On the internet, and other things

Soot emailed me today, and said that Epik/Terrahost are undergoing big financial problems and may shut down soon. In the past few weeks, it seems like many websites on our side of the internet are closing shop. KolymaNET, of course, has suspended. Kiwifarms was forced onto TOR, poa.st was hacked, Vidlii was hacked, XUID was shut down, RARBG was shut down... the list continues. I feel that, beyond myself, that things at large are slipping away. If I was in better health, I would have said we can still fight to save it. Now, I no longer think so.

In addition to that, I am, and I have felt this way for several months at this point — skeptical. Skeptical of the supposed good that any of these websites, and the internet at large bring to us. I have never been under the impression that the internet was good for you, but I did, for the longest time, come up with excuses to justify both my prolonged usage of it, and the large part I played in supporting other peoples use of the internet, via hosting many addictive websites or otherwise enticing users of the internet to use my services.

However, since the start of this year and since March in specific, I have started becoming skeptical of my justifications, until I reached the point, where I was living a contradiction, simultaneously feeding millions of peoples addiction to the internet whilst knowing that it was harmful to our minds, souls, and bodies. I did not just believe this subconsciously, it was at the very forethought of my mind as I worked. Living this contradiction came to wear on my willingness to continue, and contributed to my later departure.

Directly prior to my diagnosis, I had no intentions of leaving, though the above-mentioned problems fueled my desire to, making money, and supporting my colleagues was still the greater attraction, and I continued my life, intending fully to pursue all of the goals I had laid out regarding the company. Realizing that my health was still important, I left on the 10th of May to meet doctors in Cuba concerning recent problems I had. However, my will to continue, which was already weak, shattered upon hearing the news of May 12th, and its consequences caused me to immediately reconsider my current position, my future, and, most pertinent to this message, my past.

At first, I dealt with this horrible news the only way I knew how, a method which had often disturbed people around me in years prior. I shut out all emotion, and began working. I single-mindedly focused on my job, attempting to shut out the feeling of dread and the distressing thoughts that paced in my mind. Occasionally, as I worked, heat would radiate through my body like a warning signal, as if my body was trying to inform me of what my brain refused to.

Later on, as I was re-evaluating quite literally everything in my life, I began, slowly at first, to realize the evil of the cultures around me, and the evil I had created, or, at the very least, cultivated. I did not single out my own sites, I in fact began to despise all of "our side of the internet", and, in a broader sense, the internet at large. I no longer made excuses, or justification. I no longer wanted even to give it my time and money to continue. The internet as a whole, outside a few small, specific use cases, is, undeniably, a source of negativity for those who use it. I write to explain this belief.

Aside from the obvious downsides, such as addiction, both to the internet or to pornography and or video games, there are many unspoken aspects of sustained internet usage, which even "clean" internet users like nofappers fall victim to. Primarily, the internet takes away ones ability to reason based off reality. The internet is seldom a reflection of reality. No side portrays reality accurately. Not just from the standpoint of politics, but life and society in general.

At its core, this can cause one to take on a very skewed view of reality, but the consequences of seriously using the internet go further. It alters the way you live your life, the way you experience reality, and, even the way you think. This last aspect, is the most dangerous. Indeed, the internet alters the very way your brain conducts thought.

Many of you reading this have few or no friends in real life, have few or no hobbies conducted in real life, and spend at least half a dozen hours or more on the computer every day. Many of you spend even more - sometimes 10 or 12 hours per day, using the internet.

Many people have spoken in the past about internet addiction, about frying your dopamine receptors, about shortening your attention span, etc. I will not rehash all this, I believe as far as emphasizing the negative aspects of the internet in this regard, I have made my point.

To return to where I started, I want to more specifically speak about my own sites. To my users, I address this to you, and to those who uses sites alike to them. While many people talk about the dangers of social media in the traditional sense, most of us consider ourselves somehow better than the twitter users, the facebook moms, the NPC's bickering about whatever in Youtube comment sections. These comprise the first category of internet users. You know who you are, almost everyone who will read this fits into mainly the second category. Here's a quick test, if you know what Goatse is, you are most likely in the second category.

Another way to tell whether you should be doing what you are doing online is this: How would your parents react? Now of course not all of us have parents, and some of us have crazy parents, some of us have parents who would agree, or in fact do contently and currently agree with the things we view online. The vast majority of you however, do not. The vast majority of you lie to your parents. You have normalized and justified these lies, and you have normalized the inconsistency between your life and the opinions you espouse there and the internet and the ones you espouse there. Would you let them scroll through your phone? Would you let them see the things you have wrote online? Given, everyone says something weird, everyone swears unnecessarily, and everyone makes off hand jokes they don't want others seeing, but for almost all of you, that is not the only thing they would find. The perverse, the evil, the creeps of 40 years ago are the average teenagers of today. Unimaginable evil and repugnant things can be found inside the phone and computer of almost every teenager and young adult in the modern world. You included. This is what I am speaking of and to.

To those of you, I write my personal opinion. I urge you strongly to pursue a different life, a better life. As much as TV brainwashed the generation before us, Youtube algorithms, imageboards, echo chambers and chatrooms have brainwashed you. On both sides. The internet has not done good for any of you. It is a veritable cointoss that, when given un-monitored access to the internet, a child of this generation will grow up to be one of two horrible sides of the same coin. In either case, your soul is destroyed. Your mind is destroyed, and in many cases, your body is destroyed.

To those of you, I write that you have been killed by the internet. You have probably harmed the relationships you could have had with people around you as well. Your entire belief system, what you find funny, what you find enjoyable, it has all been irrevocably altered by prolonged usage of the internet. The way you read this, the way you will react, the words you will use when you discuss it with other people, even the chemical reactions taking place inside of your body as you read this — all have been changed for the worst.

All of this, was realized by me over a short time span, as I was forced to contemplate nearly everything in my life. I spent a lot of my career, mostly indirectly, harming others through my creations. Not only the various victims of the sites, but the users themselves, and, I was also a victim of myself. I am of course not alone, there are many others in my position, they may or may not have already realized in whole or in part what I have written, but they might in the future. Many others who were like me have lulled themselves into a false reality, a make believe scenario, where the websites they created or own, the communities they cultivate or promote, are healthy, or at the very least, neutral. That they do not take away nor necessarily give any value to the users. These people however are mistaken.

I implore you to leave this way of life behind, take on a new life. I do not necessarily request you abandon everything entirely, as I have done, but become more open minded. Look at yourself honestly, seek to better not just your physical health, as many do, but seek to fix your mind, as many have not. Consider the opinions of other people, witness the world around you, seek natural beauty, seek close connections with other people, recognize that there is no excuse for internet usage in any capacity beyond what is required of you by circumstance. Seek to cause yourself discomfort in pursuit of a truly better life, where you do not harm others. Seek to rid yourself of the addictions you fed via the internet. Once you understand how the internet has changed you, and how it has altered you, you must then be able to view everything it has taught you through a skeptical lens. Sometimes, it was right, more often, it was wrong. Once you are able to do this, pursue a genuine, honest lifestyle, and truth will come to you.

- Y. Kuznetsov