To RM, NA, and everyone else.

Richard Menedetter wrote to Nick Andre <=-

Hi Nick!

Sorry for the late reply ...

14 Aug 2017 04:38, from Nick Andre -> Richard Menedetter:

While that may be true, the information available is in most cases no different than one can (and have) obtained from libraries.

I think the quality has dropped considerably even over the past few years. I've looked at some news .. what they claim is news, and its a single short paragraph with large font surrounded by tones of add space. Libraries have books with lots of pages.

But on the other side there is really good information out there but I don't see that information being desiged as a general rule, and for the masses. The primary interface for users today is their cell phone and althought the screen sizes are decent they content delievery is short bites. However people now claim they have understanding, where they mean they've heard of it. They see these short bites of info and don't know that isn't understanding, and hardly clasifies as knowledge, but to the ignorant, you don't know what you don't know and the less you do know the more you think you know.

You have much easier access to geographically diverse information.

This is true.

Etc.

Remember the early to mid 90's... The world did not suddenly morph
into some magical utopia when the Internet became popular, nor would
the "information superhighway" bring us together or improve our social standings with eachother by removing those geographical limits.

I wish this was the case. That was my hope and dream and still is, the information age! We could have it, but corps ... they've stolen the dream! data became a traded commodity vs its real use information, not money. It could be a lot cheaper, but ... its just being monetized.. like that is what drives people, .. usually no, but due the collective consciousness of corps about the all gains and growth vs all good and sustained, everyone has to play their game or fall behind financially and literacy (must keep working). The information age should have set many free, and make us more freer people!

It depends on how technology is used.
But the fact remains that it is now much quicker and easier to
communicate with people from other continents, etc.

This is what allows the dumbing down, while it could also allow global education and understanding, but .. what is going on? Separation, ignorance, misunderstanding, misinformation at a rapid pace on a global scale.

In fact, I think the opposite happened. People by and large just stare
off into their smartphones, or are addicted to Facebook, or seem
compelled to share pictures of what theyre about to have for supper. Cybercrime is more advanced and prevailent than ever nowadays.

Agree! I've asked people why, why take a picture of your food, how many times have you looked at those pictures going back ... say 7 years. They don't really have good answers, not answers for reasons that would be logical, but more so about feelings or emotional based reasons.

There we are again, that it depends on how technology is used.
And it also requires more education on the user side.
Eg. checking the crowd sizes for inauguration and to fact check "fake news"

Its nutty how fake news is spreading. At one point people were able to shed light on major media corps with simple small cameras and posting them on the internet, even some of the older smart phones, but now.. now you can be put in place of another and it can be almost undetectable. This was all before major censorship over the past 1.5 years.

I realise its not all doom and gloom and there are a few good websites
out there, but IMO western society's social skillset and intelligence level did not improve whatsoever by the Internet.

Not all doom and gloom is true. Think about how we (us on this board use the nets vs, basic smart phoners).

That is why education is important.
People need to LEARN to use the tools that are already widely
available.

Yes they do, but the tools are being produced and changes so fast, they have to be simplified and dummied down for users to understand them, and this is creating quality problems as well.

The Internet is just a tool for communication.
You need to select with WHOM you communicate.

I really wish I could share the same sentiments, truth is, the
Internet is by and large powered by companies who by and large earn profits by tracking and manipulating individual's on-line activity. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

I agree with both of you. Turn on encryption and start communicating with each other without allowing the giants to take and your comms and use them to turn us all into the product.

education

Learn to use Privacy Badger, Adaware and other useful tools.

I'll have to look this up.

EFF is usually a good read on those topics.
One interesting part is browser fingerprinting. https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Hi everyone, I'm back and its been a long long time but I was off working on some project that took my attention and I wasn't able to get back to this really interesting topic.

I've really liked to confirm the internet is in-part dumbing down people. I've looked up a lot of information and although I use the internet for the research its been interesting to see the change in available general indexed internet search results. Since the last posts I've made we've seen several changes like censorship, and straight out psyops, or behavior control. Now many of us older computer users, knew of the warning signs delivered from the olden day underground aka hackers, but for the masses.. they have no clue, and will never have a clue and will never care.

So the other day I was watching netflix ... The Great Hack .. and watching it knowing that other companies are performing psyops on the masses, but they are getting better and better at it.

I've also had the opportunity to work with people and talk to people about today's younger workers, and while I've observed the zombie like almost unbreakable attention to their smart phone, and they stroke the phone like Golem loves the precious, ... but they have a real real hard time dealing with others when having to focus or remember what they are being told.


Hey sorry no name in sig, .. still way to scared to do so. The internet has also made very vindictive people these days, OSI.. is getting toooo easy.

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