
The Internet’s Back-to-the-Land Movement - broskoski
https://www.are.na/blog/the-internet%27s-back-to-the-land-movement
======
L_226
I fully expect that as the 'traditional' internet becomes increasingly
monopolised, locked down and regionally fragmented, solutions similar to
Othernet [0] will become more common. Personally I can't wait to be able to
select between a multitude of networks all serving different content and
services.

[0] - [https://othernet.is/](https://othernet.is/)

~~~
flanbiscuit
I hope so. Maybe it'll bring back some of that BBS/early-internet community
feel to it, at least for a while.

------
golergka
> The analysis concluded that unless people took immediate action to
> counteract growth, global resources would be exhausted by the first few
> decades of the 21st century. In other words, civilization as of 1972 was
> projected to reach a total collapse by what is increasingly becoming our
> present day.

I've read it quite a while ago, but I certainly remember that the first few
decades of 21st century, and 2015 in particular, was projected to be the "top"
point in terms of overall life quality, and after that point, the humanity
would slowly, but inevitably, turn backwards. "Total collapse" by this model
wouldn't occur until the last quarter of 21st century, and "our present day"
would be just the almost unnoticable beginning of stagnation.

~~~
toasterlovin
The nature of evolution dictates that, even without a collapse in our ability
to harvest energy and other resources from the environment, life is destined
to get worse for the median human being. There are only so many resources to
be consumed, but life reproduces exponentially.

~~~
golergka
> life reproduces exponentially

Life in general does. Humans, however, seem to be abandoning this trend.

~~~
toasterlovin
It's temporary. Most humans are poorly adapted to modern life. But not all.
The transition back to higher fertility is already underway, it's just hard to
notice because the percentage of people who are well adapted to modernity is
really small. But there are people who have 4+ kids, despite living in the
developed world. Those are the humans of the future.

------
freeone3000
While I appreciate the lightening of the load of websites to something more
manageable and reducing overprovisioning, it should be stated that data
centers are more efficient, in that they spend fewer watts for the same number
of gigahertz, compared to at-point computer rooms or even personal computers.
Clouds reduce energy consumption, not increase it.

~~~
rejberg
An increase in efficiency does not necessarily mean a reduction in total
consumption.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox)

~~~
dTal
I've always struggled with the application of Jevon's paradox to decision
making. Does it mean we _shouldn 't_ try to make our usage of scarce resources
more efficient?

~~~
Retra
I think it just means you have to do more than simply make things efficient.
You also have to have some way to minimize total costs.

------
JKCalhoun
> Fukuoka recognized that many of our celebrated technological advancements
> would be unnecessary had humans not created an ecological crisis in the
> first place.

Interesting. I'll have to give this some thought. I suspect there is some
truth in this and some over-simplification as well.

------
Nasrudith
While I agree that many websites are needless bloat in a game of chasing ad
revenue that drives people away or to block them back to the land is
fundamentally a silly regression based on fantasies of a past that never was.
Where do they think industrial labor came from? Farmers. Agriculture for
reduced growth is counter effective.

Agricultural efficiencies were too high for that sort of thing centuries ago
and density is actually the lower in environmental impact option. It seems an
idea pushed more by memes and ideology than anything practical.

~~~
justanothersys
This is a really good point. After reading, this article seems mostly about
the aesthetics of these movements and how they influence people and businesses
and how they affect lifestyle choices. To quote the slogan of sfpc.io: It's
"more poetry, less demo". It feels like something that could be tacked on to
Fred Turner's The Democratic Surround.
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTKmcToqKRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTKmcToqKRs))

~~~
sverige
There are really two separate but related things here. Communes didn't work,
but many of the ideas from that movement are still useful. The people involved
with or sympathetic to that movement exposed just how wasteful rampant
consumerism is, for example. There are many, many practical ways to reduce
consumption, most of which are still widely ignored, even by so-called
progressives.

The second, related part of using the internet as a way to organize people was
also co-opted by the very organizations that benefit from continued
consumerism, and that had more of a debilitating effect on the internet that
the "eternal September" tech types like to complain about. The tipping point
was somewhere in the late 90s or early 00s. That has led to the current
godawful web we have today, with probably over 98% of the packets being sent
for purposes of surveillance or ad-serving.

So, maybe it seems futile to some, but for someone like me who has living
memories of the time before computers were common and relatives who died with
basic tools of life that were more than 50 years old, it's worth discussing at
least.

