The Web has no constitution, yet its spirit of freedom does not require laws to exist. The essence of cyberspace lies in openness, transparency, connection of thinking minds, and the independence of information, free from tyranny. The Orwellian degeneration of the Web has its roots in the collapse of its very foundations — the fall of its deontological code. A code replaced by the logic of profit, by users' indifference, by the narcissism of social networks, by avalanches of distractions aimed at dulling thought, by the disappearance of any relationship with reality, and by the totalitarianism of digital colossus.
The dismemberment of the Web's ancestral principles is a consequence of the failure to recognize and assimilate the ontological meaning of progress. Progress is the movement toward a higher state of well-being — it is refinement, it is evolution. Progress has nothing to do with faster and easier access to dopaminergic pleasure, with the aestheticization of violence, with the futility that feeds procrastination, with the mantra that “everything is entertainment.”
The replacement of true technological progress has taken place under false pretenses: a Mephistopheles disguised as increased processor performance, as speed and ease of access to content, as new useless gadgets, as catchy words — stripped of meaning but aligned with dominant thought — has generated a pseudo-progress, a regression, a redirection of the reader toward futility, a deception aimed solely at profit. The idolatry of progress for its own sake, fed by the CEOs of major tech giants — who bear more than a passing resemblance to Aristophanes' Pluto — must be strongly criticized. Technology is not synonymous with civilization. Progress without conscience can be more dangerous than ignorance. False progress, in the form of instantly accessible entertainment, is a seducer: it offers us everything, makes us feel in step with the times, and in return only asks that we pay — and ask no questions. Not only with our money, but with our souls. It is a rational evil that speaks the language of science, promises enlightenment but brings oblivion. It does not force you to sin — it makes you desire hell. We need to resume a serious discussion on what technology and technological evolution truly are; we need to reintroduce ethics.
“Freedom consists, above all, in not lying,” said Albert Camus. For this reason, we have a duty to criticize the current state of affairs. We must take responsibility for the freedom of the Web, denouncing this degeneration freely and without ulterior motives. We must return to a deep understanding of what technology really is; never before have we needed thinking individuals more — people capable of analyzing our current trajectory, of discussing the ethics of progress and the very definition of progress. A kind of progress that must pause to reflect, and not continue blindly along the path of increasing data transmission speeds or Moore's Law. We must fight for an ancestral return to the Web's original principles.
Without a change of direction, we are headed for a dystopian future — not even one as fascinating as Asimov's cities, Metropolis, or the New York of Soylent Green — but rather a prison without walls, where the hostages wish to remain. In fact, a prison that one actively desires to enter. Cities with lobotomized people. Huxley's soma is already among us, in the form of endless scrolling through useless content — a drug that breeds addiction and extreme dependency. "It is not good to try to stop the progress of knowledge. Ignorance is never better than knowledge" said Enrico Fermi. But the enemy is cunning and concealed. Progress cannot be stopped — but this false progress mirrors the figure of the Antichrist described in the Book of Revelation: “The one who exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself and proclaiming himself to be God.”
Those who deal with progress — the experimenters, the researchers, the implementers — must stop to reflect on what progress really is, and whether we have truly understood its ontological meaning. We must stop driving with our eyes closed: progress has no autopilot. An infrastructure as powerful as the Internet — now used by almost the entire global population — must be understood before it is used. Not understanding can have fatal repercussions for the essence and meaning of life, leading to trauma, and dependency. It is not just a system that consumes our time — it is a force that quietly will enslave us and demands our soul in return.
— Riccardo Persiani
polares.web3