The Dark Forest and the Post-Individual

The longer I work in networked spaces, the more convinced I become that increasingly inescapable and seemingly innocuous forms of context collapse in our media and social internet systems secretly explain a shockingly large proportion of every weirding, every derangement, and every rollercoaster terror/joy of the systems we live in online. So no su... See more

Looking back five years after the initial Dark Forest essay and pangs of concern, what most stands out is something that those of us who are drawn to Dark Forests have felt longer than most: that the internet is real life. What we do “in here” matters just as much as — and for some of us, problematically, even more than — what happens “out there.”

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This also isn't everyone's experience. It's most true for Very Online people who have allowed their self-identity and sense of self-worth to be tied up in these spaces. This is much less true for people whose lives are rooted in real-world communities. The state of the post-individual is not a default all experience the same way. It's a condition o... See more