[vinceguidry]

Every frontier eventually gets integrated into civilization. It's only a matter of time. Civilization brings its laws and its infrastructure and its masses of people. As civilization is bigger than the frontier, the frontiersmen either have to civilize themselves, or move on to another frontier.

The nice thing about the Internet is that it is particularly hard to civilize. It's incredibly hard to wrap laws, which have to be enforced, around information technology. There is always more information than there is people to look at it. So the Internet offers an "endless frontier" of sorts. The Chinese government is famously grappling with this.

Such a thing is not unprecedented, there are plenty of arenas where there is always going to be room for intrepid settlers to voyage to and scrape out an individualistic experience in. Academia is such a place. Doesn't matter how civilized the university gets, there is always room for more people pushing the boundaries of institutionalized knowledge.

We should welcome society into the Internet. Powerful ideas are bigger than even society, so the Internet will forever remain a place where good ideas thrive. It is society that will be changed by the Internet, not the Internet by society. Society will make its settlements, and people fearful of the rough frontier lifestyle will cling to these settlements, but it won't keep them safe from the powerful ideas generated further out.

[marssaxman]

I was always happy to welcome individual people into Internet society, but after offline society swamped us, there really isn't an Internet society anymore, and I miss it.

I'd have struck out for the next frontier years ago if I had any idea where it was.

[vinceguidry]

The world has frontiers for days. Everywhere society isn't, is a frontier. Every idea has a fringe of people that are out on the edges of that idea. Bitcoin, weight-lifting, Indian-Mexican fusion cuisine, van-dwelling. All these things have groups of people that operate outside of the norm, who have made sacrifices to exist more strongly in that space.

The Internet has made finding a frontier to settle in easier than ever.

[marssaxman]

Maybe so, but those are little subcultures with small horizons; the future doesn't live there, the way it used to live on the Internet. I'm not just looking for people to hang out with, I'm looking for the next big thing, the next opportunity to help undermine the old power structures and build something better.

[vinceguidry]

You can look to history for ideas.

Once the West was won, America needed raw materials to actually build all the infrastructure. Civilization moves slowly, so there was always opportunity to get out ahead of it and strike it rich. Gold mining, oil prospecting, surveying, offered up a continuous range of gradations of closeness to civilization. You could have worked for the railroad or gone out and, say, ranched or prospected on your own.

You can see these elements in today's Internet frontier. The equivalent of prospecting would be making a Bitcoin startup, those who would have preferred a more civilized life working for the railroad might join an established startup.

The American frontier moved from being geographical to being industrial. It's a different kind of culture and different goals. But the stakes of this frontier were even larger, the benefits that came after the West was won had a much greater impact than the Wild West itself ever did.

And so you see the same with the Internet frontier. If you know what to look for, the civilizing process has only begun, there's still lots and lots of money to make and influence to have. But the pioneers time is over. We need those who can actually build something real.

[dave2000]

But you can't change things without people, and it's people turning up on the internet which is apparently ruining the internet.

[Raphmedia]

Tor and the "deep web" was a nice frontier to play with until it got reduced to its current state (pedophilia and drugs).

[digi_owl]

I find myself wondering if there are some groups out there that wants us to make that association, when Tor can be used for anything the net can be used.

Meaning it is a variant of "why do you want privacy if you have nothing to hide?" spiel.

[Torgo]

Raphmedia is just stating a fact, though. There used to be a pretty great diversity of sites on Tor for a while, then after Freedomhosting got taken down most of what was left was the illegal stuff.

If anybody here is listening, set up an onion service, just for fun. Even if it's just a static page with some content. Make the darknet great again. (I already run one.)

[digi_owl]

So if i understand it right, a whole web hotel was taken down because a few of the customers were hosting illegal material?

Do the fed customary burn down whole motels because a few of the rooms were used for illegal activities?

[dave2000]

Why don't you just use the normal web? The hidden web only has the attribute of being hidden. The battle there is not technological, it's of winning the argument with the general public that you should be allowed freedom and not have to hide stuff.

[digi_owl]

There is nothing "general public" about it.

Its a bunch of special interest within the M-I-I complex that love the ability to be able to track every conversation in real time 24/7/365.

That they wrap themselves in "think of the X/Y/Z" should be transparent.

But thanks to media playing along with the argument that even touching someone younger than adult (never mind that USA have some of the most conservative age of consent laws) is pedophilia, because it makes for more eyeballs and therefore more ad revenue, the bozos have the perfect argument that bypasses the brain and goes straight for the feels.

Privacy should not have to be defended, it should be the default.

[jbpetersen]

You might be looking for the culture that surrounds state of the art networking tech.

[contingencies]

China has been my new frontier, though I must confess it too is becoming a lot less frontier-like these days. Corners of Burma, India, South America, Indonesia and the Philippines. Papua New Guinea.

[rayiner]

At the same time, the larger civilization is changed even as it integrates the frontier. American culture changed enormously as it integrated the frontier territories, Texas, and California.