’t unpopular opinion unfortunately. Otherwise the world wouldn’t the way that it is right now. We live in a surveillance apparatus that shapes our behavior. Nobody really cares except for the fringes of society.

If you poll people if they care about their privacy of course they will say yes. That is a rather superficial question. When you start polling in meaningful manner such as the uses of personal data the more the opinions become mixed. Some people really do think tracking and ads can provide them useful services. Such a rapacious form of capitalism is the prevailing mode of our time.

I think to some people the concepts of behavioral modification is too sci-fi to be believable. The topic sounds too much like ramblings of a conspiracy nutter about mind control. For others probably they think they’re smarter than psychological conditioning.

One the biggest problems with the internet today is bad actors know how to manipulate or dodge the content moderation to avoid punitive consequences. The big social platforms are moderated by the most naive people in the world. It’s either that or willful negligence. Has to be. There’s just no way these tech bros who spent their lives deep in internet culture are so clueless about how to content moderate.

You would think adversarial actors would find this problematic in their own way. Does no one remember anymore way back when reddit was exposed as being an American state apparatus? Reddit owners its earlier more naive era used to share site metrics. They inadvertently revealed that large amounts of activity comes from a US military base. Then they wiped evidence and disavowed all knowledge that any of that ever happened. And now the narrative on there is that other state actors are the ones in control of that platform. How convenient.

White hat actors could be using such open access to data to reveal whats in the data. That’s what the big social platforms are so scared of themselves. Not only is it their financial bread and butter. Contained within is who know how many skeletons piled up over the years.

Everyones privacy these days is basically long gone. There’s illusion that internet platforms are in any way shape or form fair or balanced because of the paper thin concept of internet votes == democracy or something. Yet a lot of people stubbornly persist. It’s past due time to shine a light on the adversarial actors run amok. Show us the anomalies in data that reveal how the typical real human user is powerless against adversarial actors.

I’d like to think it would be the last straw for the whole concept of social platforms at least the way that it is now. Who knows though. It’s also shown us how dumb people are. They could very well just “meh” and go back to mindlessly infinite scrolling.

Bloatware has spiraled out of control. It’s a consequence of coding becoming easy and accessible. Programming is no longer the domain of idealistic nerds. It is possible for anyone to make garbage tech wares.

Food, healthcare, housing. The basic pillars of living standards. Every level of government is twiddling their thumbs.

Is one really on the internet if they’re trapped inside a tech bro walled garden. The situation seems quite terrible now that people have to be told how to go to a URL as simple as cbc.ca. It’s not like the internet was recently invented. This is a developed nation and one of the earlier to widely adopt internet usage. Here we are teaching people how to browse to a website. What a mess that big tech has made.

This country tries to be bigger than it is. On the flip side of the same coin it’s falsely perceived from the outside as bigger than it is. As if to be some sort of alt America. I think California alone is bigger or at least comparable to the entire country across many metrics. There is simply no amount of forcing or wishing or hoping some how this country can manifest the economic and industrial output to magically increase by orders of magnitude. Some times I wish everyone would get real about all this and treat it as it is. A small nation.

An upside down world where people are reliant on social media for news. Then becoming upset when they have to be told it’s a bad thing.

The world wide web was meant to be more than a few tech bros with their tentacles on everything pulling it all towards a central point that is themselves. They’re fighting for their monopoly here more than anything else. It’s time for them to quit stifling innovation so the internet can evolve again.