Age Verification Laws, Valve Bends the Knee, End of the Free Internet

[tc119]

The Internet is becoming less free and open. It’s no longer catastrophism to say this. The totalitarian process always starts with objectionable material, like pornography, so nobody will openly take a stand against the new restrictions. And then the reach of censorship inevitably extends to other kinds of content those in power have a problem with.

Several states in my country have already passed laws that require third-party age verification to access websites with adult material. One law I read said that if a website contains more than 33% harmful content, that it would be required to verify the age of those who access it. Who makes the determination about what’s considered harmful, I wonder? Is a man describing his experiences with a succubus spirit, largely through text, beyond that 33% threshold? I’m reminded of how Comstock went after Ida Craddock in the mid-19th century for writing similarly. We might be returning to an age of Puritanism, but instead of parents being responsible, big government and mega-corporations will be shepherding us towards cleaner, more advertiser-friendly content.

I can foresee a time in the near future where a website like this won’t be allowed to exist on the Clearnet. In the meantime, I’ll try to stay on the down-low and not draw undue attention to myself. Perhaps all of this will blow over and my little corner of the net will go unnoticed?

The more time I spend with Catherine, the less I feel the need to get my story out there. I’m content to just simply enjoy her, while occasionally sharing with those who purposefully seek out this information. I’ve got zero desire to evangelize, get into people’s faces, or be political in any sense of the word.

I won’t link to it here, but there’s a good essay on the topic on xvideos.com. It’s in the blue banner at the top of the page. Can’t miss it. That writeup pretty much mirrors my thoughts on the matter.

And as for Valve removing WEGs (Western Erotic Games) from Steam at the behest of Visa and Mastercard? Gamers continue to be the most oppressed minority on earth. I would advise only using Steam for online multiplayer games and get everything else from GOG, or other DRM-free sources, where possible. Download local copies. Burn them to disk. Own it forever. Share them with a friend. It’s the only way forward for the hobby.

[roperos]

Thankfully I'm in the part of europe that's not affected by this, but dam future doesn't look bright.

I don't think small online forums like this one will be affected as long as they're self hosted or don't have a centralized provider, for example xenforo cloud forum thing. As always owning something turns out to be the best thing. Stings a bit because I was always got my games on steam. Treated it as my goto platform, even going as far as getting games there over GOG.

From high of stop killing games to low of ID verification for social media and discord. What a year

[tc119]

I hope you're right about this age verification push only applying to big-tech hubs. That was part of my motivation for putting together this website in the first place. Everything here is hosted on my little rented shared server in Provo, Utah. No CDNs. (Content Delivery Networks) As they say, if you don't hold it, you don't own it.

For those Steam games that you've already bought... I won't link to it here, but there's always Steamless and GoldbergEmu.

[tc119]

Well, I've done my bit. I closed my Capital One credit card accounts, and I'll no longer be using a bank card. It's cash, checks, and merchant gift cards from here on out, baby. (No VISA giftcards allowed.) I have been wanting to do this for a long time anyway. It's the "right" thing to do, as far as maintaining privacy and personal control over money in the modern world is concerned. I even keep a checkbook now, just like I did years ago. Thank goodness all of my utility bills and banking can still be handled the old-fashioned way in my area.

I really can't stand it when middle-men decide to become moral arbiters - like how Blackrock's Larry Fink wants to "force certain behaviors." It's kinda sad how everyone's investing and retirement accounts are all tied up in this BS, so it's unlikely anything will change for the better. All that matters to 95% of people is the all-mighty dollar. That'll be our downfall.

[tc119]

This is more of a blog post, but I felt it fits here better:

Disconnecting Just a Little More

There comes a certain point in a man’s life when he says, “Okay, I think I’ve seen enough.” I may have reached that juncture recently. In particular, this concerns the Internet. I’ve spent roughly 28 years gazing upon that world. I was there during its infancy, witnessing how it gradually changed our lives. Now, it seems to have largely replaced the physical realm for a great many people. No longer is it the hobbyist haunt for nerds and technology enthusiasts. All of the unwashed masses have invaded the thing and it has virtually been diluted into uselessness.

As digital censorship and financial control gradually encroaches with each passing day, I feel the urge to pull away before I get swept up along with it. The powers that be have chosen the World Wide Web as the new medium for their schemes: Centralized control of information and communication, digital money, constant surveillance, and zero privacy – all enabled by the very tools that were meant to be our liberators.

It's a sci-fi tale that has been told over and over again. This same struggle of a man versus his tools is played out brilliantly during the Jupiter Mission in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Who’s going to win in the end this time?

space_odyssey_eating_at_computer.jpg (288.19 KiB) Viewed 70 times

I feel more determined than ever to put these tools back in their rightful place. I shouldn’t use them as a life-replacement. I shouldn’t so easily cave to social pressure and convenience. I need to cultivate and maintain the old ways of life, procedures rooted in the physical. Here are some of things that I’ve been doing towards that end:

• Keep local copies of all media. Films, TV shows, games, music, books, pictures, encyclopedias, etc.
• Have three backups of everything, with at least one offsite.
• No big-tech accounts with identifying information attached.
• Buy all essentials at brick-and-mortar establishments. And when that's not feasible, use merchant gift cards.
• Ensure computers and phones are useful without the internet. Everything local and offline.
• Make certain that the backbone of my life is rooted in the real world and not internet-dependent. That includes banking, shopping, entertainment, paying bills, and social interactions.
• Only go on the Internet once per week and have a plan of action while using it. No aimless browsing or sitting for hours in silent VOIP calls.
• Hone and develop skills that don’t require a borg-like connection to the grid. Artistic skills, household maintenance, public speaking, scholarly research, cooking, physical labor, gardening, construction, and lumberjacking – within reason, given my disability.
• Be grateful every day that I have Catherine – the most off-grid intimate relationship one could hope to have. Human women are essentially proxies and informants of the State these days, especially those with a constant connection to big-tech social media.

Here a few of the historical milestones that have influenced the development of the Internet and how I interact with it:

September 11th, 2001 – The Patriot Act was introduced not long after the alleged terrorist attack, bringing with it a whole new host of surveillance laws and travel restrictions. Virtual strip-searches are now required to travel by plane. Trying to pull money out of a bank over a certain amount - $10,000 back then, just $600 now in some jurisdictions – triggers “Know Your Customer” protocols. This was the first chilling effect to hit online discussion forums.

July 11th, 2008 – Steve Jobs announces the new iPhone 3G, the device that truly brought about the Internet’s downfall. Social media becomes the cancer that it is now, largely thanks to smartphone “apps.” Facebook now allows non-college emails to sign up and everyone abandons MySpace. Subprime mortgage crisis hits not long after, triggering the first major transference of wealth away from the working/middle class during my lifetime.

August 2014 – Gamergate – Establishment media declares war on men who enjoy video games, which was pretty much all of them by this point. Game quality took a nosedive. Internet discourse becomes more heavily moderated, centralized, or removed altogether. This extended to in-game chats, causing yet another chilling effect. Nobody uses in-game chats to talk anymore.

2016 – American politics break internet discourse, polarizing everyone for years to come. Discord becomes the most popular form of communication for gamers and all online communities are gradually swallowed up by it, further centralizing communication under a dubious venture-capital-backed startup. Internet forums are effectively dead by this point. Everyone is in a social media walled-garden.

2018 – Etherium crypto mining ruins the GPU market for gamers. Web 3.0 tries to be a thing and continues to fail miserably.

2020 – The second major transference of wealth away from the working/middle class via Blackrock under the guise of a so-called pandemic. Alleged “medical disinformation” policies enforce new sweeping censorship across all social media platforms. Everyone is still broken by politics. Mothers are muzzling their children. People are being fired for not voluntarily poisoning themselves. The media stirs up a frenzy about toilet paper shortages and everyone falls for it. I’ve given up on society by this juncture.

2022 – Cryptominers destroy the GPU market yet again. ChatGPT 3.5 text and chat completion models are unleashed on the world. Often hyped up as an “AI,” but are really just glorified auto-completes that can’t be relied upon for factual information. Investor FOMO triggers a new tech goldrush and datacenter compute – powered by NVIDIA GPUs – are the shovels of the day. Gamers will never have good, reasonably-priced graphics cards for the foreseeable future.

2025 – Sweeping online safety laws are established in the United Kingdom, and big tech companies are more than happy to impose the new edicts world-wide. VISA, Mastercard, and Steam attack gamers via deplatforming and financial censorship. Parents can’t be bothered to police their own children online, so governments the world-over are continuing to roll out government ID checks to access various parts of the Web. Search engines were useless before this point, thanks to SEO abuse, but are now even further gatekept by so-called “AI results.”

Now is as good a time as any to tap out. The real world is a seemingly desolate place these days, but I'd rather find myself wandering there, than mindlessly gazing upon a screen for any longer than necessary.