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[–] Tisias 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

This is a valid point. And the more free speech cites get pushed underground the more the average citizen will think of them as part of the "dark web" of pirates, drug dealers, pedos, etc. WHO IS THIS 4CHAN? The guilt-by-association will increase as free speechers get pushed to the margins.

The internet was fun. It was our wild west. We'll be telling our kids about the days when you could say anything you wanted online and chat with people around the world. We'll them about the days before you had to worry about getting fired for making the wrong Twitter or Facebook post.

Technology is always a race. New military technologies, for example, have a fleeting period in which they're exclusive to one nation or region. So too it goes for the democratizing aspects of information technology and the Big Brother capacities it allows. In the end, I suspect that tech will do more to empower our masters than the common folk because power tends to absorb and attract (e.g., a handful of people could decide to unleash a nuclear holocaust), but for now we have to run the race.

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[–] rationalinquisition [S] ago 

I wouldn't write off hope entirely. Power has historically been cyclical. That was the key point of Karl Marx' writings. Even if communism itself was a bad attempt to remedy the situation, the observation itself was valid. At this point our society is at it's apex, but if it follows the established trend it won't be too much longer (from a historical standpoint anyway) before the existing establishment is thrown out and the people doing the throwing take power. Then you get another period of greater freedom before the whole thing repeats itself as that freedom eventually gets whittled away again.

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[–] Tisias ago 

Good points. I am basically a technological determinist at heart and I have the suspicion that tech fundamentally tends to benefit the few in power more than the many who are subjects of power. I am also afraid of what it might take to get to the next cycle (like post-Capitalism).