Cables

This thread of Brooke Bolanderโ€™s is really good.

I think most people have forgotten that web, but it was around from roughly 1994-2005 or so. It was vastly superior and so much richer and more fun. Corporations have obliterated it all; almost nothing now remains. I donโ€™t have a formal name for this new era just yet, but we are now in the phase where central control over information is being aggressively re-asserted, where unauthorized channels of communication and organizing are being shuttered for โ€œhate speechโ€ and โ€œpornโ€ and other usually-bogus bugaboos, and where liberals are eager to tell you this is all โ€œfor your own good.โ€

Itโ€™s going to get worse, too, since both sides are all for it: libs for โ€œprotection from harmโ€ pretenses and conservatives for โ€œimmoralityโ€ excuses and the like. All, of course, with corporations really controlling the marionette as both sides eagerly dance to the tunes Facebook, Google, Amazon, et al., are playing.

Like Brooke, I miss that old web. It was so much more whole and joyous and quirky and free.