Resistance and revolution happened before the internet. People have become lazy and complacent, and want their resistance served up over the wire. Thats not how real resistance happens, but it does make people feel like they are doing something, sucking up their energy while the biggest impact is TikTok memes, the modern version of the sternly worded letter.

This is exactly where the power structures want the struggle to be , online, with no real consequences that matter.

The best thing that could happen to the internet and society would be that it would be absolutely illegal to post anything inciting resistance or change of any kind on the internet.

Then, the resistance would go back to being real people in real rooms, secrets and whispers and actual plots to effect change in society for a more equitable and prosperous human future.

Because that’s how real change takes place. The powerful don’t try to make change by posting on instagram. (Advertisement and PR of course, but it’s not the organizational nexus) they gather in conference rooms, talk in person, and have social gatherings where they decide your future.

When they do use the internet to coordinate, it’s not in public forums, it’s encrypted communications, targeted and limited in scope.

The internet is useful, of course, and encrypted communication in private groups, even darkweb resources. But thinking you can use the official structure of the internet (public domain infrastructure, dns, walled gardens) as a primary means of subverting the dominant paradigm is foolish at best, suicidally counterproductive on the normative.

The internet was once subversive in and of itself. It no longer is. Now you’re just wearing signs at the mall.

The revolution thrives underground, not out in the open.