The Internet is about to go down.
The WiFi routers will still be there. The cell towers will still be there. But the Internet we knew of, will not.
It will happen fast and it will catch people unaware.
Much like a trap.
Not convinced such a thing could ever happen? Then let me ask you this: What was the promise of the Internet? Free and unfettered access to information? Democratizing education? You mean billions of humans would finally gain access to knowledge? Knowledge being the most valuable asset once reserved for kings, princes, and the elite?
Dream on.
Knowledge has always been esoteric. Reserved for the powerful few.
Alexander the Great once berated one of his generals for giving knowledge to a slave. Why would the powerful get out of their way to give away their power? More to the point, why would they spend decades building a tool that upsets the pecking order of global power?
Let’s clear something up.
The very protocol of the Internet was designed by government agencies. The fiber lines were dug, cellular towers erected, and research funded by massively centralized and tightly controlled telcos. Same goes for our smartphones, laptops, and Alexa helpers. We the people do not own any of the internet. We have zero say about what happens to it. Zero.
“So, why was the Internet so good to us for two decades?”
Because it had to.
“Why?”
Because the Internet was a trap.
To understand why, we need to zoom out.
Much of what we, Westerners, take for granted has turned out to be an multi-generational rug pull. To get a sense of how it works, visualize a fish-trap funnel. As the fish swims further into the funnel, the funnel gets narrower and narrower.
With that in mind, consider this: Where have all human populations been moving towards over the last century?
Cities.
What’s not to like about cities? Social sciences and marketing gigs, tech hubs and Asperger brainiacs, craft microbreweries and moustached baristas—the urban Siren calls were irresistible. Decade after decade, big metropolies lured millions of souls away from their lands, their roots, and their heritage. By 2020, most working-age humans had become domesticated and city-bound. At that moment, and not a moment later, the trap door snapped shut.
How do Western cities look now?
Offices, schools, gyms, cinemas, theaters, parks? Everything that made cities great is now conditional and restricted. Sure enough, those restrictions will loosen for a few months, only to tighten harder down the line. It’s methodical and scientific. Eventually, there will be nothing left.
Please understand; all those city thrills we remember from 2019 were honeypots, and those honeypots are not needed anymore. Humans are institutionalized and tamed. Your average city dweller cannot survive a day out in the wild, nor would they want to—not without their ice bag, aircon, and hand-sanitizer.
So, cities can continue to turn the screws on people.
Recently, Australian officials discouraged citizens from talking to their neighbors. In the UK, men were not allowed to flirt with women. And in some places in Germany human contact within 6 feet was verboten.
Deprived of life out in the open, starved of exercise, nature, and church, where will those humans go? You guessed it. They will be squeezed deeper into the trap.
Trapping humans in cities was just a means to an end.
The Internet is the end.
Faced with constant uncertainty and restrictions, citizens will not have much of a choice. They will withdraw into the last remaining certainty, the last escape, the last thing that is wonderful, colorful, and alive. The Internet.
But there is no escaping gravity.
Let me say that again for the people at the back. The Internet is not your friend. And for those naive enough to think that the Internet serves to liberate “oppressed” people living under “oppressive” regimes:
The Internet never was and never will support human rights, because those who built the internet do not believe in human rights.
Just pick your favorite “human rights” , “free-speech” , and “privacy” project, and navigate to their funding page. Keep clicking through the convoluted web of non-profits and foundations until you find names you recognize. Bingo. Most of them are funded by the likes of BlackRock, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley, Raytheon, and others like them. Everything between those trillion dollar overlords and your favorite, altruistic “free-speech” project is a few “front” entities apart.
But, yeah, most people fall for the bold website fonts, striking laptop stickers, and “join the movement” graffiti.
Wanna help oppressed people? Then leave them alone. Your misguided involvement is the problem. Focus on your human rights and those who are actively oppressing you right now. All it took was 12 months for your freedoms to get canceled. Just sayin’.
In any case, the next steps from here are predictable.
Before any remaining online freedoms disappear, there needs to be a catalyst. Just look for central points of failure. And remember, anything centralized on the internet is never by accident. Look at the obvious places like Amazon AWS and CloudFlare, and less obvious ones like LetsEncrypt. Take down any of those too-good-to-be-true freebies (all under the grip of compromised entities) and much of the Internet goes down, including this website.
Blame the ensuing carnage on a fake solar flare or scary sounding Russian hacker and, voilà, you have all the pretext you need for top-down remedies. You know, the type of remedies we’ve all enjoyed over the last 2 years; reloaded and revamped for the internet.
“Okay, enough with the nihilist blackpiling. How do we get out of this mess?”
Glad you asked.
If you think about it, it’s all about ownership.
Who owns technology?
There are three parts to technology: The builder, the hammer, and the nail. Technology is the hammer. We, humans, can either be the builder or the nail.
Case in point:
Cars gave us freedom. But an electric car with a remote kill-switch takes that freedom away. Gas cookers gave us freedom. But relying on the whims of a centralized electrical grid for our cooking, takes that freedom away.
I am not rejecting technology, science, and progress. I do not want to live in a cave. But I do not want to be a nail, either. I want to own the hammer instead.
Who owns life?
I will close with this.
Some time ago, the World Economic Forum published an advert predicting that by 2030 humans will “own nothing and be happy” (they’ve since taken it down but it’s available elsewhere).
Much of our identity is contingent on immaterial things that happen inside a virtual world—a world behind touchscreens, touchpads, and VR headsets. Who owns those things? Who owns that world? Who programs the code? Who owns the code? Which begs the question:
Who owns our life?
Look back in your life and pin-point those moments when you felt fulfilled and alive. Where were you? What activities were you engaged in? How long has it been? What would it take for you to reclaim those moments? What would it take for you to be free? Are you willing to pay the price?
Are you willing to own your life?
Okay, time for some housekeeping.
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