Asklemmy

I haven’t seen anything specifically as a “trend” but I’ve had a growing amount of paranoia that our entire economy in the US is on the verge of collapse. We keep pushing bigger profits and infinite growth so shareholders who contribute absolutely nothing to society can make more money but that money comes from somewhere. We can’t just magically make more money (we could but there’s multiple reasons we don’t. It doesn’t work out). It comes from the working class. And that working class isn’t getting raises but prices keep rising. I feel like it’s a giant bubble and when it explodes things are going to get really bad. I think people will actually die because we are on an economically unsustainable path and no one cares because everyone wants money now and doesn’t want anything else.

I’m pretty terrified of whats to come.

Jewish blood libel conspiracies. All the COVID and WEF conspiracies that are popping up and gaining immense popularity all go back to “Jews are evil and must be removed”.

The association of the internet with mass amounts CSAM or Terrorist information. It's a line that governments have been pushing ever since the internet evolved from 'weird invention' to 'vague sense of threat to the integrity of nationstates'.

Are these real problems that need addressing? Absolutely. Though on a much smaller scale than gets exclaimed. And rather than the priority being hunting down perpetrators, the effort almost exclusively goes into shutting down or bugging any server that law enforcement's whim decides. The reality is that with end-to-end encryption, most "real" criminals on the internet will be entirely unaffected, while the created laws are instead mostly used for political censorship, the 'war on drugs', etc.

As a line, it's pretty much used to justify every act of censorship, privacy invasion, and restriction on the internet that satisfies a government's awful interests.

The slow and steady abdication of control of our privacy to big tech.

Privacy privacy privacy.

I like that there's still smart devices that don't need the cloud. Look for devices that use Zigbee or Z-wave instead of Wifi, as these protocols are guaranteed to be local.

I've got to say, I love the apps. I bought a washing machine with an app. It alerts me when it's finished. it's so nice.

What I hate is short form video, youtube shorts, tiktok, something where a person shouts information at you really fast then it ends. I also hate the lack of phonelines, I'm a techy person, if I have an issue with a device I want to talk to a person, explain what I've tried already, and then they tell me some other things I haven't tried. I do not want to sit through half hour of -

"Please connect the yellow wire to the modem. Has that solved your issue?"

"no"

"I heard no, is that correct?"

"yes"

"please connect the yellow wire to the wall. Has that solved your issue?"

etc

It's not just that they're smart, it's that the "smart" features actively interfere with normal operation, though it's bad enough that you can't find "dumb" versions. TVs for example: a few years ago I tried to replace my dying "dumb" TV and discovered that they basically don't sell TVs that aren't smart. I figured "eh, worst case I can just use it as a normal TV" only to discover that on some models no, I could not. I've come to despise Roku-integrated TVs: standalone Roku devices are great, but their TVs lock down basically every single adjustment you'd find on a normal TV other than brightness and volume, so too bad if you have to deal with glare I guess?

Finally wound up going with an AndroidTV, which at least lets me change inputs and adjust the picture as needed... but also the home screen is loaded with ads that you can't disable. At least it still lets me have it boot straight to a specific input instead of showing the home screen.

Any new tech that emerges should be viewed as either "How will they use it to scrape all my data?" or "How will they sell this to the military?"

Or both.

The increased normalization of stereotyping. I try to stop myself, but I don't think I'm immune either. It just feels like people are just more okay with seeing that someone is a certain nationality or race and assuming things than they were 5 - 10 years ago, regardless of political orientation. Some communities dislike it when you don't play into the stereotype, even.

Casual language is hyperbolic and violent.

Does everything you do need to sound like you'll stop at nothing to avenge the rape and murder of your family?

Similar boat. I'm the only one in my friend group (many of whom are technically minded) who in concerned about digital privacy and doesn't trust black box devices.

Anyone who talks about the horrors the internet is turning into is labelled as a "boomer" or "nerd"

Fascism, through all its features: authoritarianism and racism especially, anti-science and intolerance more broadly.