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lucash.dev 2y ago

A brief history of the web and its fundamental limitations.

Decades ago the concept of hypertext was invented: documents with links to other documents.

Then people thought we could have a single gigantic, global, living hypertext document — and the authors would be the entirety of mankind. Billions of “pages” linked to each other, allowing everyone to see the entirety of human creativity.

That’s the web.

Then the web grew exponentially and the limitations in it became obvious:

1 - you need a starting point to “navigate” the web.

2 - even if it is all connected, there are so many hops that you can’t in practice reach everything from every starting point.

3 - in practice each starting point gives you a completely different web.

4 - there’s no objective way to choose a good starting point.

Nothing invented after the web has even started to solve the above issues.

Not Yahoo, not Google, not social media, not Nostr.

All of them work by creating a good enough illusion the problem doesn’t exist by hiding behind various curtains the fact it isn’t possible to verify how your “slice” of the web is generated.

If the web is how you see the world —

***whoever controls your entry point to the web controls your mind***

That includes Nostr relays and people you follow.

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lucash.dev 2y ago

You might think this is an exaggeration.

Look around you.

Think about the past few years.

Even if the technology doesn’t change, there are some antidotes for that sort of manipulation.

Go out of your way to find other entry points.

Always compare what you see on the web with your direct experience — not what you see on TV or what an “authority” says — what you see with your own eyes.

Whenever you talk to people IRL try to find out about their direct experiences— not what movie they watched on Netflix, or the news.

If they want to talk about how their kids cried all night or how their knee is aching — listen to them! — that’s information you can’t learn anywhere else, and form your frame of references for judging things you see online.

Cultivate real life connections as much as you can.

Be optimistic. We will invent better ways to connect online.

Be skeptical. Probably someone telling you they found it is lying or mistaken.