> As Molly White said, “there are never purely technological solutions to societal problems”.
I agree. It's Conway's Law on a national scale. In our advanced capitalist society, most governance is done by corporate hegemons (finance, insurance, real estate, marketing, etc), sometimes using the de jure government as a proxy. Our digital organization reflects exactly that!
It is revealing that the best form of digital identification for each person are (secret) profiles created+sold by digital surveillance companies, rather than a robust + transparent digital citizenship that is managed strictly by a public entity and the subject themself.
Some people react to the status quo by "running into the wilderness", either literally, or metaphorically by self-hosting everything. Either way, they often become digitally isolated and maintaining their personal kingdom becomes a lifelong task. It's not fixing the underlying societal dysfunction, just avoiding it.
> It's not fixing the underlying societal dysfunction, just avoiding it.
Absolutely true. But as one of the people who do this, my response is: self-protection first. Then continue doing whatever you can do to make things better in the larger picture.
I concur that individuality / individual sovereignty is a prerequisite a healthy society, but some people think its the ultimate goal rather than a first, limited step.
I agree. It's Conway's Law on a national scale. In our advanced capitalist society, most governance is done by corporate hegemons (finance, insurance, real estate, marketing, etc), sometimes using the de jure government as a proxy. Our digital organization reflects exactly that!
It is revealing that the best form of digital identification for each person are (secret) profiles created+sold by digital surveillance companies, rather than a robust + transparent digital citizenship that is managed strictly by a public entity and the subject themself.
Some people react to the status quo by "running into the wilderness", either literally, or metaphorically by self-hosting everything. Either way, they often become digitally isolated and maintaining their personal kingdom becomes a lifelong task. It's not fixing the underlying societal dysfunction, just avoiding it.