Does the internet help or hurt humanity?

[ControlledChaos]

During Terrence McKenna's life, he viewed the internet as a beacon of hope, something to accelerate us out of the grasp of history and the dominator culture into an 'archaic revival' and the ultimate prospering of humanity through technology and shamanism. This may have been a reasonable prediction for the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s; the internet was relatively unregulated and was a wild west of free communication with little government and corporate oversight. But fast forward today and it seems that for all the internet's ability to spread messages critical for humanity's progress as a species, it has been far more prolific at spreading just the opposite.

One need only look at the smartphone of the average teenager today. It's essentially a pocket-sized brainwashing apparatus for the dominator culture; these devices are owned by mega corporations that collude with governments on a global scale. It's coded into both the hardware and software to make it difficult to access resources and apps that doesn't have these have the tendrils of these corporations wrapped around them- in the case of the TikTok it's close to being ran by the Chinese Communist Party itself. The scary part is that TikTok is the most used application by the youngest generation, and the other largest applications hardly are ran by better people. The algorithms and software in our technology have the thumb heavy on the scale for content promoting self-centered, ego driven, us vs them, toxic ideologies that are taking humanity farther away from advancement than ever before.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the internet and technology itself is the cause of these issues. But just as the dominator culture invades and takes hold physically though warfare, it has done the same with internet through merely controlling the resources needed for the technology itself. Through this it has established a stranglehold on ideas spread with technology. Even the virtual reality paradise Terrence McKenna predicted is being brought forward, but by none other than Mark Zuckerberg and his 'metaverse'; a dark bastardization of McKenna's vision.

I can only conclude that the internet and technology are not the silver bullet for the advancement of human civilization through psychedelic enlightenment, because these technologies are subject to being taken over by the dominator culture and used to do the opposite. The psychedelic experience itself still stands as the best hope we have, because unlike technology DMT and psilocybin cannot be rigged as a computer can be; they cannot make the plant spirits or entities give a message pre-approved by them, it is outside their realm.

I do not think that the internet is going to be much help for advancing humanity by normal means. That being said, this precedes that fact that I'm posting this on the internet, though I reckon the DMT nexus is ran by much different people than Facebook or YouTube. The thumb is still on the scale on most of the most commonly used platforms where ideas are most widely distributed. But algorithms can be exploited and technology can be manipulated to get around the control and influence of those trying to rule it; and one thing that we have that the dominator culture doesn't is free thinking and creativity. Unconventional methods need to be used online, loopholes and get-arounds. It's going to take work and effort to get these ideas any foothold in the mainstream consciousness, but progress IS being made towards that (Terrence McKenna's speeches are widely available on YouTube for instance) and I genuinely believe that with enough effort and good ideas the internet monoculture being pushed by these corporations can be defeated and ideas that help humanity can be pushed to the forefront.

What's your take it on this topic? I would love your feedback and any input is appreciated even if you disagree.

 

[pointy hat]

I do not use a smart phone

I do not keep social media accounts

The current current of technology is a cancer

Ideologically and fundamentally

Terence was just a guy, and even his vision of a virtual reality paradise is flawed-- that's just The Matrix... I mean, come on.. Virtual reality paradise??

The internet will not do us any good on a cultural scale going forward; not truly

I can expound deeper on this subject (that is, if anyone cares for me to) as it's one of a few soapboxes I hold in life as a 30 year old

Sorry to be so skeptical, but no-- the internet will only ever "help" on a surface level of reality. It will hurt much, much deeper.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I do not use a smart phone

I do not keep social media accounts

The current current of technology is a cancer

Ideologically and fundamentally

Terence was just a guy, and even his vision of a virtual reality paradise is flawed-- that's just The Matrix... I mean, come on.. Virtual reality paradise??

The internet will not do us any good on a cultural scale going forward; not truly

I can expound deeper on this subject (that is, if anyone cares for me to) as it's one of a few soapboxes I hold in life as a 30 year old

Sorry to be so skeptical, but no-- the internet will only ever "help" on a surface level of reality. It will hurt much, much deeper.

Wouldn't you say this forum is a good and/or beneficial byproduct of the internet?

One love

 

[ControlledChaos]

I do not use a smart phone

I do not keep social media accounts

The current current of technology is a cancer

Ideologically and fundamentally

Terence was just a guy, and even his vision of a virtual reality paradise is flawed-- that's just The Matrix... I mean, come on.. Virtual reality paradise??

The internet will not do us any good on a cultural scale going forward; not truly

I can expound deeper on this subject (that is, if anyone cares for me to) as it's one of a few soapboxes I hold in life as a 30 year old

Sorry to be so skeptical, but no-- the internet will only ever "help" on a surface level of reality. It will hurt much, much deeper.

Wouldn't you say this forum is a good and/or beneficial byproduct of the internet?

One love

I think it is personally. I see the internet as a neutral yet powerful source of information and idea exchanging and spreading... One that happens to be held in a chokehold by proponents of very harmful ideas and agendas. But as shown in this website, it can also spread good and critical ideas.

 

[fink]

Take any moment in human history. Little Tommy leaves his home in the quiet village and ventures out into the wide world. Presently he finds the big city. His excitement boils over as he gets swept away by the fervent activity and endless opportunity laid out before him.

Skip forward two months. Little Tommy has been exploited, tricked, robbed, led astray and forever changed by the realities of the big city. The way it looked as he first strolled through the main gate was far from the truth. In the following months and years Tommy adapts and learns how to survive. His little village a distant, vague memory. The villagers would not recognise him now. He could never go back to that innocence. The village would never be his home again.

However, Tommy has also had experiences he would never have walked into in the village. He has met people and seen things that expanded his understanding of life in ways the villagers would never understand or even believe. He knows he was happier before, in ignorance. But he was never satisfied.

Since the 1900s there has been an exponential ability for the big city to reach out and touch the villagers even when they stay in the village. Now in the 2000s the big city is almost everywhere. There are very few sanctuaries where a human could choose a lifetime of ignorance without having the smell of the big city follow them around.

Those of us who were lucky enough to be born before this great advancement in technology are afforded all the benefits while still having the option to make our own minds up if we want to stay outside the box.

Those born now will never know any different. One day the internet will become so ingrained and normal that it will feel like the small village instead of the big city. A new big city of danger and opportunity will arise. The cycle will never end. So I believe whatever is happening now is as common and natural as has always been. We should have faith in the resilience of the human spirit to overcome these pitfalls, just as it always has before.

 

[dithyramb]

unlike technology DMT and psilocybin cannot be rigged as a computer can be; they cannot make the plant spirits or entities give a message pre-approved by them, it is outside their realm

Do you believe that people will connect to unadulterated truth with DMT patches and psilocybin nasal sprays?

Besides, it's not just the plant spirits' or benevolent spirits' voices that are experienced with psychedelics. The highly suggestible state is very open to manipulatiom through set and setting.

Just plants or molecules are in the end practically another technology and all technology is vulnerable to manipulation by power structures.

But if you see the thing as a ceremonial complex which encompasses much more than just chemicals, you could find practices which are more protected from influence by power structures.

However, the real enemy is within and protection from that is even more tedious.

I can expound deeper on this subject (that is, if anyone cares for me to) as it's one of a few soapboxes I hold in life as a 30 year old

Please do.

 

[MAGMA17]

Leaving aside the sociological factor, about which we could talk endlessly, personally the internet is one of the things that most shaped my person.
Since I was 14 it has been my inexhaustible source of knowledge. What I know about art it's all thanks to this system. Not all people have the opportunity to attend prestigious schools, to visit the best museums in the world, to go to a thousand concerts. Here, I was one of those people, from an honest family but who would never have been able to afford to give their son who knows what means to develop his passion. The Internet was for me the database from which I drew all my musical, artistic, cinematographic knowledge. Art was always my passion, and the internet was the only medium that gave me the opportunity to cultivate it.

Not to mention the inestimable value of being able to see other places even in photos, knowing that in other parts of the world they live differently, think differently, eat different things, dress differently. Being able to go to youtube and listen to the life experience of a person who is on the other side of the world ... we don't even realize what it means.

Then of course...it may have taken some mystery or adventure out of people's lives. Certainly you will not be able to know your best friend because that day you took the wrong road and ended up in the middle of nowhere, and there by chance he was there who hosted you for the night, but you will use Google Maps. You certainly won't know your fiancée by asking on the street where you can find the best restaurant in the area, but you'll use Tripadvisor.
But beyond that, if you become a narcissist who thinks your life's purpose is to show your ass on TikTok, the fault can't be of the internet. We can't always blame the system, sometimes there are also the responsibilities of individuals ... with a knife you can kill a person or slice bread for breakfast.

Take any moment in human history. Little Tommy leaves his home in the quiet village and ventures out into the wide world. Presently he finds the big city. His excitement boils over as he gets swept away by the fervent activity and endless opportunity laid out before him.

Skip forward two months. Little Tommy has been exploited, tricked, robbed, led astray and forever changed by the realities of the big city. The way it looked as he first strolled through the main gate was far from the truth. In the following months and years Tommy adapts and learns how to survive. His little village a distant, vague memory. The villagers would not recognise him now. He could never go back to that innocence. The village would never be his home again.

However, Tommy has also had experiences he would never have walked into in the village. He has met people and seen things that expanded his understanding of life in ways the villagers would never understand or even believe. He knows he was happier before, in ignorance. But he was never satisfied.

The novel of the XIX century in a nutshell :d

 

[MAGMA17]

After rereading the comments I would also like to add one more thing.

Internet is a reality that, being immersed in the globalized and capitalist world, reflects the mechanisms that can be observed everywhere. The most famous, most used apps are those that respond to a need. Is there a need? some entrepreneurs will intercept it and offer in the market something to satisfy it. Tik Tok, Facebook and all other social media respond to an intrinsic human need to be accepted, loved, applauded, wanted, understood by other human beings. It is something ancestral. So I don't think what we have on the internet is a consequence of some kind of manipulation by I don't know who.

I think its development was natural, and based on who we are, first and foremost, as human beings. Just see where the majority of internet traffic goes: on pornographic sites. Isn't it true that sexual stimulation is the most powerful stimulus on earth? It is normal for human beings to go looking for it. It is not a plot to make us all fools.

When we change, the internet and its statistics will change too.

 

[dragonrider]

I've had simmilar thoughts about the internet. But i've changed my mind.

I think that if you zoom out now, it is hard to deny that social media overall are pretty damaging to people and societies as a whole, and the harm they do easily outweighs the benefits they might have.

With that said, the internet is a powerfull set of technologies.
And we probably have not fully mastered the skill of using it wisely yet.

Technology cannot be uninvented. At least, not if you don't want to collapse entire civilizations.

We will have to make it work.

I personally find that western society today has evolved into a pretty dystopian place.
Social media have definately played a role in this process. But we have seen these problems of polarisation, sectarianism and disinformation before.

And i think that despite of all these things, society overall has progressed over the centuries, and even over decades. It just has not been a straight line upward because it never is.

We have the choice to either see the current state we're in as a temporary low in an upward trent, or to give up the believe in human progress.

If we give up our believe in progress, progress doesn't stop. We will simply become irrelevant. The chinese will probably still believe in progress, or the indians. And they will progress further without us. And for western societies, things will only get worse, because decline is never a pretty thing. It only leads to more polarisation, hate, bitterness and sectarianism.

So the way i see it, we have an almost sacred duty to be optimistic. We'll have to make the technology work. That also applies to green energy and tackling climate change.

Degrowth is a one way street, and it leads to poverty, war, tyranny and death, while it won't even make a fraction of a difference.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I haven't really shared much of an opinion because the first thing that comes to mind is something I feel I've been repeating a lot lately: nothing is all good, and nothing is all bad.

This forum is the closest thing I get to social media. Overall, I find social media to be a toxic distraction with fewer benefits than negatives. Could I be wrong or mistaken? Certainly, because it's my perspective and observation. But there's a long list as to what has lead me to such a conclusion.

Overall, I think the internet is a beautiful thing. It seems like a dark place because of how people use it. People are the problem. The internet has allowed us to bridge and shorten the gap between the elite/privileged and the underprivileged by making more information accessible that may not otherwise be. All the same, most people aren't very good at scrutinizing information, and most are desperate for "answers."

I tend to feel this way about a lot of things: it's not the thing in question that is either good or bad but rather the contextualization of instances where people are involved that makes it either or.

One love

 

[dragonrider]

I haven't really shared much of an opinion because the first thing that comes to mind is something I feel I've been repeating a lot lately: nothing is all good, and nothing is all bad.

This forum is the closest thing I get to social media. Overall, I find social media to be a toxic distraction with fewer benefits than negatives. Could I be wrong or mistaken? Certainly, because it's my perspective and observation. But there's a long list as to what has lead me to such a conclusion.

Overall, I think the internet is a beautiful thing. It seems like a dark place because of how people use it. People are the problem. The internet has allowed us to bridge and shorten the gap between the elite/privileged and the underprivileged by making more information accessible that may not otherwise be. All the same, most people aren't very good at scrutinizing information, and most are desperate for "answers."

I tend to feel this way about a lot of things: it's not the thing in question that is either good or bad but rather the contextualization of instances where people are involved that makes it either or.

One love

Yeah, that is very much how i see it as well.

But i also think that we are still in the early stage of this new industrial revolution. Still in the stage of figuring it out.

So people are indeed the problem, but they are also the solution, because they will find ways to make it less of a dark place, better ways of using these new tools.

At least, that's what i hope.

 

[fink]

One huge benefit of the internet is the global communications. It is much more difficult now to de-humanise a foreign populace in an effort to incite war. Less than 100 years ago we de-humanised each other to the point that routinely carpet bombing cities was an acceptable thing to do. Humans nuked civillians and cheered for victory.

Now the kids are playing computer games every night making friends all over the world. We know each other better and our assumed differences are being disolved.

 

[CosmicRiver]

I'm too young to know how the world was before the internet. But until I was in middle school we didn't have the same smartphones there are today and we used them very little time during the day.
Today I don't use Facebook and Instagram anymore and I never used TikTok, but I do use instant messaging apps (Whatsapp and the like), search engines and other internet services.

I personally believe that the internet is humanity's greatest invention. I can't think of anything else that has had the same impact on us. I believe every invention has equal potential of helping and hurting humanity (thinking about industrial revolution, nuclear energy, genome editing...), so I can't give you a black or white answer. It helps humanity a lot, more than anything else in my opinion. It also hurts a lot. In my case, it helps more than it hurts, but I always have to pay attention on how I use it.

 

[pointy hat]

social media will always have the largest dedicated lanes on this information stupor-highway! the masses will consume what they crave and it isn't progress.

sure, people like us will flock to niche boards where we can discuss our fringe interests; but this extends to other fringe groups that are not as benevolent as this little corridor. I'm all for free speech too-- give the extremist groups a place to be. honestly. but seeing them through to the ends... are you down with that? if you're not, then you may be getting the cut of my overall gib. the internet is breeding an echo chamber for every person who feels they have a voice. we will all be confirmed and validated no matter the phrase or mantra.

children and young adults will be molded into forms which they never would have naturally come upon had they not encountered the well of confusion that is the sphere of influencers and covert marketing. most of us only had to compete with television and radio's influence on what we should be like, look like, think like, etc. information is a weapon above all else in the internet, post-internet and VR/AR age.

Void - always love your input and your question here is great-- yes, this is a positive place. but for every positive place online there must be at least two unsavory corners.

If you're a person with a smart phone and you find you often look at that smart phone and often open apps and see if anything new is there, then nothing new is there then you open another app to see if something new is there and there is a few things new there but nothing in the way of scratching your itch then you crack open the other couple of apps you already looked at less than five minutes earlier to see if anything new is there you are a neurotic addict

^that was me. I've seen the worst of what tech does to human life / relationships and what endless irony renders unto those who continue to return the well from which it's drawn.

dragonrider - I really love what you said about a sacred duty of optimism. I'm down with that, though I really struggle to see a positive path with the absolute bombardment of BS that the most used avenues of content unleash on the gen-pop on a daily basis.

ultimately all of the 'net is opt-in. I choose to opt-out as I see it as a frivolous time-hole.

**I want to talk about energetic entities that dwell inside of portals people use daily as well. It's a little more in to what I'm getting at and I'll try to get back to this thread to hash it out for you all as another point of view

^Dithyramb this is where the rubber meets the proverbial road

 

[Voidmatrix]

social media will always have the largest dedicated lanes on this information stupor-highway!

:lol: this was great.

I understand and see many of your points and have similar observations as well. But I can't help but bring this back to people. People and the choices they make. People were like this before the internet, but the internet helps connect like minds in negative snares because most people gravitate towards what immediately attracts them. The dissemination of information by some people allows other people to validate poor thinking. And a lot of what we don't like and disagree with a) wouldn't have been possible to stop beforehand because we didn't know what could transpire and b) is extremely hard to stop because it's been entrenched for so long. Like with many things, once an issue is noticed, it's usually too late.

So, I suppose we can reframe the OP from if the internet hurts or helps humanity to if humanity helps or hurts humanity:lol:

One love

 

[dreamer042]

We tend to focus a lot on social media and the fact that the majority of traffic flows to a small handful of very centralized sites/applications, but we forget the nature of the internet is decentralized. Peer to peer file sharing gives access to all media to everyone. Tor and the deepweb does much the same for physical goods, just look what's it's done for the quality and availability of drugs over the last decade. We can communicate instantly with people anywhere in the world using military grade encryption to keep our conversations private. Information and news and ideas are instantly and infinitely shareable. Crowdsourcing enables unheard of research and development opportunities for projects in every field. The Bitcoin protocol has a launched a monetary revolution, the implications of which are only just beginning to be recognized.

Project Gutenberg, Librivox, Archive.org, Wikipedia, Sci-Hub, Libgen/Z-lib, etc offer us unprecedented access to the collected works of the human species, and while the majority of us ignore this in favor of scrolling our social media feed, it's always there waiting for us if and when we need it.

Terence was always pushing the mantra to "find the others" and the internet has certainly enabled that, whether those others be nazis or nexians. The echo chamber effect can be a problem, but the ability to combat that is inbuilt with the sheer volume of access to information and communication. It's just a matter of teaching critical thinking and allowing for open dialogue.

It just so happens to be Burn night tonight, and as I gaze at this webstream of Black Rock City in it's finest hour. I assure you the technoshamanic revival Terence promised is absolutely on course, and that revolution of subversion that he foresaw in wild west era of the world wide web is quietly underway over the tcp/ip, even if it hasn't been announced on your twitter feed yet. 8)

 

[PedroSanchez]

in my opinion the internet is a double edged sword. but really it is just a tool, it cannot be blamed for any wrongdoings in the world, only the people that use it for their wrongdoings. i would be surprised if there is a tool in the world that has not been used for both good and evil things. we would struggle without knives in our lives, but how many people have been killed with a knife? it makes no sense to point at the knife.

personally i keep away from that side of the internet. i do not use a smart phone or any social media, just a few sites like this one and general information searching.
i agree, i think this place is ran by a different kind of people. there are lots of forums like this out there where they claim to not be like those sites, but then when you look at what scripts they are running they are almost always running google, amazon, facebook, etc tools in the background of their website. this place does not seem to run anything like that that i can see (i am not a tech pro though, but above average ability).
i assume the motivation for that is money, which is what i think we should be putting on trial before the internet.

some other systems that have been used for corrupt purposes on a large scale are schools (curriculum), healthcare, government bodies, television, radio, news outlets, the list goes on, the internet is just one of many. the best thing we can do is keep the people close to us safe from that and spread love around the world through example.

stay safe

 

[Icyseeker]

i assume the motivation for that is money, which is what i think we should be putting on trial before the internet.

How does the Nexus stay online? Is it all run out of pocket?

As an individual (millennial) who has grown up on the internet I can't really imagine life without it. My brain is basically wired to be connected to it at all times and I think of my phone as my extra frontal lobe. I use it for study and entertainment as well keeping up with family and friends. I also have to be connected to the internet to preform my job. I think humanity might not be mature enough for the internet but it is here nonetheless.

 

[fink]

I think it is fair to say that the internet is humanity. Give the population a certain set of parameters and it will behave in a human way within that space. The internet is just a perfectly honest representation of humanity within the parameters of a virtual, largely anonymous playfield.

 

[Voidmatrix]

I think it is fair to say that the internet is humanity. Give the population a certain set of parameters and it will behave in a human way within that space. The internet is just a perfectly honest representation of humanity within the parameters of a virtual, largely anonymous playfield.

Do you think it would be more accurate to say that the internet reflects humanity is some ways rather than that it i humanity? There seem to be aspects of humanity that are not prevalent or are missing from the internet experience. Especially also considering that there are plenty of people in the world who are not on and do not use the internet?

One love