Well Discord is fucked...

Active typer: Xenia

So... yeah. Shit has been weird this year, huh.

Not even a sixth of the year in and Discord is starting to roll out ID verification into the mainstream! What is going on!? In just one day, the registrations to Stoat, an open source alternative, have shot through the roof to the point where new entry emails take hours to send.

Not only that, but you can quickly tell by a lot of the other happenings in the general world around us that things are heading quickly towards a boiling point on a lot of things. With global politics and economics going topsy turvy with a tendency to collapse, it is clear that we head in this day an age to a moment of great change for our society, and so far the forecast is not sunshine, let alone rainbows.

So this blog entry will explain how the technological world reflects these changes, and things that can be done to keep contact with your online friends without falling into this world of surveillance that is developing at high speed around us.

So... What the flip is going on?

It began years ago, really. Even back before the era of COVID made companies realize that the power of communication in between people was greatly enhanced by the tech we wield, one thing was already becoming increasingly clear as time went on: Companies are not our friends.

For those who were quite sharp, it may have shown it's beginning with the advent of Windows 8, one of the few Microsoft OS products that could rival Windows Vista for "Worst commercial OS ever". If one was to look closely at the design of the product, it was already clear that Microsoft was beginning to stop caring about the user experience and prioritizing the revenue to be made from consumer data instead, a crisis that has only snowballed onward to the present day.

For some others, the first signals of something wrong may have had to do with the adquisition of Google by Alphabet, or of YouTube by Google. It was quickly becoming clear that the once humble search engine had become just another corporation out to gain as much profit as possible, to the point of even ditching one of their most important rules: "Don't be evil."

I have not made my point of profit seeking organizations being tragedies of eternal hunger subtle in this blog, and most of the others would agree. This is most visible nowadays, where stockholders pressure companies into exploiting customers in ways that are increasingly outlandish with the objective of making more value than last period.

And nowhere is this tragedy more visible than the current concept of "artificial intelligence", also known as Large Language Models and Image Generators. Sadly, ignorance (and sometimes not even that) have compelled a regretably large amount of consumers to use these costly technologies, a crisis that has only snowballed onward to the present day.

(Editor's note: Oops, if you saw some repeated text here, no you did not.)

So... what can be done?

First of all, if you are reading this on a computer (assuming it's not your work computer or someone else's), consider that Windows, as it is, is a terrible operating system. With AI integrated into everything and even the Notepad, constant telemetry of the user and the fact that they want you to absolutely need a Microsoft account to get past the Out of Box Experience, I, as your alternative mascot, have to emphasize so much more in these trying times that this is not normal behavior, and you do not need to bend the knee to use a computer!

Instead, a good first step is to install a Linux distro, as we may have discussed at the beginning of the blog, and starting an investigation of your own onto open source alternatives to your services! These tools can help you in many ways, sometimes even better than paid alternatives, and give you a better understanding of the world of technology that you make use of every day!

Another point in that topic: educate yourself. Knowledge is power, and it's exactly what those who seek power want to take away. Do not use AI for this education, and make your own conclusions based on what you find. Remember: Just like in school, learning might take you out of your comfort zone, but you will come out of it someone more ready to confront injustice in the end.

Some tools I personally can vouch for:

  • A lot of Linux Distros
  • Music Player Daemon
  • LibreWolf
  • ThunderBird
  • A lot of cool TUI apps

A second part to this post will come eventually, but for now, get out there and start your journey! You might just find something worth making a jump... and that something may be a future we can hope to reach.

P.S. Finally set something up! Wanna say something about the blog? We are testrunning this e-mail address!