Mastodawn

As age-verification bullshit becomes more common, I am determined to simply not participate in any service or video game that requires it. The day I see the prompt, is the day I leave.

Maybe the government’s hope is that I stop participating in society, but I assure you that I will not. I’ll find or build alternatives, and refuse to comply with bad law.

I hope you will, too.

And as a silver lining, maybe the weird internet we end up creating as a result will suck less than the current one.

It may be inadvisable to put this in writing, but I’m serious about this: if I am ever required to put up an age-gate, I intend to defy that law.

You’re going to have to break into my house and physically remove the server, when it comes down to it.

And it’s not that I doubt they can. I don’t have the same kind of resources that the state does. It’s more that I intend to make them do so publicly, in the sunlight.

I solemnly swear to be the biggest pain in the ass for fascists possible.

At this point, I believe there’s more value in being loud and public about resistance.

The legal system already does not function, specifically for me. I have no reason to believe that the Constitution will protect me, or that plausible deniability will keep me out of jail. At this point, if the fash wants to put me there, they will reverse engineer a reason to do so, or even do so illegally.

But if others see me making noise, they might decide to push back, too. Corporations certainly aren’t!

All I know is that the internet is absolutely the most important thing humanity has ever created, and is maybe the only tool that we have today which is capable of equalizing the insane wealth, information, and power inequalities in my country.

Our ability to communicate freely, to exchange ideas, and to organize terrifies all of the right people. Good. It should.

I will not participate in destroying my own home— and yes, I do consider the Internet my home. I’m corny like that.

I understand that my own corner of the internet is not particularly important, but I only have to be one brick in the wall.

And I can even become a *couple* of bricks by extending those principles to the other sites and tools that I use, and refusing to participate in ones that cave to pressure to erode our civil rights.

No one will notice that I’m not using Floop or Glorm or whatever. It’s true that I won’t cause the owners to change their behavior. But neither will I help them build power.

So yeah, bottom line: I will not tolerate this identity verification bullshit on any platform.

I will not allow my absence from said platforms to dictate my ability to participate in public life.

And I will build spaces that respect and empower my neighbors.

It’s going to be inconvenient, but it’s also punk as hell, and the right thing to do.

Finally, to the authoritarian pricks trying to destroy my home, online and off; fuck you, I hope you choke.

Violet Madder Mar 6

I'm from the Internet, too.

I see them trying to enclose the digital commons, which will have as devastating effect on humanity as enclosing the land did.

The future is being stolen from us, and we have to stop them.

@violetmadder well, I’m happy to be in community with you then.

Let’s do our best.

@violetmadder @Haste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

Enclosure - Wikipedia

Violet Madder Mar 6

@su_liam @Haste

Exactly.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

(and the "tragedy of the commons" is a heavily propagandized lie)

@su_liam @violetmadder today I learned! Thanks for the link.

@Haste @violetmadder I learned about a week ago. It’s fun to be infuriated by history.

@Haste Yeah, I really want to do this. I want to help work on something that developers and administrators could turn into a small business helping people maintain--sort of like a small plumbing business.

A grass roots hing with an agreed set of patterns or something so that we can all train each others' users and they can easily interoperate with each other.

I'd want to be defense oriented. We're all under attack trying to defend ourselves and each other.

I'm lost in it though. Too big.

@crazyeddie it does feel really big. I’d say just pick one small thing that you really care about, and know how it works. Focus on that and trust that the next thing will be someone else’s project.

You only have to be one brick in the wall!

I just love every word of this.

Never comply.
Never give up.
Never give an inch until they stick a gun in my face.

@Haste When you do build alternatives, please name them Floop and Glorm. I'll sign up immediately.

@mpark @Haste What are those?

@mpark I feel like Floop would be a website where you share pictures of fruit with faces drawn on them.

@Haste When what it actually is is an ai-free site for peer reviewing research.

@mpark oh wow, there really IS a site called Floop 🤣 I genuinely thought it was too absurd a sound to have been used

@Haste That is hilarious. And Glorm is apparently a character in a children's book.

Winchell Chung ⚛🚀Mar 6

Well, I'm so ancient that my website lacks all those technologies because they didn't exist back then.

Admittedly the absolutely insane wealth, information and power inequalities in the world only skyrocketed once the Internet was created. But is it correlation, causation or coincidence? The Internet enabled Google, Amazon, Facebook, but really those guys were using the same techniques that worked to screw up brick and mortar business in the 1800's. We just had laws to prevent it, and for some reason people started lying that didn't apply when you couldn't walk into the store. And got away with it, every time. Plus wealth monstrosities created by SpaceX, and indeed "brick and mortar" superstores weren't aided by the Internet. And the vast majority of rich fucks these days come from two scams: rental properties (especially hotels) and private equity. Internet doesn't help either of those schemes.

(I'd add speculation to the schemes, but that money doesn't exist; people are just lying that it does.)

So I'd say the Internet is... probably... a good thing. But its timing is terrible, coinciding with the constant, total failure of anyone opposing rich fucks and the unstoppable enslavement of every man, woman and child while the planet burns. Sometimes I just wish I could talk to my neighbors, and do something to protect ourselves against this global wave of tyranny.

@cy @Haste Expensive technologies benefit the rich.

A previous generation of rich people hated the crossbow because a man who could devote himself to training with it could kill an armored rich landowner.

The Samurai really didn't like muskets for the same reason. Now an uppity peasant hiding at a turn in the road could kill them.

All tech since the steam engine has empowered the rich. At least the Internet does occasionally threaten them. Encryption and copying capability, for example.

Hardly any rich people operated a steam engine at all!

Just nitpicking, but technically the reason every technology since the steam engine has benefited only the rich is purely political. As in, it's legal for them to benefit, and not legal for anyone else. That's all that's causing it: people, police, laws. It's that way because people have decided to make and keep it that way.

CC: @[email protected]

@cy @Haste It's also true that steam engines (and power plants are steam engines; this has not changed) have major economies of scale. If you wanted to generate your own electricity you had to hire someone to shovel the coal.

Liberating technologies are those that allow large numbers of ordinary people to defeat small numbers of rich people.

The crossbow, the musket with bayonet, the stirrup for horses, gunpowder for siege warfare.

There haven't been any of those lately.

Steam engines at scale require large numbers of ordinary people to operate. If those large numbers of people give the middle finger to the small numbers of rich people, what are they going to do? Pay with the money that isn't worth anything, since they can't gatekeep access to the machines?

The answer is they get the military to go kill you all, until you submit to slavery. That really is all that it is. The day the large numbers of ordinary people in the military give the rich the middle finger is the day that the rich lose absolutely everything.

CC: @[email protected]

@cy @Haste If there was a way to telepathically say "Now!" and act collectively, any system of oppression could be overthrown in an hour.

There is not a way to do that.

The Haitian Revolution happened because the slave owners got lazy and let groups of escapees grow. Those escapees were able to coordinate a revolt.

If the military turns against the elite, whoever they do obey becomes the new elite. That has happened a lot in history, but the new leader is usually a real bastard.

@cy @Haste The rich people did finance the construction and improvement of the steam engine. As I recall, Newcomen accidentally discovered the condenser vacuum principle. His engine barely worked because his cylinder was crude. He partnered with a cannon maker to produce good cylinders and then the engine worked.

Watt couldn't get factory owners to buy his improved engine, so he built the first metered-usage licensing model! He did the upgrade for free and put a billing meter on the engine.

@cy yeah, it’s true that as useful as I find it, the rich people have access to it, too. And they have the money to take it over, and control how I use it.

I confess that I’m not sure how to keep that pattern repeating yet.

Stop people from using money. That's about the only thing that can do it. No paying rent, no paying back debts, no paying taxes, no paying for stuff at the store, no paying for land, it's all part of the scam.

I don't have much hope we'll ever achieve this... but the solution is pretty obvious.

@cy I mean the way the economy is going, and folks are losing their jobs to incompetent autocomplete, the next general strike might be an accident. I’m only mostly joking

pff, fair enough

Infernal_pizza Mar 6

@Haste its scary how quickly this is spreading. Humanity's greatest achievement and just like everything else it's being destroyed by the 1% while barely anyone else seems to care

@Infernal_pizza @Haste People care. We have no ability to act collectively.

Neither can the rich, however. It has been proven time and time again that when a corrupt national elite face an existential threat, they cannot pause the stealing long enough to deal with the threat. The USSR and Nazi Germany, nearing their downfall, were good examples. In both cases the looting sped up as the end approached.

If GenAI succeeds, the AIs won't need billionaires any more either.

@Haste I would certainly rate vaccines as more important than the internet, but the internet is the most powerful tool for democratization ever created. Of course, both of those are under attack by the same forces of subjugation for completely non-coincidental reasons. Resistance is a prerequisite of being a decent person.

@su_liam you know what, yeah, vaccines are a reasonable answer too!

@Haste
I think the long-term solution is spread awareness and reduce the stigma of censorship-resistent anonymous networks such as #Tor and #I2P.

Sharon McCarthy Mar 6

@Haste Be Ungovernable!!

PickleGlitch Mar 6

@Haste They won't have to break into your house, they'll just have your ISP block your access. Considering most people are using one of only a handful of megacorp ISPs in the US, I'm surprised they haven't already started to try and shut down critics at the ISP level.

@pickleglitch hm, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to noodle on it.

PickleGlitch Mar 7

@Haste On a related note, many ISPs also prohibit using your home connection to host websites in their TOS. I know Verizon does. I don't think many of them enforce this, but they could decide to at any moment.

@pickleglitch if you can imagine it, I care even less about ToS agreements than I do the law

@Haste I’ve made enough of a habit of putting inadvisable things in writing, that when it comes down to it cowardice will be pointless. This was a choice.

Neil E. Hodges Mar 6

@Haste I feel like mesh networking (Reticulum, MeshCore, Meshtastic, LoRa, HaLow, etc.) is going to provide us with the replacement of the Internet in the long run. Since it has no infrastructure requirements beyond electricity, corporations can be easily locked out. :3

@tk it’s funny you mention that, I was recently taught how to build a radio to join a mesh network, and will be contributing as soon as I can source the parts.

Hopefully I don’t electrocute myself, I’m not exactly an engineer. lol

@Haste exactly.

I also close my account the second a company uses AI as their customer service.

@kimlockhartga yeah, get that shit out of here.

Latest run in with it is Overtone. Really liked it but it if I can’t get a human I’m not using it again.

This is the way.

James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺Mar 6

@Haste Well, it probably will if all the twats are stuck in the panslopticon.

@freequaybuoy I’ve never heard that term and now I really like it

James 🦉 #FBPE 🇪🇺Mar 7

@Haste I just made it up! You heard it here first! (Well it kinda wrote itself like most satire and punchlines these days)

Nu Modular Mar 6

@Haste Start a Tor Node.

Seth "Twylo" Morabito Mar 6

@Haste @cwebber Yes. 1,000,000% yes.

@Haste from my cold dead hands but it's a fistful of rj45

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES Mar 6

i haven't been on #bluesky in awhile

i just won't do it

i could use a fake date

but i just resent it

BoloMKXXVIII Mar 6

@benroyce @Haste
When you have absolutely no choice but to enter a date, enter July 4th, 1776. Everyone!

@benroyce wow I hate so many things about the way they’ve phrased that.

1. Age appropriate according to whom? What are you, my mom?

2. Just give us this data real quick, it’ll be so easy. Don’t think about it too much, definitely do it without thinking please. Also we’re holding your account hostage

3. It’s private, trust us.™️

@Haste @benroyce “trust us.”

Ugh.

I’ve deleted apps before this started, then re-downloaded later to be met with the age thing. I just deleted them again. It’s particularly annoying for apps I’ve paid for, as that wasn’t a thing when I purchased, but screw off for any personal info.

@CStamp @benroyce Updates to things I paid for and previously used are a whole ‘nother furious soapbox for me.

Younger Val was naive and excited about the concept of getting automatic software updates. Tsk tsk. If only she’d known.

@Haste
I recently received 3 emails from organizations wishing me a Happy Birthday. My bank, my physical therapist, and my dentist. 🤔
@benroyce