Splinternet: The end of the open internet?

(Original title: "The end of the global internet)

With the creation and advent of the Internet, humanity lives in two worlds.

One world, virtually global, where most of the people like “brothers and sisters”. And the other world is real, where globalism is, of course, present, but in much smaller sizes and where visitors or immigrants, people with different skin color or other eye shape, cause alienation and hate from the local population. And now the real world is becoming even less global, as nationalist movements have lifted their heads in many countries and come to power. These two worlds cannot exist for a long time together in peace and harmony, they are doomed to collide. Of course, if it was possible all over the world to “isolate” all people older than 30 years old, then young people in the world could have a chance to build a truly global world just like a virtual one. After all, the older generation for the most part does not understand this call for globalism and for that they have their real arguments. And so they will do everything to destroy this globally virtual world.
Of course, they made a blunder from the very beginning, because they did not realize all the consequences of this “phenomenon” called the Internet. After all, the Internet changes people, it changes entire nations, it makes the world the same, destroys national roots and bonds. And without his roots, brace, customs, a person ceases to be Russian or German, or Poles, or Japanese, he simply becomes a man from the planet Earth.

Also, the free Internet is dangerous for the country as a whole and especially for its political elite. so the government gave the right, through the Internet, to brainwash its people as a matter of fact to anyone. Now any country can handle the brains of the people of the country of the enemy. Well, it can be compared, let’s say, if in the 60s in the Soviet Union, Americans would open their newspapers with radio channels in the USSR and brainwash the Soviet people. How quickly would communism be over. Or if, on the contrary, the Americans allowed the Soviet Union to open Soviet radio, newspapers and TV channels. How soon in America would the workers revolt against the capitalist usurpers.
And for all its global nature, the virtual Internet is controlled by American corporations. Not that China or Russia, even Europe does not like that the Internet (and in fact the peoples of the countries) are controlled by companies like Facebook and Google, for example. European leaders and leaders of Internet giants have completely different interests and values, and they fight for the same voters. Even an Americans does not like the fact that their private companies control the network and have a huge influence on voters. And many liberals think that technology companies are their friends. How wrong they are, because first of all it is a business and especially after a company enters the stock market, its company is primarily concerned only with its own growth and growth of stocks. And most investors do not care how the company will achieve growth. Well, even if you believe that today’s Internet companies are friends of liberals, where are the guarantees that tomorrow they will not be headed by mercenary people who want to use the entire date of users collected by the company for their own purposes. But they have so many collection of data, that it is even scary to think about it today. With the help of phone sensors they can even understand when you are sitting on the toilet. Having so many data, companies and individuals can easily manipulate people including politicians. If these Internet giants are even suspicious in their home state(US), how long will they be allowed to collect data on populations from other countries by their governments? And most importantly, how long will governments still allow their people to be brainwashed and educate their young population, by strangers. After all, not only hostile countries and selfish people can psychologically influence the population over the internet, the Internet giants themselves also do this. They push into the masses the values that useful for their business.Those corporations are in favor of abandoning races and nationalities, They do this not for the sake of human love of kindness, but because they do understand that if the Internet is not global, then their profits will be greatly reduced. Therefore, for them, the globalization of the Internet is in the 1st place. Many of these companies are now diligently taking up the launch of satellites to cover the entire territory of the planet with free Internet. They do this not for the love of people, but for their own benefit and their own well-being.
And it seems also that people and companies have forgotten that America is an “special” country, just like the USSR was, an experiment on globalism. And America, by virtue of its history, has advanced in terms of globalism, of course, much farther than the rest of the world, since in America within the country the division is no longer by nationality, but by race. And for nationalists coming to power in Europe, such a position is alien, since in Europe the division is still on the basis of nationality and not on race. If, for many white French, for example, white Germans are alien, and for white Germans, white French are alien, then what recognition of the black population or Arabs can we talk about in Europe in the near future. Unlike the United States in Europe there are not so many people with mixed blood and that means nationalism has good chances. Since people with mixed blood will vote far less for nationalists, for obvious reasons. Let Europe be an ally of the States at the moment, but their development perspective looks different. And there is a big chance that American liberal propaganda will become dangerous for Europe and they will have to cut it.
5G also bears big problems, as the data gathering will become even larger and all information from personal carriers will move to the cloud and of course it will give a tremendous impetus to robotization and artificial intelligence. That is, the global Internet will become even more dangerous and provide even more opportunities for creating “evil”.

Today the world is in time of global change.
Every industrial revolution creates giant monopolies and a big gap between the rich and the poor.
And always the consequences of technological revolutions result in the struggle of the majority to improve their rights and standard of living. This, for example, has already begun to occur in France.
And in America itself, socialist ideas prevail in the minds of young people and the latest congressional elections are proof of this. And this is only the beginning, as inequality spread throughout the world. And if we add here already the quick accelerated replacement of human labor with the work of robotics, then the events in France will only increase with time and spread to other countries.
Having an open and global Internet at this time is just nonsense and a danger to countries.
Since there will be countries rivals or individuals or corporations, who using the Internet and processing the brains of the population, will interfere in normal historical processes for their own benefit.
For example, I would be very surprised if Russia is not yet “working” with yellow vests in France and other nationalists from other countries.
Let’s look objectively in the Russia will never be a part of European Union and in NATO, too. Since the country is huge and most importantly it is not a country that simply can be one of many countries in the Union. For example, Ukraine can easily be one of many, and Russia, due to its history and the size of a country, can only be in those alliances in which it is the Russian is the main one. After all, not only Putin Alpha male, the whole of Russia is Alpha. For Russia To be in the Union where she is not in the first roles is simply the loss of a part of the sovereignty of the country.
And so, for example, the European Union and NATO go against the interests of Russia. Russia as a big and militarily strong country is in a good position when there are no big unions and every country is for itself. So now, for example, dwarfs like the Baltic countries and larger Poland have the audacity to blather towards Russia and teach Russians how to live and how to behave. But if there is no NATO and the Eurozone, then those small countries will even be afraid just to look in the direction of Russia.
Large countries benefit only unions where they are on the first roles and in all other cases Unions are not profitable for them.
But small and medium-sized countries Unions are beneficial because they allow them to communicate with large countries on an equal footing and even make their demands to big countries.
This is by the way what Trump thinks that, due to its weight in the world, it is beneficial for the States to negotiate one on one and not have Unions. But he forgot that the States play the first role in almost all their alliances and unions, and this, on the contrary, gives them more power and influence in the world.
And the open Internet is a weapon that big players have already begun to use to achieve their goals. And the only defense against this is the end of anonymity and the localization of the Internet among allied countries.
Anyone who does not believe in the power of disinformation, agitation and propaganda on the masses, is just a stupid person.
Let’s just admit that progress has galloped forward and the development of society has lagged far behind it, the society is not ready yet to live in a global world and will not be ready for a long time. And so it will be safer for everyone to end up with the global Internet.

So the firewall is coming not only in China, for example, it is coming all over the world. Politicians realized the whole problem of open global Internet for their regimes and countries as a whole. And they will do everything to prevent the victory of the virtual global world. Already, the sharing of hardware and software has started when countries begin to order and buy hardware only from their allies. Soon the global Internet will also be divided into local among the allied countries. There is no other way yet

You are speaking of the age group that many people in this humane technology forum are most afraid of, the ones that don’t know the world before the internet? What you don’t realise is perhaps that those over 30 see younger people as more conformist and more tech addicted than ever, not to mention gullible and open to nationalism like all age groups. I feel sorry for the under 30 group. People in the 30-80 year range are pros at globalisation, computers and the internet, after all they invented many of these things and run it too. Actually much of it was created by people even older! You think this stuff appeared magically? You would need to go 80+ years of age to start to find a larger share of people who are not online.

I disagree. Countries are so interconnected that this is difficult. It’s pretty hard to block the entire internet, though it is done. You’re right about some countries notably Russia and China, creating their own online worlds and blocking foreign ones. You’re right that the mentality of the citizens themselves in those countries is that they are used to oppression. But what you fail to realise is that the mindset in these countries is changing towards the global view over time. Maybe that won’t bring democracy, but I think it will bring an opening of the internet. You are right that autocratic and oligarchic leaders will try all to stay in power, prisoning, killing, torturing, suppressing as they do every day at the moment.

But look even the American internet giants are an autocratic oligarchic system. People who hoard all for themselves, with no regard for the people who they treat as resources to be mined. So is that fair? Does that represent people of the world? Is that democratic? It’s not right to take advantage of people, especially when there is an open alternative. That is why we are here, to change the system to make the system even more open and less manipulative. We will win. But if we lose, we can hope that free people everywhere will still have the power to disconnect.

I like a lot of points made in these posts, @geo and @Free. Some valid points there. But what I would like us to try doing, going forward, is leaving the very specific (geo)politics, nation-naming and race discussion out of the picture and focus instead on the general trends and threats that exist to the global internet, and where we - as a community - who value freedom of access, freedom of information and expression, inclusivity and diversity can focus on in a solution-oriented manner.

Maybe the posts should be summarized in a bullet point list to find subjects to evaluate more deeply.

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Yes no need for such a heated discussion that touches on too many points at once. Certainly politics should be off-limits, except for discussion of economic models, tech policies and programs, the tech industry and so on.

I think mentioning the countries that run most of tech isn’t too bad, as long as it’s a fair and balanced approach. Mentioning the nationalities, ethnicities and male gender of the current billionaire masters of the internet is to make a point that we are missing diversity and that currently people from just a few countries / ethnicities hold the power. It just can’t be ignored because people should know what has “worked” to create the current global system that we are now trying to improve.

We need to copy the success of these groups and their ways of working together but do things in a very different ethical way! Sorry the rest of the word, but the excitement is happening in those places as much as I would like it to be more balanced. Recreating Silicon Valleys in other countries has failed. So if we want to have the best chance of making a difference there must be something effective about the environment in these places, the way these people work that makes them succeed, and we should learn from them, work with them and join them in building the new humane tech world.

Hmm, it may be that those places are just the ones where modern capitalism works best, and people are prepared to bend the rules, and occasionally cross them if they can get away with that, leaving morals and ethics behind (as you indicated) in pursuit of wealth and power: the shallow definition of success in a capitalistic world.

PS. If I have time and don’t forget I’ll create that bullet list…

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Yes but there is more than that. China and the US are also the largest two countries, that all speak the same language and also have the largest supply of very well trained tech engineers, something that just does not exist in other places. They are also the two largest consumer markets, as well as the two largest markets for source of investment. Both China and the US are the world’s powerhouses in electronics manufacturing, both making the highest quality tech hardware in the world. Not to mention leading the world in software and online services.

My experience is that people in all parts of the world, no matter the country, race, religion all have about the same ethics. It’s just a matter of certain people working together for their own good, taking advantage of their special knowledge, money or power at times. It doesn’t mean these people are evil. It’s just the situation they are in, they are doing what they can in their privileged environments. I know this is a difficult thing for people to understand, to say that people from the rich world have no worse ethics than the poor people of the world, but in all my experience I can only say that there is bad and good everywhere and it’s just the situation that makes the difference.

The US has the world’s best universities, an incredible ease of getting things done, and people generally being diverse and accepting of foreigners especially compared to Eurasian and African countries. The US even elected a half African President, and if it weren’t for Russian meddling on Facebook would have a woman president now. The US is now almost a fiscal haven, meaning investors can get more of their money back in an ethical B corporation. The country also uses the world’s lingua franca, English. Yes there are also huge problems like violence, inequality, no health care, racism, but you know there is no perfect place. Canada if you don’t like some of those things and don’t mind being frozen.

What does all the concentration of wealth and knowledge in the US mean? It means some people have the luxury of working towards ethical solutions for the future. Where people in other rich countries are currently rioting because they can’t afford a 3 cents per litre increase in petrol costs and can no longer compete in the unavoidable global system.

It probably means that sorry for the rising tech scenes in France, Germany, South Africa and Japan but the US has all these things under one roof and is well ahead. Yes salaries are too high in the US so the best places to have workers with the highest standards of living for their salaries are maybe Eastern Europe or South America.

Places like Western Europe and Japan are bubbling with historical knowledge and power. The knowledge, culture and low inequality are amazing. But how do these places compete globally when the world has long ago passed them by and they are being crushed by debt, old age and being culturally closed?

Also most of the excitement these days is happening in Asia, where 2/3 of the world lives.

That is why I say that the Internet instead of the global will become local and divided among the Allied countries. and it is absolutely normal because the interests of the USA and China are different as well as the interests of the USA and Russia. Already now the Americans and their allies are no longer buying equipment for the from the Chinese, and they do it absolutely right.
Russia, China and other countries will not stop trying to influence the minds of citizens of other countries via the Internet.

Let me disagree with you, among young people; on the contrary, there is a greater number of globalists and people who are loyal to other races and nationality.
this statement is not taken from the air this is the statistics of the last elections in different countries. among the young those who go to the polls a greater percentage votes for globalism.
it is difficult for people at the age to accept globalism. people let’s say those born in America 50 years ago lived in almost another country with very different moral principles and it’s hard for them to change.

Unfortunately, the time when politics and the Internet lived a separate life is over now politics will greatly influence the Internet, what is happening now is just the beginning. Unfortunately you will not be able to influence the internet without affecting the politic

Sure, but I am not suggesting leaving politics out of the discussion, but only leaving very specific (geo)politics out of the picture. Naming people and events, going into details. We are about removing the harms of technology and have it work for people, not fixing political wrongdoing by individuals.

So subversive political influencing is definitely on topic, but which secret service is behind it, is not. We can address the harm by raising awareness on the phenomenon and finding solutions to recognize when something is wrong, and so one can take appropriate action. We can also suggest the regulations that need to be in place to avoid the harm altogether.

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You wouldbe surprised. Older people can actually change their thinking and habits just as easily as 20 year olds, if they want to. I think we’re off topic with this discussion. Globalism is related to tech however. I think you have a valid point with saying that the average person who is at least 50 to 80 plus in the US they had on average different mentalities, especially the people who would be 100 today.

But the 30-50 group we were not much different than young people today, multiracial, globalist. The big difference is that young people today had the internet at a younger age, so were able to see more of the world and various viewpoints. However the 30-50 generation were more punk, drugs and radical than the current one on average. The US hippie generation is now in their 70s by the way. You have to factor in that people change as they become older, they become more right wing on average. Imagine what these people were like when they were your age and how they would have responded to the same surveys.

But the main thing is these are just averages. Stereotyping peoole by age can be seen as steretyping people by gender, caste, skin tone, tribal affiliation or so on. Maybe the historical real person Jesus and Pontius Pilate were from the same generation, but I’m guessing they thought differently from one another.

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“61 percent of males aged 18 to 24 years voted for the UK to remain within the EU, whereas an equal 61 percent of males in the 50 to 64 age brackets voted in favor of a “Brexit”. The peak share came from women between the ages of 18 and 24, 80percent of whom voted for ‘Remain’…”
And last US election similar numbers.

Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchoncame very close to claiming third place in France’s nail-biting ballot. Buoyed by massive support from first-time voters, he finished the night with 19.6 percent of the total count, only slightly behind mainstream conservative François Fillon.

Almost one-third (27 to 30 percent) of all French constituents 24 years of age and younger cast a ballot for Mélenchon, according to exit polls. Furthermore, around 27 percent of French voters aged between 18 and 34 years backed the Communist-allied presidential candidate.

“Jean-Luc Mélenchon really succeeded in capturing that youngest segment of the voting population,” Christelle Craplet, director of opinion polls for the French firm BVA, confirmed.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who finished Sunday’s first-round ballot in second place and thus moved into France’s May 7 presidential runoff against centrist Emmanuel Macron, also proved popular among young voters this year.

The anti-immigrant, anti-EU candidate garnered 21 percent support from voters aged 18 to 24, and an even more impressive 24 percent among voters aged 25 to 34. Together, Mélenchon and Le Pen, conquered half of all votes cast by young people on Sunday.

It’s not stereotype it’s just pure statistic

I should probably let this thread rest- but I’d like to spin a positive experience of hope right here on this forum.

There are several 20 somethings here who have made a tremendous impact through their experience of losing their childhood to the smartphone. Every month another speaks out on how they know there is something not quite right about their social development by having used social media to connect with peers growing up.

The raw and brave posts of these 20 somethings must be celebrated because I believe they have the keys to dig us out of this mess.

20 somethings maybe trying to wean themselves off social media and some don’t know yet- but they are emerging with passion and a quest for answers. I see a lot of hope in this age group.

I believe this is still on topic because we need to protect all groups here and create a humane forum for exploration of our experience.

Yes but I contest your view based on my own experience. You have to realise that the previous generation also had the same kinds of ideals. If anything we are disappointed by the progress that has been made regarding equality and progress in the US. The reason I’m being so insistent is that what you are saying does not match was I have seen in my life, and I imagine you were not even alive yet much of this time so how can you know what it was like? Most of the people I knew in the US even decades ago years ago were of some ethnic background outside of the US. This high level of diversity was true of most large metro areas in the US long ago.

There is an ongoing major demographic shift in the US between generations, with fewer and fewer “non-Hispanic whites” as a proportion of the US population. This is most likely the cause of the smallish statistical change that you see between these two generations.

It’s hard to describe the way the world was before, because people and the media always rewrite history “revisionist history” and statistics can be used to show anything if misused the way they usually are.

You have to understand that when we were in your age group 20 years ago we also thought the same way. We were also open to globalisation. Maybe your age group the statistic is 2 percent higher than for people 30-50, but you have to realise that’s not very much and is probably just due to demographic changes over the last 20 years.

Think about who has voted in the last US election. Statistically very few people under 30 vote. So the new breed of diverse US Congress, they must have been elected by much older people.

I fully support your vision for globalism, empowered by technology. But please understand what that means, that means the population of rich countries of the world such as Northern American and Western Europe will be forced to compete ever more with more deserving emerging markets. This is fair. We must understand that the rich countries have had more than their fair share of money. The inevitable globalisation will mean hard times for many of these places (especially Western Europe and Japan) even as the world on average sees tremendous improvement due to developing countries. But if you are living in a rich country that means the middle and lower class there will continue to be very hard hit, until they are able to compete on a global level. But again it is only fair, because the more deserving people in developing countries are getting those jobs, and able to live in their lower-cost countries with higher standards and grow their families etc.

The internet has empowered many people to be able to be digital nomads, but this is a just the beginning of global mobility which will become more and more commonplace. Many typically Western Europeans wrongly see this as a kind of neo-colonialism but they do not understand that most other countries welcome foreign visitors and workers, especially as they being globalisation, new ideas and much needed money in places where there are often much less opportunity than in rich countries.

There is a case of a world without borders which I fully support, to the horror of both the European right and left. The world without borders would see a doubling of the world’s economy as people from poorer countries flood richer ones. The people of rich countries would fairly be negatively affected as they would be fairly made to compete instead of maintaining their unfair advantage by citizenship.

The internet is often run by libertarians who have a very damaging and negative capitalism take all and no rules view of the world. This is an extremist view and is actually the opposite of what I propose because their model involves building of oligarchies and concentration of wealth in a few people. Rather we need a global system when companies can not escape to some fiscal paradise, along with the system where every human has the same opportunity to live and work anywhere. Right now that opportunity to go anywhere is just via the internet, but with time I hope the walls will collapse the way the Berlin Wall came down.

The ‘splinternet’: How China and the US could divide the internet for the rest of the world

The future could see Chinese and American apps and services dominate half of the internet each, leading to a split internet, according to Kaifu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures.
Commentators have dubbed this the “splinternet.”
Lee also said that China could be ahead of the U.S. in artificial intelligence in five years.

(source: Arjun Kharpal | @ArjunKharpal)

It’s not like US companies all work together, and Chinese companies all work together. Rather it’s many companies from all over, including other countries who compete against each other. Many companies in the same country are rivals. Some deals run between countries, for example some Indian tech firms get investment and cooperation with both the US and Chinese companies at the same time. I guess we’ll see US and Chinese firms cooperating even more in the future. For example Foxconn-Apple is just one of many Chinese US marriages.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-tech-could-face-new-hurdles-as-europe-considers-digital-sovereignty.html

Europe’s dream to claim its ‘digital sovereignty’ could be the next big challenge for US tech giants
Published Wed, Nov 20 20191:14 AM EST

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/obama-dreamforce-speech-touches-on-polarization-inequality.html

Obama: ‘People don’t know what’s true’ with YouTube and social media