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Comment by rc_kas | Hacker News Reader

I remember the early days of the internet when hating surveillance was non-political.

Back when it was just nerds on the internet, and powerfull people with agenda's had not infiltrated everything

Half the people here are working to help them, intentionally or unwittingly.

I remember as a 14 year old (2004) thinking about how I'd make sites like TPB or 4chan without getting it shut down, a place that anyone could speak freely. Then Kim Dotcom happened, and even Lavabit, and I'm sure many others.

It's a thankless thing, but we need more people who are willing to just do it. Now I know some of you will point out that Kim Dotcom was hosting movies, shows, music, etc. That's not my point, look at HOW they took him down, and WHEN. They were trying to pass SOPA, claiming it would help them take down people like Kim Dotcom "because they couldn't" so what they did to Kim Dotcom was questionable from a legal perspective...

Sigh. I really do miss the internet before the 2nd and 3rd waves of "Eternal September" (Facebook then Smartphones) it was much nicer.

> It's a thankless thing

<https://www.little-gamers.com/2001/12/13/372>

> I really do miss the internet before the 2nd and 3rd waves of "Eternal September" (Facebook then Smartphones)

Very apt. These two things did really make the internet a lot worse. I would even add AI as the 4th wave, with all the captchas and slop we now need to deal with :-(

Usenet still exists, and ironically, the eternal September has sort of reversed since now nobody uses it outside a few weirdos.

For a free connection (no binaries) see eternal-september.org

If you're looking for a low risk way to help out internet freedom have a look at hosting some of these "alternative front end" projects like Redlib, Nitter, Invidious. These are risky enough that a lot of people don't want to run them in public for fear of getting banned from their hosting provider or DNS registrar, but still low risk in absolute terms.

Even back then, it was partly various three-letter agencies manufacturing their own criminals to justify the budget.

Everything is political. Just people on the early internet tended to have a particular personality type that shared certain political views.

No, that 'everything is political' line is a marxist trope ("“Politics” is the general question of class struggle. Nothing in society stands above class struggle and thus nothing is above politics. In this sense, everything is political and politics is everything', [1]) which has been claimed by maoists [2 - search for the term in the document] in the context of the 'eternity of the class struggle').

People on the earlier internet - I was and still am one of them - did not so much share political views but were far less likely to consider those with different views not worth speaking to. We could speak about other subjects without needing to inject politics into everything, we could take others' opinions for what they were without needing to taint them with some political slur because he happened to vote for a different party or faction. We could actually make fun of those things and did not as a rule throw slurs and attach labels at those of a different view, at least not in anger.

Alas, how things have changed...

[1] https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-3/iwk-party-buildi...

[2] https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/...

  No, that 'everything is political' line is a marxist trope

  We [...] did not as a rule throw slurs and attach labels at those of a different view

You've contradicted yourself. Not just here though, your comment history is full of prejudiced ad-hominem:

> Comrade Knee-Jerk, what did you do for the cause today? Answer me! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49789968

> you'll notice a bunch of useful idiots calling themselves the 'Democatic Socialists of America' https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166926

> some activist group doing something stupid https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49710719

You have a repeat history of attaching labels to people who have a different view from yourself. It is also bizarrely obsessed with socialism on unrelated topics, which probably explains why your "political" commentary is being flagged. You should consider discussing politics without these kinds of labels if you want people to reply in good faith.

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