If They Can Do It, Why Can't I?
I have a lot of faith in the power of the collective. The strength of the individual unit building the megalith that is the masses. I don't want humanity or just you for that matter to rely on imaginary entities to provide us with safety, support or strength. That's what it's come to this era.
We rely on one company to send us our skeleton keys, inform us of the things we knew already but packaged externally in a dehumanizing format, monitor every aspect of our life with no regard to the environmental and sociological impact it has to our fellow neighbors. Technology has gone from a tool enabling people to a mental weapon dictating whether or not someone else is worth your time of day.
I sound sad and angry. But I'm not. I'm more distraught and oddly hopeful. I see more and more people eager to find solutions outside of what's been sold to us as the only option. The federation of content is a very viable option. I'll expand on federation in a later entry.
I always end up looking like the following whenever I mention options and alternatives.
I look like the crazy one for wanting some sense of control over my life.
I look crazy for being concerned about how the next generation of youth are being turned into data points for profit with no regard for their mental and emotional health.
I get it. It's hard to break away from things that are socially accepted as "normal" or "conventional". Especially if it's something you grew up into. The only thing is that change occurs. Your body did it, your mind did it and even your teeth did. All for the better. Now I'm asking that you take a step back to re-examine what most Americans spend over 4 hours a day using. What do you really gain outside of momentary joy (or turmoil)?
There's lots of people working on tools to help us break free. Things like Mastodon for the Twitter heads and PixelFed for the Instagram folk exist. They're on par with the corporate options except with security and privacy as a primary feature and ethos versus it being bolted on (or not existing at all). There's just one thing about them.
They need you.