this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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The myth of Aaron Swartz continues...
He was a big proponent of free speech absolutism. He'd have been more than happy with the jailbait subs, watchpeopledie, fatpeoplehate etc. I really don't think he deserves a free pass just because Reddit wasn't enshittifying while he was around, as it was in a growth phase. It had other problems which needed resolution.
I can see where he picked up that attitude. It was common in the hacker types of the late 90s/early 2000s regardless of where their politics lay otherwise. Around the time he died, many of them were starting to see the monster that was created out of that, but it wasn't really obvious until the 2016 election.
And the idea was that we should be better than that. We're more educated now than people have been since at least the Roman times, and probably ever.
We're supposed to be able to handle free speech absolutism and simply bust through all the bullshit and logical fallacies. We're supposed to have the tools to find the truth, and therefore be resistant to propaganda.
Even after all this, I don't think it's our education that is lacking. It's our lack of community that makes us vulnerable. It's easier than ever to pick and choose who your limited "community" is, outside of family. And there's a reason family is taking the brunt of the pressure now.
The boomer adage of never talking about religion or politics has killed us. People used to fight and die over politics, and now we can't even talk about politics with close family. Better to avoid the subject and just let dad go out and vote for the guy idolizing mein kampf.
It's especially a failure of our churches. One of the few places we still have a third place, a community, and most have failed to lead their people to truly Christian values. How can the way Republicans treat immigrants reconcile with Christianity? Their stance on guns while children are being murdered regularly enough that we can't name all the schools anymore? Go ahead and rattle off the easy four before clicking the spoiler. I'll wait.
spoiler
Columbine, Newtown, Sandy Hook, UvaldeThe idea that any and all information should be free isn't new. The idea that we should have the wisdom to discern the truth and handle the chaff hadn't been tested so hard in a long time.
https://web.archive.org/web/20031229025933/http:/bits.are.notabug.com/
Cheers for the citation
WPD has it's place and there was nowhere on the internet that was nearly as sanitized as it was on reddit compared to other gore sites.
That morbid curiosity in my twenties helped me through a lot.
I guess it's the one I care least about that I listed. Substitute in the overtly racist subreddits, if you wish, as they surely didn't deserve a platform.
You have to admit that comparatively he was the least rotten apple in that basket though.