The Rising Threat of Digital Nationalism
Woodie Guthrie had a label on his guitar that read "This machine kills fascists." I was naive once. I thought that the internet was such a machine. But instead of a tool for decentralizing power it's becoming a tool for centralized power to wield control, to enforce conformity in ever greater detail.<p>What would a tool of actual decentralization look like? It wouldn't be something that helps us communicate or brings us closer together, because those things evolve into instruments of control. It would be something that divides us into separate ecological and memetic niches. The only example I can think of is a multi generational space ship.<p>We're in a race between diaspora and social lithification. I wish I thought diaspora was the better bet.