What is on Your Mind?

Greetings Fellow NIX'ers,

For a while now I've been pondering the (to Me) Dystopian possibilities of "Cloud Computing", Web Apps
(Pay Per Each Use) of course, and... the Most Troubling of All:

The possible time when we will not be allowed to own a "Real" computer, only some silly little thing that can
barely run a web browser in order to "Consume" those Web Apps! I say "allowed", but also imply that Availability
of decent hardware may be threatened by the forces that are trying to make a "better future" for us all.

The same forces that are engineering this madness are of course behind Streaming Everything as well!
I am by no means against mobile devices, I have a smart phone myself that has been pretty cool.
What really does cause me concern as above is that the PTB might try to infringe upon our right to Own
Real Computers, Program them, and Distribute our own Free / Open Source software! Understandably many
typical non-NIX users may not Care about this stuff at all since they are used to being Told their future fate by
corporate entities and various interests.

In 1993 with some years as a developer, I discovered a reasonable facsimile of UNIX(tm) that I could use at home!
That is to say a distro I didn't have to completely create from scratch, Imagine that enormous stack of floppies!
Additionally, I've worked with SunOS, Digital UX, the BSD's and most Linux distros.
I have not looked back, ya gotta love the Freedom to breathe here!

Does any of this seem like a possibility to Anyone else, or... just my Imagination ?
That said, I'm primarily interested in the NIX' users, admins and devs thoughts here.
What sort of time line do you think we are looking at before the hardware vendors get the "Memo":
"Only Mobile devices without dev tools are Permissible!" I'd greatly appreciate hearing anyone's thoughts!

Before I forget I want to add what a Cool place this seems to be! There appear to be lots of "Adults" with
real stuff to say and share! That alone is something missing from "Most" other communities, IMHO!

Sincerely,
The Coding Coolie ;^)

Yeah, unix.com should have been featured (as a legacy artifact) in Ready Player One since we were one of the first forums back in the day, way back when, before people moderated forums and insisted people behave like adults online, LOL

I'm nearly finished with the audiobook Ready Player One and am off to the movies to see the same in a few hours

The book is great.... cannot put it down.. highly recommended for sure.

Yes, the future is looking more and more dystopian, day by day, year by year, this I agree!

In the future, for many people, life will be more fun and happy spending the majority of their time in a virtual world, as they will not be very happy in the "real world" compared to living most of their life in one or more virtual worlds / universes.

Update:

The RPO book is much better than the movie.

Spielberg took a great book and ruined it by turning a super good dystopian book into a goofy Disney story. LOL

Shame On Spielberg!!

@Neo,

Thanks Neo for your reply. Spielberg appears to be consistent with all the other entertainment industry Far Lefties! Though it seems that the
viewing public is finally showing some contempt for their shockingly smug attitudes?

I'm reminded of something I read many years ago when he was interviewed regarding some obscure point in "CEotTK". The gist of this seemed to be that the movie's content had to be adjusted to what the public Expected, rather than what might have any kind of basis in fact. Of course $ale$ are the obvious goal, so turning a Good Dystopian book into a Disney story is a let down, but hardly surprising.
Maybe another "ET"? I'm going to check out that book! My Wife and I are some of those that are sort of disgusted with the Tinsel Town attitude right now though.

I'm not an advocate for a Dystopian future by any stretch, but some of the most compelling stuff in that genre are William Gibson's books.

The problem is both "the far left" and "the far right"..... So, I suggest that we not try to tie the current state of dystopia and cyber disfunction to one side or the other. Using labels and putting entire groups into categories is a part of the divisiveness than helps create dystopia. I am not politicizing Spielberg because his work is "for profit" and must appeal to the masses; and many people will not read "Ready Player One", which is absolutely great; 20 times + better than the movie, but I'm only 2/3s of the way into the audiobook, so let's see how the book ends.

Regarding, the "Dystopian Future" it is already here because of advances in instant communications and the easy "hack" to spread disinformation and sew hatred and discontent between humans has already given rise to an unstable and dangerous world where cyberspace is used to influence human consciousness, mostly by bad actors, but also by for-profit commercial interests (who we can also call "bad actors") as well.

The developing situation is much worse than imaged by Orwell in 1984; which is easy to see by looking at what Facebook did with personal data and how Cambridge Analytica used massive amounts of personal data to classify, target and perform psychological operations against humans in order to manipulate people who were unwitting to the fact they were being manipuated.

When you combine this with the fact that both governments and commercial industry are totally incompetent and impotent to deal with this form of psychological operations against humanity, there is do doubt that the "dystopian s**t has hit the fan".

and...

We ain't seen nothing yet...

For those who are not convinced about how social media has pushed society rapidly toward a dystopian future, please read this (true) story on CNN:

When Facebook becomes 'the beast': Myanmar activists say social media aids genocide

This is absolutely a true story, 100%.

Living in SE Asia and spending a lot of time traveling in this part of the world, it's easy to see that social media, and especially FB, has been twisted in unforeseen ways to harm the minds of those who are not fortunate to have a high education and/or the ability to think critically about social issues. (Honestly, it depressing to see what social media has done to the under developed, less educated world).

We are rapidly moving toward a dystopian world where information is fully weaponized against other humans, mostly thanks to FB, who has unleashed a dystopian monster into the under developed world.

Also, you would not believe how rampantly FB is used by young men and women working as freelance prostitutes, posting provocative pictures and connecting with people on FB.

Mark Zuckerberg says "all he wants is to connect people", however, what he seemingly did not realize is that connecting everyone to everything all the time is not necessary a good thing, especially since FB has become a haven for lawless activity and misinformation, and to incite social unrest.

My thoughts are that we should change the motto of unix.com to read:

"One of the few places in cyberspace left where there are no alternative facts."

Just the facts, maam' ... as the old saying goes.