My parents got a new car and they thought I’d be impressed that it has an iPad for a dashboard and knows who’s driving by using your phone.

And 20 years ago that would have been cool. But now? Now all I see is data harvesting, bad UI, and expensive repairs that must be done at the stealership.

Tech used to be something fun and new, that gave you freedoms and abilities you never thought were possible. But now it’s just another way for companies to ship expensive crap and exploit us. I’d much rather have my dumb car that makes fart noises and won’t even shift without my help.

One thing I did like is that the interior door handles are well-made and easily accessible.

Make your shit work for you again. Learn to self-host and embrace open source.

Any tool can be used for good or for evil. Try not to get sucked into the doom spiral, there are plenty of FOSS and adjacent projects making the world a better place.

Cut it down, your computer is not a source of evil. Especially if its a second or third hand buy. People think life is about control, its not. Life is full of things that we cannot control, can only influence, or can only really observe on an individual scale. Now what really helps is activism. Get out with a group of people to affect change. Put more good into the world than evil and your hobbies matter a little less (given they are benign)

Compute to battle the evils.

Make open source tools to remove dependency on corporate spyware.

Create smaller low power AI assistants to make the giants redundant.

Create websites that inform rather than misdirect and out-market the evil ones.

Not proposing it's easy or even realistic, but it's the same battle that always was.

I feel the same way sometimes. Here's what I've been up to:

• Self hosting as much of my digital footprint as possible, with federated technologies and Foss at the forefront
• Focusing my computer time on my own hobbies and curiosities, just tinkering with the computer, or contributing to open source projects
• Volunteering to help with conferences where I can, and attending hacker and hardware conferences. I have a nice little international group of friends and confidants thanks to that. It helps me to connect with people in person.

How have you chosen to deal with it?

Moving back to analog wherever I could, re-learn and re-use the old ways as much as possible. And also taking back control, and ownership, over my tech.

I've been using a computer since the early 80s and have been online regularly probably somewhere around the late 80s, first through BBS. Luckily for me, while I was self-learning that new computer and digital stuff, I was also taught the classic ‘analog’ ways of doing things. Things like writing longhand, or using snail mail. So, the moment I realized I could not trust nor agree with techs, I started:

• Using physical and/or low-tech objects wherever and whenever I can.
• I got rid of all streaming and subs, an always growing, always less privacy friendly (and more expensive) list of services and apps.
• After years mostly reading ebooks, I moved back to reading actual print books, and using physical media for music and movies (discs).
• Relying less on a computer on my everyday life. Doing math in my head instead of needing that high-tech crutch that is a calculator. Using an actual dictionary to lookup for a definition (a paper dictionary does not track what word I’m checking, like no print book is reporting back what I’m actually reading), Stopped relying on a spellchecker (aka, improve my writing skills and also learn to be fine with doing as few mistakes as I can even more so in foreign languages like English). Small things like that.
• Use older tech (more repairable, sustainable, less connected) wherever I can. See, I recently purchased a 90s digital voice recorder that uses good old AA batteries (that last for months, plural), that requires no Internet connection to operate and no subscription either (so there is no tracking going on, no constant updates or security threats, and there is no ads). Sure, it doesn't have the latest and greatest AI summarizing tool but... I don't care. And I certainly don’t want AI to feast on my own voice, nor on my most personal notes, doing god knows what with them.
• Use Free Libre software instead of the most widely known proprietary ones. Apps and tools that respect my privacy and my rights as a user.
  After 40+ years being an Apple user, a few years ago I fully switched to GNU/LInux and to Libre software. My only regret? I should have switched years earlier.
• Last but certainly not least, I barely use my phone at all. On mine, there is only a handful of apps I need to have access to (finance/security/pro stuff). There is nothing personal, not even ebooks or music, and certainly no social or games. The phone is the least trustworthy of all the 'digital' device I own, so it's the one I use the less.

Computing itself is fine. I can still do most everything I used to do on my PC pre-popular internet. I have essentially no cloud services on my PC.

However, the internet itself is a dumpster fire. It always was, except you had to deliberately looking for those places and they tended to be isolated back in the day.

Of course monetization destroyed the internet with corporations doing everything possible to carve it up and shove their ads and billionaire-controlled media slant in front of you, and their engagement-bait feeding of lies and giving a platform to controversy and stupidity on social media.

Most all of the good spaces are gone. Very few exist in anything remotely close to their original form, they’ve been corporatized, disappeared, or swallowed up by places like Reddit.

I'm getting more involved in that I'm discovering more open source projects that I can support.

Open source really gives me hope. Instead of a profit motive, communities form and work together out of passion and dedication to a project or idea.

That's really invigorating to me. And, in many ways, can often be a big fuck you to our capitalist overlords. I'm working on presentations and such to teach my friends and spread the word about various projects and better op sec to make it all the harder to harvest our data.

We should built our own internet, with blackjack and hookers!

Leaving IT. Gardening. Trading pc nerdery for soil science nerdage.

This is exactly how I feel right now.

I turned my hobby into a career and now I fucking hate it. Soulless evil billionaires turned it into a fucking dystopia machine. I really can't see any exit from this other than changing my entire field. But, no other field I could work into would pay my mortgage and enable me to afford food.

I use to love playing video games. When MMOS hit I was all for it. It would be like play D&D all the time with your friends. I just wanted to hang with my friends but the min/maxers hit and then the constant grind. I quit caring.

Self hosting, trying to get progressively more serious about privacy and security.

I've gotten into Amateur Radio, you need a license to transmit but you gain access to a lot of cool stuff. The Ham bands are a non-commercalized space where experimentation and the sharing of technical knowledge are highly esteemed. There's no ISP or hidden tech bro to moderate the experience, your limits are your skill, equipment, and the privileges of your license. On High Frequencies there are propagation effects that cause your signal to travel thousands of miles enabling the potential for worldwide communications given proper conditions.

If someone picks up a chair and hits a person with it, is the chair now evil? Should you avoid using chairs because of the potential hurt they can cause? Computers are the same.

Focus on the positive and don’t dwell on the negative. Play games, tinker with hardware and open-source software. Get off platforms like Reddit/Lemmy where negativity is much more pervasive.

Of course, if you find yourself “recoiling from all online spaces” then consider alternative hobbies that give you the same level of satisfaction.

I'm dealing with it by spending my time around you fellows. It feels like the old days of the internet over here, back when it was just us nerds. Honestly though? I feel like I'm going to end up one of those Amish like hermits, living in the woods and swearing off technology. Especially when the surveillance becomes suffocating.

I have thought about this also. Especially when it comes to mobile technology. For most of my career I have been an advocate of mobile technology like smartphones, I have recommended it, I have set it up for people, and now I look at the world and honestly wonder if we wouldn't be a better place without smartphones.

Thing is, we are iron mongers. We build tools. We give people tools. "It is not the tool that determines its work, it is the mind mind of the man who holds the tool that does." (-Brannon LaBoeuf).

Does that absolve me of all responsibility? No not a chance. But it does offer s or a suggested path forward.

The harm that comes from computing for the most part, IMHO, doesn't come from users. It comes from people who exploit the users and users who don't realize they are being exploited. Meta, TikTok, Snap, Google, etc. these are the guys causing the problem.

So as technologists, we have an opportunity to change course. To show those who rely on us ways to use technology without being exploited. Yeah I realized to some degree it's a drop in the ocean, trying to piss up a rope but there are little victories to be had.

In short, be the change.

I was looking for a tech positive outlook and found solarpunk for myself. Since then I've learned a lot that doesn't have to do with tech, but also on the topic of how technology can empower people. It helps I was already an environmentalist before.

I started looking a lot more into contributing to open source projects. I started looking into decentralized networks like lora radios. I self host a lot more. Got rid of Google on my phone...

Biggest issue is the job. With my attitude change my well paid corporate tech job has become soul sucking.

Like many have said here : open source is one way to cure your technodepression. Little project are happy to get you involved. I have helped many project without being a dev.

They way I see it, computers are tools. They can just as easily be used for good as evil.

If people were going around smashing vehicles with hammers, we would (hopefully) work on better law enforcement than ban hammers. Same sort of thing with computers, we need standards and regulations.

I completely get it. It's been so demonized in recent years that it's completely understandable to feel this way. I literally can't fathom how I was ever excited to take an AI course 3-4 years ago in grad school lol

Here's how I've been dealing with it without letting it crush my interest in computing.

In terms of online spaces:

There's always an alternative. You being on Lemmy right now is evidence of this. The big media conglomerates want you to believe there are no alternatives. That's how they function, they use social pressure to get you to conform. Enough friends badger you to get facebook and you eventually get a facebook, even if you hate it.

Gradually move away from these circles, don't allow yourself to be pressured.

The internet is a vaster ecospace than you can possibly imagine, despite how many people believe it's limited to cycling between the same 3-4 apps. You should try checking out Neocities sometime if you don't believe me. Other people who haven't allowed their passions for computing to be drowned out still exist, it's just that the voices of the mundane crowd who don't know anything about computing or have ever had any desire to learn are louder and currently propagate the online space.

Also, never underestimate the power of rigid filters. You'll begin to notice so many other things once every other post you see is no longer a catastrophic news update about how the 1% is currently raping the earth and ruining life for the average citizen. It can feel tempting to always stay "in the loop"... but the truth is, most of the things we stay up to date on aren't as important as we think they are.

Yeah, maybe them building an AI data center in your local district seems like urgent news you have to have... but you already knew these data centers are bad and being built everywhere. You were probably already going to vote against that the next chance you got in a local election. Beyond that, if you aren't planning any local protests... the most productive thing you'd do that day is vent anger online about it with other strangers. Seriously, try to limit your intake to just world news and a local newspaper or the most important stuff that happened that week. If a new war starts I assure you there's no way you'll miss it.

In terms of AI:

Here's a really simple platitude that actually helps more than you think.

"Blame the artist, not the pencil."

It's just another tool, not the end of civilization or the "singularity", or anything people really want to build it up to be. Quite frankly, it's not that cool or spooky at all. I'm 1000 times more spooked by the trends I've seen develop in humans dialing back basic data privacy rights than I am about ChatGPT's actual capabilities.

In fact, I use AI regularly. It's all about balance, just like any other tool you use with computer literacy. You don't download random files, click weird links, or upload your social security number. Same principles with AI.

• I use AI to troubleshoot when I'm programming and it saves me countless hours of searching 15+ year old stackexchange posts: I don't use it to program my code.
• I use AI to roleplay sometimes because the engaging feedback helps spark my creativity: I don't use it to write my stories or texts for me.
• I use AI to help research complex questions to aid my comprehension, such as "Why is manufacturing a cure for AIDS so difficult and have any recent promising developments been made in the field?", not as a one-stop shop for all my factual knowledge.

As draining as it is to find a new AI spyware thing I have to uninstall everytime my browser updates or I open a Microsoft program these days, AI itself is not this big evil thing. And if you have less patience for it than I do, someone who stops to look up the instructions on how to manually disable OneDrive updates in Administrative Tools to stop reinstalling Copilot, take the other people's advice in this thread and go completely open source. Try Linux. It may save you a huge headache in the long run.

Lastly, in terms of creative liberty:

Always remember that the online space was created for us, not for them.

I love messing around with Stylus these days and especially publicly made GreasyFork scripts to see just how much I can break websites and get them to do my bidding. While everyone else is lamenting bad website updates with angry "Goodbye forever" and "I've unsubscribed!! (yes I was paying)" posts, I've already fixed the issue with a script or some basic coding.

In addition, uBlock Origin, VPNs, PopUpOff and a handful of other useful extensions are all your friends, and will help save you from countless hours of irritation of having to navigate spaces with no functional UI in mind. I haven't had issues viewing an article on some offbrand newssite or a mainstream paywall in ages. I found out they banned imgur in my country because of lemmy posts, not because I couldn't access it.

And never throw in the towel because something's "gone forever". I've already found a new piracy website after the last 5 went down. I've already started migrating pages from archive.org to archive.is. Someone has already reuploaded the entire decades old collection of english dub One Piece episodes that went down because of a copyright strike. You know what they say, "Once it's out on the internet, it stays there forever."

Final thoughts

From one computer enthusiast to another, don't let the current state of the world take away your passions from you. Remember, at the end of the day, these are all just tools. It only matters what you do with them.

Here's a little video I'll leave with you in case it helps cheer you up.

Microsoft Windows 95 Launch with Bill Gates & Jay Leno (1995) (be prepared, it's corny as hell lol)

Q: "How have you dealt with this?"

A: Poorly.

I've been online for like, too long to see it decay and rot into the form it has been turned into. My only regret is that I didn't embrace the early days or the first 15 years I was online for. Tack on 15 more years and I got to watch, albeit slowly, the corrosion take form.

Everywhere I've been to is either gone or transformed into a shallow representation of its former self. Everyone I know and knew are growing up and the times we had can't be replicated anymore or enjoyed similarly. Features are being shoved in that nobody asked for but everyone uses without question. Optimization has taken a back seat, where everything breaks down in a moment's notice as we're given empty promises and apologies for it.

The spirit of community has fallen to tribalism and hivemindedness where simply being nuanced is just simply unacceptable anymore. It's like you MUST pick a side, you MUST say the right opinions, you MUST express yourself justly or you're whatever the side thinks you are. There is no room for critical thinking.

And every other day, I ask myself "what the fuck am I even doing anymore?" when it comes to being online. I'm just coming online for no other reason than just to check things and waste clicks. Because I'm not enjoying my time anywhere without being constantly reminded about the things I've watched the internet become for so long.

There was someone I knew, that when her gaming PC broke down 2 years ago, she decided that it was it for her. She wasn't tech savvy, she wasn't glued to the net or computers as much. She'll use something until it breaks before she decides whether to continue. And when that computer died, she shrugged and decided to move on living as simple as she can be.

I don't think I'll go that route when my PC dies, I'll still have a use for it. But if the internet becomes too expensive or it just plainly isn't serving its purpose to me as it once did completely, I'll probably consider it a good run well-lived.

I am lucky that I got a job that is, if not doing good, at least not doing something evil. And I get to play with cool hardware. Not something practicable for everyone, I know. But those jobs are out there.

Besides, I have met many people with similar feelings recently. You are not alone. I don't know how to find those people where you live. But for instance, there are many people helping worthwhile causes with the tech side.

Personally, I might have to use two phones in the future, kind of like how I saw some do in China. One for the official, mandated bullshit, and one for personal things, with an operating system that does not snitch on every action I take.

I'm really enthusiast about open source and free software.

Software corporations can go fuck themselves for all I care.

Make new hobby gym. All health. No evil.

I grew up as a computer nerd kid in the 90s with my first computer being a 386 DX 66mhz off brand IBM PC clone with 8mb ram.

I was put on this earth to do computer stuff no doubt about it. I was the first on my block with dialup. I was the first on my block with DSL. I was the first kid on my block with cable internet. Taught myself C when I was 15 and and a software engineer professionally over a decade without any college education.

With that being said, what we call “AI” (LLMs) completely exhausts me and I have absolutely no interest about AI garbage. I am depressed because AI exists to cheapen literally everything I have a passion for.

When I was young I always wanted to be at the head of technology and always stay up to date with it I’d read books and news daily. Always had a genuine passion for it, but I can’t stand it now.

I just stay stuck in the 90s and play old consoles like PlayStation and N64. That gives me comfort and I know there’s no AI slop in those games.

For every bad thing there are good things.

Linux starting to go mainstream and duel boot is 90% not required anymore.

I know a kid that uses a local AI model to help him write. Where he couldn't barely communicate before.

For every social media site there are places like this or the tildeverse that let people communicate and build relationships.

For every tech bro there is a kid that doesn't feel like they belong anywhere making friends online that he finally clicks with. There is me helping some person in a chat room on IRC fix a Linux issue that I don't know and will never meet and get nothing from just because its nice and fun to help people.