Good Is Out, Evil Is in ♞

The only way to be good today is to operate under the surface of the current media, on your own infrastructure, articulating what “good” is for your community. The doom of pervasive evil is not outdone by hope, but by the curiosity and boldness to do something on your own terms.

the question of what’s good and evil isn’t a moral one anymore, nor a public discourse. It’s a question of power and what team you're on.

It’s not just a vibe shift. Being “good” simply doesn't cut through the noise as once it did in today’s media.

At the same time the mechanisms, media, and institutions that previously were charged with creating some kind of consensus amongst society began dissolving.

What is happening now in the US (the soft power of Silicon Valley teaming up with the hard power of President Trump) does not herald a new world order on its own. It’s the West following suit into a new fragmented world order that the rest of the world has already been moving towards years before by architecting its infrastructure around cultural a

Going dark is one strategy of the savvy and privileged.

It all started with the advent of social media in 2004: once audiences had the ability to comment, post their own content, and form their own communities online, the pressure on both brands and governments to be more inclusive rose.

But as the dream of inevitable progress by doing good failed to materialize in most of the world, the political tenor has decidedly shifted away from the 20th century heydays of liberalism, inclusive globalism, and cosmopolitan network culture toward a balkanization of the political and cultural map.

The censorship and state control of media the West once alarmingly criticized China and other countries for, is now strikingly similar to their own strategy but with different values - China’s internet being more Orwellian and the West’s being more Huxleyian.