I want to echo and extend solderpunk's "Hey you! Host
something!" post [1] by tying it to a recent post on SDF's
bboard.
Someone (not me) anonymously posted on bboard about the
increased incidence of depression in society. More and more
people are diagnosed with depression, with the average age of
onset trending toward younger and younger individuals. The post
referenced a 2016 article blaming this trend on Western consumer
culture [2]. I read this article and found it to strongly
support some of the reasons I am so excited about public access
shell communities (called "pubnixes" in this post).
The article argued that the reported increases in depression are
not actually depression at all. Rather, they are forms of
"culturally generated demoralization", something caused by the
anti-pattern [3] of using consumerism as a path to meaning,
purpose or self-fulfillment in life. This anti-pattern leads to
what Noam Chomsky calls a "philosophy of futility", in which
"people feel naked of power and significance beyond their
conditioned role as consumers."
But if there is demoralization among pubnix users, I don't
think this quite explains it. Instead, people see the
enormous problems facing future society-- global warming,
polluted oceans, extreme inequality in economic opportunities,
deforestation, jingoism and geopolitical militancy, etc --and
they see an absence of coordinated action to solve them.
These problems need a massive type of collective action that
won't happen while mainstream social and communication media
have a profit model based on enraging and dividing people.
The demoralization I see on pubnixes is a consumer culture
outsider's recognition that consumer culture has a lot of
momentum and is on a collision course with societal collapse.
Consumer culture is the problem, underpinned by short-sighted,
uncontrolled government and cultural manipulation by for-profit
corporations. And as long as corporations continue to dominate
social and communications media, things aren't going to get any
better.
But Google keeps getting bigger. Facebook may have a black eye
right now, but it still counts its users in the billions. Fox
News and CNN warp the views of millions of U.S. voters.
It is easy to be pessimistic. It is easy to feel powerless and
disconnected from a society trapped in the gyre. Everyone wants
to do something meaningful that supports what they think is
right, but it feels like the proverbial rearranging the deck
chairs on the titanic.
If you're a digital refugee from consumer culture, what can
you do? It is a huge uphill battle, but why not start at the
root: help re-build the non-commercial internet. Allow it to
be used for good rather than pointless consumerism and
propaganda. Help establish and protect user controlled tools
for social and communication media. Put your efforts behind
something you can believe in. It feels good when you're
supporting a positive cause.
So to echo solderpunk: hey you, host something! [1]
But I want to extend this call to arms by making it even more
broadly inclusive.
If you don't want to or don't have the knowledge to host
something, you can still support this cause by simple
participation. Join a pubnix community. Be a constructive
member. Test out software others are developing and give them
user feedback. Educate yourself on issues that matter to you
and be an interesting contributor to chats or to the
phlogosphere. Help make it a true, supportive community.
If you're not sure how to get started or what you can do, feel
free to contact me. I make it a hobby to connect people with
others in these communities. You can email me at
[email protected] (where my username is 'cmccabe').
[1]
gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~solderpunk/phlog/hey-you-host-something.txt
[2]
https://newint.org/columns/essays/2016/04/01/psycho-spiritual-crisis
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
