i grew up in the 90s, as a computer geek.

[pikhq@social.treehouse.systems]

i grew up in the 90s, as a computer geek. this meant i soaked in the techno-optimism of the age. it has been really disorienting seeing that techno-optimism lead to this current era of techno-authoritarianism, lead by the proponents of that techno-optimism.
the bright and shining future i was promised was a boot stomping on the face of humanity forever.

[wifiwits@infosec.exchange]

@pikhq disappointing isn’t it.

[athena@chaosfem.tw]

@pikhq we made a machine that can do anything and used it to do this

[uair@autistics.life]

@pikhq

Since you ref'fed it:

1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a fucking blueprint you assholes!

[hillu@infosec.exchange]

@pikhq How I long for all the optimistic sentiments about information wanting to be free and how everything would optimize itself for a Greater Good if only everyone had access to that freed information. Simpler times, certainly. Also: No more wars, that was a nice lookout.

[tk@f.kawa-kun.com]

@pikhq I refer to the current era as technofascist.

[roblosricos@mastodon.social]

@pikhq

you totally misunderstood - it was going to usher in wealth for a few. that was never a secret, though they the technocrati did say different things to people of different economic status.

[daanlo@mastodon.social]

@tk @pikhq the question I ask myself is, what made the techno-optimists turn into techno-fascists?
1) becoming rich/powerful?
2) they were always techno-fascists, it just wasn‘t visible
3) that‘s just the zeitgeist
4) strategic infiltration by fascists
Any other ideas?

[astropug@hachyderm.io]

@pikhq

My computer time was severely restricted as a nineties kid but I feel like I got more of the optimism as well. Pity to see it fly. I feel disappointed on the daily.

But I wonder.

I think what made us optimistic is that we can work together and can outsmart bad things. And that’s still the case, though the boot wants us to think otherwise.

Everything we learned and will learn is useful and a tool in our hands.

[vfrmedia@social.tchncs.de]

@Wifiwits @pikhq

I am slightly older and grew up with tech in 1980s, it always started out as something for the military/industrial complex (especially nuclear weapons related stuff) so I never really believed in the techno-optimism of the 90s (it was all crumbs from the table after the temporary lull in the Cold War)

[burn_this_@beige.party]

@pikhq
Well, forever is a long time.

It reminds me of that Who song,
Meet the new boot / same as the old boot

[burn_this_@beige.party]

@Daanlo @tk @pikhq
I pick #2 along with self-discovery.

[newstik@social.heise.de]

@pikhq So you have an idea of how socialists and communists must have felt.

[vex@kolektiva.social]

@Daanlo @tk @pikhq all of the above is relevant, but specifically it's the combination of colonized language + hierarchy that causes people to identify with power/status over experience, which simultaneously disconnects from the latter (& thus disconnects from reality/causality).

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@pikhq Same thing here. To be clear, there is a potential optimism that could exist, it's just the bad actors took it all over and society, as a whole, let them. I'm not sure if it's salvageable at this point for sure, but I know taking back control (using *nix/BSD/etc, rejecting corporate media, etc) is a darned good start...

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@pikhq yes. we feel sad, and betrayed, but mostly we feel naive and angry...

[wesdym@mastodon.social]

@pikhq The past tense of 'lead' is LED.

If you're asked to lead someone somewhere, and you do that, then afterwards you'd say you LED them.

[aspragg@ohai.social]

@pikhq It felt like computers and the internet could be used - no, *were* being used - to add value to people's lives.

Now it feels like they're being used to extract value from people's lives.

[burnitdown@beige.party]

@Athena @pikhq

computers can do a lot of things but it's a far stretch to say "anything". there are a lot of things computers can't do and tasks for which they should not be relied on.

[__d@mastodon.social]

@aspragg @pikhq I think it was the naïveté and ignorance of the technocratic middle class. We took the money of the oppressors and built things that we thought were egalitarian, but almost universally failed to prevent misuse. It wasn’t ill intended, but it is obvious in hindsight that we were co-opted with minimal resistance at every step.

Which I think of often in this AI world.