I’m starting to wonder what the real benefit even is anymore. Between the technofeudal landscape we live in, where billionaires own the means of communication, data is constantly mined for profit, and surveillance is baked into every layer, it feels like I’m standing at the beach, using my bare hands to push back an endless tide.
Even when I take the so‑called “liberated” path through Linux, self‑hosting, and privacy tools, it often feels futile. The web itself is poisoned. Browsers are turning into tracking engines. Sites rely on manipulation and dark patterns. Social media is full of misinformation and ragebait.
Even open-source projects are being pulled under corporate influence (ex: Firefox adoption of AI).
It feels exhausting to route around a web that’s already been captured.
So I’m asking myself: what’s the point? Why not just step away?
Why not trade the illusion of digital control for actual peace, get a dumb phone, a CD player, and check out books, movies, music, and games from the library as my entertainment?
Does anyone else feel this way? Have you found ways to reconnect with technology?
I agree, I think people romanticize it and think of it like gardening. It can be relaxing, therapeutic even, to do some home gardening. Actually becoming a farmer sucks. It’s why a lot of its done by immigrants who don’t have many better options.
Besides, that’s tech now too and it’s also been enshittified. Look at John Deere.
Yeah, I mean, that’s the only part of farming that actually seems interesting to me. It’s not that it makes me want to do it, but I’m curious about tractors using GPS to sow seeds then plow a field. But, John Deere tractors seem even more enshittified than most tech right now.
But, that also emphasizes your other point. To make farming less labour intensive and require less expertise, you can now buy really expensive farming equipment with the latest tech that makes certain aspects of farming easier. But, that equipment is extremely expensive.
Farm work used to be done by slaves. In the US, once slaves were freed, many continued to be farmers because that’s all they knew how to do, and it wasn’t a job that anybody else wanted to do. Now farming has diverged in 2 directions, on one end there’s the (white) farm owner, or upper tier farm worker who owns million-dollar pieces of equipment with all kinds of modern tech. On the other end there are farm workers, who are often illegal immigrants, or at least immigrants on very restricted visas who work the toughest jobs for almost no money. And, both jobs suck.
The suck of the farm worker’s job is obvious. Back breaking labour in terrible weather for almost no pay. It’s a job that nobody with any options would choose to do.
The farm owner’s job sucks too. You’re at the mercy of the weather, and that weather is only getting more unpredictable as the climate changes. You have to invest in extremely expensive equipment just to have a chance, so you might have millions of dollars in assets (harvesters, livestock, land) but your average cashflow is only in the low 6 figures, and in bad years it can be negative. You don’t own your own seeds, you “own” your tractor, but need John Deere’s approval for your own repairs, and you’re kind-of tied to the land.
Not to mention a true farming life is brutal. Those 4am wakeup calls aren’t optional, if you’re truly living off it. Tractor breaks down? Cow’s sick? Want lunch?
You fix it, you kill it, you make it.
Because the non-industrial scale profit margins on farming suck. So you don’t have the money to pay someone for many of the luxuries city folks enjoy. Do it for a year, and you either learn to love the struggle or you quit.
There are some amazing parts of farming. And the life can be incredible. But farmers are ridiculously tough for a reason.