Does anyone else feel as if it's over when it comes to really owning your own things?
As of now:
- You don't have the option of having a phone with decent specs and replaceable parts
- You have to have really good knowledge in tech to have private services that are on par with what the big companies offer
- You have to put up with annoying compatibility issues if you install a custom ROM on your android phone
- You cannot escape apps preventing you from using them if you root your device
- Cars are becoming SaaS bullcrap
- Everything is going for a subscription model in general
And now Google is attempting to implement DRM on websites. If that goes through, Firefox is going to be relegated to privacy conscious websites (there aren't many of those). At this point, why even bother? Why do I go to great lengths at protecting my privacy if it means that I can't use most services I want?
It sucks because the obvious solution is for people to move away from these bullshit companies and show that they actually care about their privacy. Even more important is to actually PAY for services they like instead of relying on free stuff. I'm not optimistic not just because the non privacy conscious side is lazy, but because my side is greedy. I mean one of the most popular communities on lemmy is "piracy" which makes it all the more reasonable for companies not to listen to privacy conscious people.
I wouldn't say that this is the endgame but in this trajectory, privacy is gone before 2030.
If you think this is a dystopia, I have a lot of books for you to read.
There's a lot of dystopian shit going down, but (assuming you hail from a first world country) we are definitively not living in one.
Wean yourself off news media, limit your consumption of it. They literally make their money through keeping eyes watching. The easiest way to do that is to keep viewers feeling like there are ongoing crises constantly and to stoke visceral emotional response in their readership/viewership as much as possible.
This is not some issue siloed off to news organizations that lean to one political side or the other, it is an inherent result of how they all generate revenue in the modern age. They are all optimizing for ad impressions.
These are hard times, not end times.
Your suggestions are appreciated but they were not asked for - I don’t like pretending.
My wife is a journalism major and I’m very involved locally in politics.
Weaning myself off the news won’t make the planet any cooler during this time.
Weaning myself off the news doesn’t stop those with money and influence from being above the law.
Weaning myself off the news doesn’t change anything, except make me less informed.
Ignorance may be bliss to some, but to others it’s just ignorance. Downvote away, but honestly I’ll stick to this until we have an actual Utopia (without slaves).
Fuck yeah, this is the right attitude. It absolutely takes more mental effort and acuity to shift through the piles of absolute bullshit produced by modern media to generate rage and clicks and engagement, however, expending that energy to do so is so fucking important.
Checking out and being like "the news makes me too upset" is kind of part of the problem. Honestly, if you're not fucking furious every minute of every day for the horrors modern humans suffer under the richest nations on the planet, you're not paying the fuck attention, and that's on you.
And here we have an intense difference in world view.
If you're actually "fucking furious every minute of every day", you have a serious emotional issue. And you're hiding behind this idea that reading more news has any reflection on mental acuity to justify it. Effort, hell yes it takes more effort, but fuck off with elitism over your righteous anger.
You don't need to sift through all the piles of absolute bullshit to stay informed, or to be aware of all the horroble shit in the world. It doesn't take a concentrated effort to be aware. It does take a concentrated effort to stay emotionally invested in things that don't directly effect you, and I'm of the opinion that effort is much better spent taking action, or simply doing what you can to better your small slice of the world every day.
Unfortunately it is extremely unlikely for any of us to have significant impact on large scale issues in the world. Stay reasonably informed, do what you can, and get on with your life. No sense in wallowing when there's far better uses of time and energy.
My man are you for real? You commented in a public forum on the internet. You're going to get unasked for feedback/advice/shit talking/commentary. That's just how things work.
And no one's asking you to pretend, whatever you mean by that. I'm assuming you mean that it's impossible to accept that this world is not a dystopia, so doing otherwise requires one to pretend?
I'm asserting that we are not living in a dystopia as you and many others repeatedly claim. Maybe you disagree, but it's not something that I personally have to pretend. Again I'll repeat the last sentence of my last comment: These are hard times, not end times.
Plus, there's a whole spectrum of news media exposure between "drinking from the fire hose" and "burying your head in the sand". Everyone should stay informed, but there's a lot in the news that only serves to get emotional response over things that have no impact on your life, where knowing of it does not convey any significant value besides emotional effect.
I have seen far too many people actively contribute to their own mental issues due to feeling some obligation to engage in news that has no direct impact on their lives, or that they can do nothing about but worry. Additionally, being aware of the emotional and psychological effects of media exposure does not make you in any way immune to it. I know way too many people suffering from depression and anxiety related issues directly and significantly exacerbated by how much they consume news media, which is why I have a hard time keeping my trap shut about this.
Moving past that, being married to a journalism major is not the supporting argument you may think it is. Of course you would bristle at the idea that news media may be harmful when you are married to someone who spent years training to be in that industry. I'm not saying any of this as an attack on journalists themselves or as an attack on caring about what is going on in the world. Ideally journalists and news organizations serve a vital part of keeping people informed, which is vital to a good society and proper political process. Unfortunately the entire way that news media makes money to continue to exist in the modern era is entirely dependant on optimizing for views, which means optimizing for emotional impact.
Your slightly condescending tone is obscuring a decent message. I agree with you.