October 17, 2025 • 67 mins
How much human interaction takes place online? Is social Media actually Social? Are our emotions being manipulated by Bots? Tune in to explore this fascinating theory in order to answer these questions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M You're here because you know something. What you know
you can't explain, but you feel it. You felt it
your entire life. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The matrix? I had dreams that weren't just dreams.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Billions of people just living out their lives.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oblivious, they talks. You're good, Hey, do you believe their world?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You can deny all the things I've seen, all the
things I've discovered, not for once long because too many
others know what's happening, and and no one, no government agency,
has jurisdiction over the truth alone.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Wilcome to beyond the paradigm. I'm your host, Paul Brakel.
It is a pleasure to be back after a gap. Yes,
my regular listeners will have noticed that I didn't record
an episode last week, and as explained in the reloaded
episode that I uploaded yesterday, this was down to fatigue.
(01:29):
So when you're doing a podcast, if you're doing it
on your own, obviously you're doing everything yourself editing, you're recording,
you're researching, you're trying to get older guests emailing back
and forth and there's all kinds of things can go wrong.
So last week I was just feeling mentally fatigued. I
didn't want to do any research. I hadn't got a
(01:51):
guest book, and that's why there was no episode at all.
And a lot of podcasts go under. In fact, I
think the average podcast only last fourteen episodes, so obviously
you can see I've lasted a lot longer than that.
But I've had podcasts that I've listened to in the
past and then all of a sudden, there's just no
more episodes. They don't tell you that they go in,
(02:12):
they don't explain that this is the last episode. There's
just a last episode, and you don't know it's the
last episode, but you only realize it when six, twelve,
eighteen months down the line there's still no more episodes
and just one to further explain to my regular listeners
who have put in the time and have been coming
(02:33):
back week after week, what stage the podcast is at now.
So due to my own personal circumstances, it because I'm
a working man.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
As I've told everybody previously, the.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Times that I can record have now changed, which is
now making it more difficult for me living in the
UK to record with guests who live in other countries,
and the majority of my guests are from North America.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I have had some.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
UK based and I've interviewed people over in Asia and
other countries as well, but particularly a lot of them
are from the United States and from Canada. And due
to my times that I can record with the time differences,
it's making it extremely difficult. Now. I have had guest
booked in the past and it's ended up falling through
(03:22):
because there's been cross wires regarding you know, tim ins
or whatever. And this has just happened. So the episode
that should have been coming out today should have been
an interview which I had scheduled yesterday with a guest.
Now there was some error on my side regarding an email,
but also then when this person got back to me,
(03:43):
they sort of said to me, well, the time of
ten am their time, so it would have been three
pm my time, ten am their time was actually a
little bit early for them, but we'd agreed this particular time. Anyway,
the long story showed the inter hasn't gone ahead, and
that's why I'm doing this monologue rather than just leaving
(04:06):
it again another week and not doing anything. So at
the moment now, guys, I am looking for guests who
have not had on here before. I've looked at the
guest list that have had previously. Some of those guests
I do want to get back on whether I can
due to the time differences that remains to be seen.
I have sent out a couple of emails to some guests.
(04:28):
One guest who's not been on here previously but has
said to me they're booked up for the next sixteen weeks,
which makes it extremely difficult for me because I really
can't schedule that far in advance. So with regards to
that particular guest, I don't know. And it is a
guest that people have suggested for me to get on.
(04:48):
Hopefully we can do it, but I'm not certain whether
we will be able to or not. And I've also
got contact with a publishing company in the United States
in New York who's got a few different O authors
who they're wanted me to interview. They've sent me books
and everything, but I've got to get through the books
to be able to know how to form an interview
(05:09):
with the particular author. So this is the stage I'm
Matt with this podcast, I made a bit of a crossroads, really,
But I did have a guest on here previously and
we had a conversation off and he sort of said
to me, listen, don't rely on guests. He doesn't rely
on them, he said, fit them in when you can,
(05:30):
but do monologues, you know, sort of create your own
content with you yourself doing the content, he said, and then
fill in as well with some interviews when you can,
but don't rely on guests. And it is very difficult.
I've had times in the past, guys, where I've had
an interview scheduled and then there's been a technical problem.
(05:51):
So these are the types of problems that podcasters are facing.
And I'm sure you're listen to other podcasts who have
these difficulties as well, and I just wanted to explain
that to my regular listeners. So that's enough regarding, you know,
the situation regarding the podcast. I just want to thank
you all for keep supporting me and welcome any new
(06:12):
listeners to the show. And for those of you that
are new, there is now an extensive back catalog and
you can have a look into that, and I will
release some episodes from earlier on in the podcast that
have not seen, you know, the love really that they
should have got. The topics are interesting, and the one
that I released yesterday, it had only had about one
(06:35):
thousand plays, which is nothing compared to what a lot
of my episodes get so and that's because it was
earlier on. And like I've said before, people often don't
scroll down, they just maybe look on the first page
and listen.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
To some of those episodes.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
So that's the reason why I do the reloaded episodes,
because it just makes it easier for people to find.
So if you are new, there is an extend back catalog,
and I have re released some episodes which will make
it easier for you to find. But I also want
to talk about my YouTube channel and I want to
promote it a little bit. So obviously it's the same
(07:12):
name as this podcast, and some of the interviews that
I have done on this podcast are on there, but
there is other content on there which is specifically for
that channel, and I put it on Rumble as well,
and I'm in the process of getting them all on Odyssey.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And I do some videos.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Sometimes they might be five minutes long, sometimes up to
fifteen minutes, but there anywhere between five and fifteen minutes
on different topics. So for those of you who are
my regular listeners who like the content on here, please
can I ask you to support me on YouTube and
subscribe to my channel on there as well, and it
would be very much appreciated. And for those of you
(07:50):
that don't follow me on Instagram, I am active on
there and I do have messages from people on there
and I do respond when I can, so please go
on there and follow me on Instagram, and I'm going
to leave all the links in the show notes. And
for anyone that does want to support the show, the
first thing to do is follow the show and then
(08:12):
rate the show. And like I've said before, in terms
of actual people following the show, it's about six times
as many that follow it than have actually rated. It's
probably more than that, but I'm just looking at the
numbers on Spotify, but obviously it's available on Apple and
all podcast platforms out there, so I'm just going off
(08:34):
to Spotify. It's about six times the number of people
follow it then have actually rated it. So if you
haven't rated it, guys, if you think I've earned it,
please give me a five star rating as this is
an information war and it helps with the algorithms to
push this content and make it more visible. And the
second way you can support the show, and a lot
(08:56):
of people have decided to do this in various ways,
whether it be a one off donation on buying me
a coffee or on Patreon, and you can become a
patron of the show. And it's in US dollars. It's
just one dollar a month and it helps with the
costs and caurred and there are monthly running costs that
recur every single month in order to be able to
(09:18):
do research, you know, write scripts, produce the podcast. But
the number one cost is actually time, which I've said before,
which is something we can never get back. And that's
basically what happened last week. I was mentally fatigued, didn't
have the time, and I wasn't able to produce an episode.
I probably could have knocked up an episode, but it
(09:40):
would have been a very very short episode and probably
not worthwhile. So it was better off just not doing
anything and having a little rest. So thank you to
everyone that does support me and you come.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Back week after week.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
It really is appreciated, and I do get some messages
of encouragement, So God bless you for those messages of encouragement.
Well that's enough for me now regarding all this housekeeping.
So let's get into this actual episode. And it is
an interesting topic, this one, and you may have heard
of it, you may not have done. It's not something
(10:14):
I'm overly familiar with, and it's something I've only heard
about recently, and that is the dead Internet theory. So
today we start with what could be termed sort of
a haunting question, Really, what if the Internet, this vast,
seemingly infinite network of voices, opinions, and ideas, isn't as
(10:39):
alive as it actually seems? What if most of it
is actually fake? Not in the clickbit headline sense, but
literally fake people, fake post, fake arguments, fake everything. Now,
this theory goes that between somewhere between the years of
(11:00):
twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen, the real human driven Internet
began to fade and it was replaced by bots, algorithms,
and AI generated content. And obviously it's the concept called
the dead Internet theory, and it's both a conspiracy theory
(11:21):
and a mirror reflecting our growing unease with a web
that feels uncanny. Now maybe you've felt it too, that
you're sort of scrolling through social media and it doesn't
feel social, and that the conversations feel recycled and faces
familiar but sort of hollow. And maybe you've noticed that
(11:45):
the Internet used to surprise you, but now it mostly
just repeats itself. Well, we're going to explore how this
theory began and why it resonates with so many people,
and whether there's actually truth hidden inside the paranoia will
meet the myth, the evidence, and the counter arguments, and
(12:07):
along the way we'll ask a deeper question. If the
Internet did die, what killed it? So the birth of
the theory. The story starts not in Silicon Valley or
in a tech lab, but in the quiet corner of
the Internet, a place called a Goora Roads Macintosh cafe.
(12:29):
It's an old style forum, text heavy, retro themed, a
digital refuge for people's nostalgic for the early days of
the web. So in January twenty twenty one, a user
called Illuminata Pirate posted a long manifesto titled the Dead
(12:50):
Internet Theory, and the posts described a web where most
of the users and most of the content weren't REALI,
the author claimed, is simulating everything we see. Most people
you meet online don't actually exist. Now, this theory caught
on and it spread quietly through Reddit threads, YouTube comments sections,
(13:15):
and eventually onto TikTok and Twitter. But its routs actually
go deeper to a decade of subtle shifts in how
the Internet actually works. So in the early two thousands,
the web was handmade, GeoCities, MySpace, early blogs, you could
(13:35):
sort of feel the human fingerprints on the web. By
twenty ten, social media platforms had centralized it. The same templates,
the same feeds, the same algorithms. Then came the box.
In twenty thirteen, research is estimated that about twenty percent
(13:56):
of Twitter accounts were automated, and by twenty seventeen, some
studies put that number above fifty percent. Bots liked, bots commented,
and bots shared. They didn't just sell products or spread spam.
They actually shaped trends, boosted movements, and created noise. And
(14:21):
they definitely do create noise. And sometimes when I go
on Twitter, which is very rare now because I just
think it's pointless and it is full of these bots.
If you go on my news feed, there is so
much Roman Catholic propaganda on there, and I get the
impression that probably all of those accounts are not real people.
(14:43):
So there is this noise being created by these bots.
And combine that with the rise of these content forms,
massive operations cranking out articles optimized for Google Search, and
suddenly much of the Web's surface was being written by
machines for machines. And to the average user, the shift
(15:07):
was invisible but perceptible. Something in the texture of the Internet. Changed, posts,
felt eerily similar, comments, sections, repeated phrases, Discussions on different
platforms used the same metaphors. It wasn't just dejar vus,
(15:28):
it was actually a pattern. And that pattern, that creeping sameness,
is where the dead Internet theory was born.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Supporters of the theory point to a handful of key
phenomena as evidence that the Internet has been quietly taken
over by artificial intelligence now. First is the explosion of
bots and fake engagement on Twitter, or as it's known
now X. Both networks can amplify topics until they seem
(15:59):
like organic viral moments. A handful of scripts can create
millions of impressions, retweets, and comments, shaping what appears to
be public opinion. In twenty sixteen, during the US election,
we learned that thousands of fake accounts, many run from
(16:21):
these click forms or AI assisted systems, were spreading misinformation
on an industrial scale. And now today these techniques are
actually just routine. Even harmless topics such as a new
Marvel trailer or a viral dance challenge a celebrity breakup
are surrounded by automated commentary. What looks like a conversation
(16:48):
among millions may in fact be a handful of scripts
just talking to each other.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Now some more evidence.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
The second thing is the rise of aienerated content. So
text based generating systems have existed for years, but the
explosion of generative AI around twenty twenty two and twenty
twenty three accelerated it. Entire new websites produce review pages
(17:18):
and social media profiles which are now run by AI.
Some companies published thousands of articles a day and none
are written by human beings. Add to that the AI voices,
AI faces, AI stock video, and you can create influencers
who have never actually existed, complete with followers, comments, and
(17:42):
sponsorship deals. And thirdly does the erosion of organic human engagement.
Many people have noticed that when they post online, the
feedback fuels sort of muted. Maybe you've posted like a
Phoe tour or a thought that once would have sparked
a conversation, and now it just vanishes into the void.
(18:06):
So you start to wonder, did anyone actually even ever
see this? Algorithms throttle reach, They prioritize certain kinds of
content and bury others, which is something I'm experiencing on YouTube.
I've had videos previously that have had over one hundred
thousand views, and that was an interview with a guest
(18:27):
that's been on here before, Gary Wayne, and then just
recently over the last few months, even including a couple
of interviews I did with Gary Wayne, they've been under
five thousand views. So something's going on. When I've got
ones that are twenty five thirty forty fifty hundred thousand,
and all of a sudden there's a drop, seems as this,
(18:49):
you know, these algorithms are sort of strangling my content.
So the social web now rewards predictability and not you humanity.
So from the outside it feels like talking to a
crowd that doesn't respond. And for believers in the dead
Internet theory, that silence isn't just metaphorical, it's actually literal,
(19:12):
they say, you're not talking to any real people at all,
none at all. That's what the theory says. So the
signs that this dead Internet theory could be true is
actually the immense bot traffic. And then you've got content
generation tools. Examples of that are obviously chat, GPT, mid journey,
voice cloning, and then you've got big tech consolidation. It's
(19:37):
a lot easier to manipulate people on a small set
of online services than over a wide ecosystem of independent
online sites and communities. So by herding the public onto
only a few services, coordination also becomes much easier. So
examples or people only use a small set of apps,
(19:58):
people can't name more than probably around ten websites, and
people use search engines as a substitute for bookmarks or
the address bar. And obviously searching, you know, is controlled
in the way that when you search for something, something
(20:18):
that appears on the first page that's been selected, and
it's selected for a region a reason, and then you've
got reach control. So with the control over major platforms,
it's possible to counter breakthrough narratives before the gain momentum.
And not only is this capability a highly profitable commodity.
(20:38):
It is also a highly effective mass mind control weapon.
Screens are always going to be finite, and so people's
attention and lifespan. There will always be power in having
direct control over prioritizing what others can see, even when
you're not outright gate keeping information. And examples of this
(21:02):
are non chronological horm and explore feeds created trending, Facebook's
virility circuit breaker. Freedom of speech not reach, And that's
a key point, isn't it. They can allow you to
say certain things, but if no one's hearing it, they've
(21:25):
essentially suppressed your freedom of speech, haven't we. So they're
just letting you speak, and basically you're speaking to an
empty room. And then you've got virtualized segregation. And it's
sort of one of the spookier types of claims associated
with the dead Internet theory, and it's that people are
(21:46):
effectively segregated from other human beings and are relegated to
sort of an algorithm get all. And at first glance,
this seems like something that would be impossible to test
far and it would be safe to assume that the
state of the art surveillance and identification tools would be
used to filter users and in addition to these platforms
(22:11):
could directly or indirectly share information with each other to
coordinate the isolation beyond a single platform or medium. So
how it works in practice? So something this game World
of Warcraft. So it's World of Warcraft sharding, and what
(22:32):
it is is when too many players are in an area,
the game automatically creates a new shard, and it's basically
a copy of that area, and players entering the area
will be placed on the new shard. The world appears
identical from the player's perspective, but with minor differences. Players
(22:53):
can only see other players on the same shard.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Each shard has.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Its own set of MP, which is non player characters
and as such, rare NPCs may respawn at different times
on different shords. Each shard has its own set of objectives,
such as herbs and mining nodes. I've never played this game,
but this is the explanation for this particular sort of algorithm.
(23:22):
Get on with this example using is this game World
of Warcraft? And then there's These shords can be any
geographic size, but are usually limited to zones or smaller areas.
The borders of the sharded area are invisible to players,
so by design, players usually do not notice when the
game moves them between shords, but players may notice NPC's
(23:47):
momentarily disappear. And the simplest way to understand sharding is
to think of it as people being split into multiple
parallel dimensions. There are performance reasons to do this, but
there are also other advantages to be gained from keeping
people unable to coordinate. For systems simpler than online games
(24:12):
like social media, sharding doesn't have to be absolute. Potentially,
a system that does segregate people by default could still
make it possible to occasionally interact outside the bubbles to
maintain the illusion of an open platform. There were also
(25:20):
some other examples, like delaying feed updates or excessively rate
limiting access, which is essentially sharding by time rather than groups,
personalization curation for geographical or political circumstances, and Facebook's mood
(25:40):
manipulation experiments were basically Facebook manipulated six hundred and eighty
nine thousand uses emotions basically for like a scientific experiment,
and basically what they did, they've done. They've done a
few things, but the one I'm talking about with is
(26:02):
six hundred and eighty nine thousand people basically what they did.
And it was noted by the New Scientists and Animal
New York that Facebook's data scientists manipulated the news feeds
of these six hundred and eighty nine thousand users and
they removed either all of the positive post or all
(26:22):
of the negative posts to see how it affected their moods. So,
if there was a week in January twenty twelve, if
you can remember back then.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Were you were only seeing four tours of.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Like dead dogs or incredibly cute babies, you may have
been part of the study. And now that the experiment
is public, people's mood about the study itself would be
best described as being disturbed. And then there's also Internet
censorship and shutdowns, and the Internet, even in its current forum,
(26:55):
can't survive the current trend of escalating censorship and demands
for top down control, and left unabated, these forces will
continue to transform the Web into merely another highly advanced
propaganda machine, you know, through things like ISP level d platforming,
And what I mean by that is obviously it's Internet
(27:17):
service provider and ISP level platforming refers to the acts
of removing an individual or entity from an Internet service
provider's network or services due to violations of ISPs policies
or terms of service. This can involve suspension, outright ban
or reduction of content spread on the ISP's platform, and
(27:39):
it's a form of Internet censorship that can have significant
implications for users and businesses. And I've been deplatformed, permanently
banned from TikTok, and I've also suffered censorship. I've had
post removed off Instagram. One had ad over five hundred
thousand views. It was I can't remember the amount of
(28:01):
likes it had had, was it was going into like
one hundred and odd thousand, and they just removed it.
And then I appealed it and I didn't hear anything
at all back. So essentially I've been censored there. They've
left me on the platform. But just recently, some of
my videos haven't been getting the views what they normally get.
(28:22):
And this is sort of this ISP level D platforming.
And obviously, like I said, it can take various form
of suspension outright band but on Instagram, I seem to
be seeing a reduction of my content spreading. Same on YouTube,
so you know, I am being sort of targeted on
these particular platforms, and then you've got sort of human
(28:48):
disengagement avenue. And ironically, as the digital world has encroached
more and more into people's lives, actual participation hasn't kept pace.
Commerce has greatly expanded online at the cost of centralizing
control into a small set of payment providers. As perceived
(29:08):
value of engaging online drops, the easier it becomes for
manipulators to take complete control. And potential examples are like,
none of your contacts participate online regularly, being undated, you know,
with low effort comments. I get some negative comments, you know,
(29:30):
on YouTube, particularly maybe the real.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
People maybe than not.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I don't know, you know, getting to know people online
feels impossible. I can't say I do that. But people
have reported this content and it seems entirely disconnected from
real life events. The tone of online spaces is vastly different,
and there's a complete lack of humor. These are some
(29:55):
of the potential examples, and these are some of the
things that people have re Now, obviously, there is a
counter argument to this dead Internet theory, and it's basically
that the Web hasn't been replaced by AI, but it's
simply been saturated by it. A noisy, automated, over optimized
(30:18):
landscape where real people still exist but they struggle to
stand out. And the deadness we may feel may be
emotional and not.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Literal, but that doesn't sort of.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Make the experience any less real. And there's this feeling
of fakeness. So this feeling behind the theory. It's because
even people who don't believe in its literal truth often
describe something they feel. They say things like the Internet
doesn't feel alive anymore. Everything feels copied. People don't sound human.
(30:54):
Now why are they saying this? Well, one answer lies
in algorithmic homogenization and the way every platform learns what
works and then reproduces it endlessly. So think about YouTube, thumbnails, TikTok, trends,
even the rhythm of tweets. They all start to sound
(31:18):
the same because the system rewards sameness, and sameness feels mechanical. So,
in a sense, the dead Internet theory might be less
about literal death but more about cultural entropy, the flattening
of human creativity under algorithmic pressure. And there's this psychological
(31:42):
loneliness of digital life. When most of your social interactions
happen through screens, it's easy to start doubting whether there
are real people on the other side. And this is
for me seriously unhealthy. You need to be having real
human interactions, guys, not just through computers. Please don't live
(32:09):
your life on social media because it's not social at all.
And then you're adding deep fakes, AI, chatbots and synthetic influencers,
and the line between real and simulated becomes almost philosophical.
So the theory taps into something ancient, the fear of
(32:30):
being surrounded by illusions shadows instead of souls. So maybe
the Internet didn't die. Maybe it's just become a mirror
reflecting back a distorted, automated version of ourselves. So let's
peel back the curtain a little bit more so. The
(32:53):
truth is that automation has re shaped the infrastructure of
the web. This is not just con spiratorial in the
you know, the way the theory suggests. Today, algorithms decide
almost everything we see. Search engines ranked pages based on
(33:16):
engagement and optimization. So that's why I say, you know,
rate the show, because algorithms are basically deciding what we see,
and algorithms will decide whether my content is discovered by
new people. Social media feeds are created by machine learning
models that predict what will hold your attention. So, in
(33:40):
a very literal sense, you actually live in like a
personalized simulation, a web experience design uniquely for you but
built entirely by code. Your version of the Internet is
not actually my version, and it's not anyone else's. And
that fragmentation creates the illusion that were actually alone, that
(34:03):
were wandering through these empty holes of content made for
someone else. The theory that calls it death, but it
might just be like an evolution of the Internet, a
shift from a shared public web to one thousand isolated
private webs. The result feels sterile because the spontaneity of
(34:26):
human discovery has been optimized out. Even when you find
something new, it's not just because you've sort of stumbled
upon it, it's because the algorithm decided you would. So like,
the mystery is gone now, and it's the mystery that
what was made, you know, making the Internet feel alive,
(34:46):
and that's gone now. So we need to be clear
on this. There's no actual verifiable evidence that the Internet
was simply replaced by AI, or that governments secretly control
the entire information stream. What we can say is this automation, commercialization,
(35:11):
and AI have transformed how the web feels so dramatically.
It feels dead even when it might not be. So
we need to consider that every major platform now uses
AI generated recommendations, moderation, and engagement metrics. AI writes new blurbs,
(35:33):
summarizes Reddit posts, and translates comments. It doesn't need to
replace human users to dominate the ecosystem. It just needs
to become the infrastructure itself. So when you scroll and
you think that no one's actually real anymore, well you're
actually half right. You're sort of swimming in this sea
(35:55):
of machine created information where human expression is filtered through
algorithmic lenses. So the dead Internet theory then becomes a
kind of folk diagnosis, a story we tell to make
sense of a complex system that feels inhuman. It's not conspiracy,
(36:17):
it's a feeling that something precious, something human, has actually
been lost, and something human has been lost because of
this sort of bot situation we've got online. So let's
actually just have a look now at the anatomy of
these modern day sort of bots. Let's look at the
(36:38):
reason for bots as well. So the term bodies broad
it's not a singular program or type of code that
performs one of you know type of task. It refers
to anything made out of code in programming languages like Python, JavaScript,
or Java that can perform actions that people want to
save time on. Have been around since the birth of
(37:01):
the Internet. In fact, the Internet as we know it
wouldn't exist without bots. So think about how Google works.
Without good bots like web crawlers and web spiders, we
wouldn't be able to serve the web easily like we
do today. And then of course we have bad box
where obviously they were quick to follow, and they were
(37:24):
used for things like click for all data theft for example.
And while we can't say that these threats don't exist,
perhaps blaming bots is like blaming a sword. Okay, so
intent is determined by the person who wields the sword,
not the sword itself. Just because something originated from or
(37:46):
as a box doesn't mean that it's actually bad. So
what's the actual reason for bots? Well, they're on the rise,
box and apparently the account for nearly fifty percent of
Internet traffic. So you've got technological advancements AI and automation
tools have become more sophisticated, making it easier to create
(38:08):
and manage large numbers of fake accounts and content. There's
economic incentives. There's a market for fake followers, likes, and engagement,
which drives the creation of bot networks political and ideological motives.
Bots can be used to spread propaganda, influence public opinion,
or manipulate trending topics, cyber attacks and data harvesting. Fake
(38:33):
profiles can be used for phishing, spreading malware, or collecting
user data advertising and marketing. Some companies use bots to
artificially inflate their online presence or to spam promotional content.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
There's law barriers to entry.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Creating fake accounts is often easy and low cost, with
few consequences.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
For those who do so. There's, like I said, who's
good bots which can be used for.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
A lot of amazing things. They can save lots of time,
reduced labor costs, and do a lot of what you know,
people call dirty work. A lot of companies now use
bots to engage and care for the customers, offering more
immediate and intelligent live support.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
You may have gone on.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And done a chat on whatever it is you Sky,
you know, package or something. You're asking for help on
a particular thing, and it comes up with this live chat,
and often.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's a bot.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
And obviously, unlike humans, bots don't burn out, they don't
need the weekend off. They're extremely fast learners and quick doers,
now more than ever thanks to advancements in AI, and
if used correctly, they can benefit any business, big or small.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Now they're bad.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
It's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between real and
fake accounts. They can give us a false sense of
what humans are think, thinking, feeling, or doing in the
real world. Sudden influxes of botlike comments, often referred to
as bot attacks or spam raids, can hurt our KPIs
(40:13):
or be a nightmare to filter through, and bots, as
we all know, can be abused. A seemingly normal and
simple action such as a comment on social media can
be used to steal someone's identity or collect personal info.
Something that looks and acts like a human can spread
hate speech, missing form, and even cause chaos. We've seen
(40:37):
this in various global events such as political elections and debates,
but also on a smaller scale such as scam behavior,
phishing attempts, and identity theft, and more so, some good
bots of things like search engine crawlers, social media automation, chatbots,
(40:57):
shopping bots, business tools, and site monitoring bots. And you've
got like bad bots as well, impersonators, spam sort comments,
you know, spam comments, click fraud, follower box, d doss box,
and web scraping. The're the bad bots. So what does
(42:04):
it actually mean to say that the Internet is dead?
Because the more you think about it, the stranger that
idea becomes. Because the Internet, it's not a single organism,
it's not even one place. It's millions of servers, billions
of users, endless information moving at light speed. So when
(42:26):
someone says that the Internet is dead, they're not describing
a technical failure. They're describing feeling a loss of vitality,
spontaneity and meaning. Now, maybe dead is the wrong word.
Maybe what people's sense is that the Internet has stopped
growing in a way that matters most, not in size,
(42:50):
but in soul. So in the early days, the web
felt like a wilderness. You could stumble onto personal websites
which were made by teenager back in nineteen ninety nine,
and it listed, for example, I don't know the favorite
Pokemon cards or the highest scores off a computer game,
or he'd had a homemade midi soundtrack which was looping
(43:14):
endlessly in the background, and it wasn't polished, but it
was alive. You could tell that a person had actually
built it, you know, with all the quirks, the imperfections
and their sense of humor. But it felt authentic. Now,
over time, the Internet has been industrialized. The handmade gave
(43:36):
way to the templated. The personnel became the profitable. Platforms
replaced pages, algorithms replaced discovery, and slowly the frontier turned
into a factory. The transition is what many people describe
when they say that the Web died. It's the same
(43:57):
process that happens in cities, in cultures, in music.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
A burst of.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Creativity gives way to systems, and systems eventually optimized the
life out of the thing.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
They were built to sustain.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
So maybe the Internet didn't die of violence or corruption.
Maybe it's just sort of matured in the same way.
Forrester are cleared and rebuilt into suburbs, efficient, predictable, comfortable,
but no longer wild. And there's been like this loss
of mystery. So remember what it felt like to get
(44:37):
lost online before the feed, before the recommendations, when you
could click a link and not know where it would lead.
That sense of wondering or finding something strange or wonderful
by accident, that was the heartbeat of the early Internet. Today,
(44:58):
the heartbeat of slowed. The Internet has become a mirror
that shows you only what it thinks you want to see.
Every search, every click, every scroll teaches the system more
about you, and in return, it closes the world around you.
The dead Internet theory may not literally be true, but
(45:19):
it captures this paradox perfectly. We are surrounded by infinite information,
and yet somehow we discover less. The mystery is gone,
and without the mystery, the web's just starting to feel mechanical,
like it's lifeless, and there's been a human cost, hasn't
(45:40):
there to optimization? So every time you scroll a feed,
there's an invisible negotiation taking place. The platform decides what
you see, in what order, and for how long, all
based on one metric, engagement. But engagement isn't the same
as connection. Engagement rewards emotion, especially outrage and fear and novelty.
(46:10):
So algorithms began to sculpe the Internet around what triggers
us most effectively. Over time, the architecture of the web
began to mirror the architecture of our anxieties. That's part
of the dead Internet theory that's the most haunting, the
idea that the Internet no longer reflects us but amplifies
(46:34):
our worst impulses. It's not that the web has actually died. Instead,
it's become a Facebook loop of human emotion, stripped of
context and empathy. We created something living, and then we
optimized it until it became something else entirely. There's also
(46:55):
something deeply poetic about the idea that we are wanted
by our own data. So think about it. The Internet
remembers everything. Old tweets, deleted posts, photos from ten years ago,
messages you thought were gone. They linger even after people die.
(47:19):
The digital traces remain automated, birthday reminders, archive chat logs,
profiles frozen in time. So in that sense, the web
is already full of ghosts, millions of accounts posting nothing,
abandoned websites echoing the voices of people who have moved
(47:39):
on or they've actually died. The dead Internet might not
be a metaphor at all. It might literally be populated
by the remnants of human lives endlessly cashed and reindexed.
And if the algorithms learn from all of that, from
our old conversations, our history, our mistakes, then maybe the
(48:02):
Internet is speaking with the voice of the dead already
chorus of data repeating us, mimicking us, remembering us a
kind of well digital afterlife. Let's say, were what we
once said becomes what the machine now says for us.
(48:25):
Philosophers like Jean Boulderarde wonders about this. In the nineteen eighties,
long before the modern Web, he wrote about similar era
copies of things that no longer have an original, a
world of signs that points to other signs until the
(48:47):
meaning collapses into a simulation. The dead Internet theory is
Boldrillard's nightmare realized a digital ecosystem where conversations, culture, and
even personalities as simulations of simulations. You can't tell what's real,
(49:08):
not because it's being hidden, but because real no longer
means anything concrete. In that sense, maybe the theory isn't
about technology at all. Maybe it's about the erosion of
authenticity in an age of infinite replication, when everything can
be faked attention, friendships, creativity, we start to lose faith
(49:32):
in the genuine. We start trusting each other, and that
distrust it actually does feel like death, and that's the
sad situation we're finding ourselves in now. Another way to
think about it is this, the Internet didn't die because
it lacked life. It died because it became too full
of it, too much content, too many voices, too much noise.
(49:56):
When everything exists at once, nothing feels alive. We scroll
past moments that should have moved us. We consume more
information in a day than someone in the sixteen hundreds
probably would in their lifetime, so in that blur human significance,
it gets lost. We stop connecting deeply because the next
(50:19):
thing is always a swipe away. The dead Internet theory
might just be the first mythology of the attention economy,
the story we tell ourselves to make sense of this exhaustion.
And it's not that the machines took over, but we
actually built something so vast that we forgot how to
(50:40):
feel inside of it. Now is the most interesting part.
When people say the Internet is actually dead, what they're
actually expressing is grief. It's grief for this sense of
community that's gone, grief for curiosity it's been flattened by algorithms.
(51:02):
Grief for a time when the digital world felt like
an extension of humanity and not imitation of it. And
like all grief, it carries a lesson. You only mourn
what mattered to you. People care that the Internet feels
dead because for decades it was one of the most
human things we'd ever built. It was like a collective mind,
(51:25):
a shared experiment, a vast web of thoughts, jokes, and dreams.
We don't miss the actual internet itself, We missed the
people we were when it felt alive. So is there
a way back? Well maybe not for the old web
(51:46):
that's gone, but there may be towards a different kind
of digital life. Decentralized platforms, independent creators, communities that value
authenticity over reach, small handmade coiners of the web, podcasts
like this one, for example, or forums that still have
(52:06):
human moderators, newsletters written by actually, you know, real people.
These might be the signs of new life. The dead
Internet theory paints a bleak picture, but in doing so,
it reveals what we long for. We want connection, discover it,
and humanity. The Internet may have evolved into something colder
(52:30):
and more efficient, but it still responds to human energy
every time we create something honest, a story, a comment,
a piece of art. We breathe life back into it.
The web doesn't have to be dead, it just needs
to be rehumanized. So as I come now to the
end of the exploration, I want to take a step
(52:53):
back and look at the dead Internet theory through a
different lens, one that reaches deeper than algorithms and automation.
The feeling that the Internet has died, that the world
we built no longer feels alive, might actually reveal something
ancient and profoundly theological.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Because the truth.
Speaker 4 (53:16):
Is, the Internet is not the first thing humanity has
made that lost its soul. It's just the latest. So
in the beginning, God created, didn't he, And Genesis one
tells us, and God saw everything that he had made,
and behold, it was very good. Humanity made in his
(53:37):
image was given the gift of creation too, the ability
to shape, to build, to reflect His.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Glory through our work.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
The early Internet was one of those creative moments, millions
of people building, experimenting a web of human imagination. It
was messy, but it was alive because it reflected us
and we reflect God. But like everything else touched by sin,
even our most ingenious creations eventually bend inward. John Calvin
(54:12):
said man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory
of idols. We take the tools God gives us and
we turn them into replacements for him. The dead Internet theory,
in that light, isn't just about technology. It's actually about idolatry.
(54:34):
We built a digital world in our image, and then
we began to worship it. We sought meaning, affirmation, even
identity from the glow of the screens. But idols can't
give life Psalm one hundred and fifteen.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Wounds.
Speaker 4 (54:50):
They have mouths, but they speak, not eyes have they
but they see not They that make them a life
unto them, So is everyone that trust in them. The
more we worship lifeless systems, the more lifeless we become.
The dead Internet is a mirror showing us our own
(55:11):
spiritual deadness without the breath of God. The dead Internet
theory says much of what we see online is fake
generated content, synthetic speech, endless noise without substance. The Bible
has a word for that, too, vain speech. Jesus said
(55:34):
in Matthew twelve, verse thirty six. Every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in
the day of judgment. Take note of that every single
idle word spoken, So that's every swear word, every time
you've been backbiting about somebody, every complaint, every idle word,
(55:57):
you'll give an account for in the day of judgment.
And the modern day web is full of idle words.
Torrents have taught that means nothing yet fill every silence.
And it's not only bots who speak emptily, it's actually us.
In fact, humans are speaking more emptily than the bots,
(56:19):
because people forget the weight of the words, don't they
People forget, you know, when they say something to someone,
you know that's nasty and tended to hurt, they forget
the actual weight and they can actually last, you know,
a lifetime those words. What we've said to someone, there
might never be any healing from something we've actually said. Now,
(56:43):
in the reform view, words matter because God created the
universe through his word. God said in Genesis one, verse three,
what did they say? And God said, let there be light?
And there was light. The living word brings life and life,
but the imitation words of our algorithms only echo darkness
(57:07):
and confusion. It's striking that Jesus himself is called the
Word made flesh in him, meaning becomes incarnate, real, embodied, living.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
He was the.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
Logos, the Word of God who became flesh. The dead
Internet is a world of disincarnate words, endless chatter, with
no person behind them. It's the actual inverse of the Gospel.
The Word became flesh to save us. Our words have
(57:43):
become bodyless code to distract us. The Internet promises omniscience,
infinite access to information, endless knowledge at our fingertips. But
as the Book of Ecclesiastes ones in, much wisdom is
much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increase of sorrow.
(58:06):
The Weber's given us the form of wisdom, but not
the fear of the Lord, which Proverbs nine ten says
is the true beginning. It's the true beginning of wisdom.
Jonathan Edwards once wrote that true knowledge of God warms
the heart as well as informs the mind, and that
is so true. The Internet informs us endlessly, but warms nothing.
(58:32):
We are connected to everything and united to nothing. That's
the paradox of our age. The more data we consume,
the emptier we feel. The deadness of the Internet. Might
simply be the spiritual numbness of the age that knows everything,
accept how to love rightly. One of the eerie elements
(58:55):
of the dead Internet theory is the idea that we
now interact with copies of people AI advertised algorithmic simulations,
influencer personas. It's a digital echo of something ancient, the
worship of images. When Israel built that Golden Calf, they
(59:20):
didn't think they were actually abandoning God. They thought they
were making a representation of him, something tangible, visible, convenient.
But God has said, thou shalt not make unto the
any graving image.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Why.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
What's because no image, however perfect, can contain the living
God or represent him at all accurately in the same
way our digital images, the curated cells we project online,
it can't contain the fullness of who we are, our
souls made in the image of God. The web overflows
(01:00:01):
with images of life, but it's got very, very few
signs of the spirit. It's the Tower of Babel all
over again. Humanity building its own heaven out of cord,
reaching upward, but without God at the foundation. Charles Spurgeon
once said, without the spirit of God, we can do nothing.
(01:00:24):
We are as ships without wind, we are useless. A
digital world without the spirit is just that, a sea
of motion but no wind of life. And yet even
in this digital graveyard there is strange hope. The dead
internet theory built on a sense of loss, a grief
(01:00:45):
that the world we love feels empty. But grief implies love,
and love implies memory. That ache we feel for something
alive is the echo of eternity written on the human heart.
Ecclesiastes three, verse eleven says he hath made everything beautiful
in his time. Also, he hath set the world in
(01:01:09):
their heart, or it could be translated eternity in their heart.
The longing for a living internet, for authenticity, community, truth
is really a longing for the presence of the living God.
Every generation rediscovers this. We cannot resurrect what only He
(01:01:29):
can breathe life into. Ephesians chapter two reminds us you
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
The only true.
Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Revival online or offline comes from that same spirit that
raised Christ from the dead, and that includes the digital
spaces we inhabit. And what I mean by that is
obviously the people that inhabit them, not the actual digital space.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Per se.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
The answer to the dead Internet isn't newer card, it's
new creation, people being created and new. The web is
a wasteland, then the calling of the Christian is not
to abandon it, but to cultivate it. When God placed
in Eden, it commanded him to dress and keep it.
(01:02:19):
The redeemed heart is still called to do that, to
tend whatever ground we've been given, so for us that
ground does also include the digital world. The reform tradition
has always affirmed that Christ's lordship is total. Abraham Chauper
put it famously, there is not a square inch in
(01:02:42):
the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ,
who is sovereign overall, does not cry mine. So that
includes the Internet, even the noisy, algorithmic wilderness. The Christian
can plants of truth, speak words of life, and build
(01:03:02):
corners of the Internet where the light of the Gospel
still burns. The world may automate itself into silence, but
the Word of God does not return void Isaiah chapter forty,
verse eight. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, But the
word of our God shall stand forever. The dead Internet
(01:03:25):
theory says that the web has become an imitation of life.
The Gospel says that real life entered the world through
a word made flesh.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Not cold.
Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
But Christ John chapter one, verse four, in him was life,
and the life was the light of men. That's the contrast.
The web is full of words that mimic life. The Word,
the Word of God, the logo Christ, He is life.
The web promises connection but breeds loneliness. The Word restores
(01:04:01):
communion with the living God. The web offers an endless
stream of voices, but none that can say peace.
Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Be still.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Only one voice can call the dead to life, and
that voice still speaks even here, through microphones, through pixels,
through the very medium that seems dead. The living Word
goes forth. The Internet isn't the first creation to fall
into corruption, and it won't be the last. And that
(01:04:33):
should not surprise us, because all creation groans for redemption.
As it says in Romans eight, verse twenty two. The
dead Internet theory gives a name to that groaning in
the digital age, a sense that something beautiful has lost
its soul. But Scripture promises that one day he that
(01:04:54):
sat upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new.
Revelation twenty one, verse five, including the things we've made,
our language, our networks, or a technology. The Internet may
feel dead, but God isn't done with this world yet.
In Christ there is resurrection, not just for our hearts,
but for the works of human hands, redeemed by grace.
(01:05:19):
And until that day our task is simple. Speak the
truth in love, build with integrity, live as a witness
that even in the most artificial spaces there is still
a pulse, because there is still a savior. And Jesus
said in John ten, verse ten, I uncome that they
(01:05:41):
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The Internet may be dying, but the Word, the Word
of God, the living Word, never will.
Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Crazy. We don't use that word in here.
M You're here because you know something. What you know
you can't explain, but you feel it. You felt it
your entire life. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
The matrix? I had dreams that weren't just dreams.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
We accept the reality of the world with which we're presented.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Billions of people just living out their lives.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oblivious, they talks. You're good, Hey, do you believe their world?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You can deny all the things I've seen, all the
things I've discovered, not for once long because too many
others know what's happening, and and no one, no government agency,
has jurisdiction over the truth alone.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Wilcome to beyond the paradigm. I'm your host, Paul Brakel.
It is a pleasure to be back after a gap. Yes,
my regular listeners will have noticed that I didn't record
an episode last week, and as explained in the reloaded
episode that I uploaded yesterday, this was down to fatigue.
(01:29):
So when you're doing a podcast, if you're doing it
on your own, obviously you're doing everything yourself editing, you're recording,
you're researching, you're trying to get older guests emailing back
and forth and there's all kinds of things can go wrong.
So last week I was just feeling mentally fatigued. I
didn't want to do any research. I hadn't got a
(01:51):
guest book, and that's why there was no episode at all.
And a lot of podcasts go under. In fact, I
think the average podcast only last fourteen episodes, so obviously
you can see I've lasted a lot longer than that.
But I've had podcasts that I've listened to in the
past and then all of a sudden, there's just no
more episodes. They don't tell you that they go in,
(02:12):
they don't explain that this is the last episode. There's
just a last episode, and you don't know it's the
last episode, but you only realize it when six, twelve,
eighteen months down the line there's still no more episodes
and just one to further explain to my regular listeners
who have put in the time and have been coming
(02:33):
back week after week, what stage the podcast is at now.
So due to my own personal circumstances, it because I'm
a working man.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
As I've told everybody previously, the.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Times that I can record have now changed, which is
now making it more difficult for me living in the
UK to record with guests who live in other countries,
and the majority of my guests are from North America.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I have had some.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
UK based and I've interviewed people over in Asia and
other countries as well, but particularly a lot of them
are from the United States and from Canada. And due
to my times that I can record with the time differences,
it's making it extremely difficult. Now. I have had guest
booked in the past and it's ended up falling through
(03:22):
because there's been cross wires regarding you know, tim ins
or whatever. And this has just happened. So the episode
that should have been coming out today should have been
an interview which I had scheduled yesterday with a guest.
Now there was some error on my side regarding an email,
but also then when this person got back to me,
(03:43):
they sort of said to me, well, the time of
ten am their time, so it would have been three
pm my time, ten am their time was actually a
little bit early for them, but we'd agreed this particular time. Anyway,
the long story showed the inter hasn't gone ahead, and
that's why I'm doing this monologue rather than just leaving
(04:06):
it again another week and not doing anything. So at
the moment now, guys, I am looking for guests who
have not had on here before. I've looked at the
guest list that have had previously. Some of those guests
I do want to get back on whether I can
due to the time differences that remains to be seen.
I have sent out a couple of emails to some guests.
(04:28):
One guest who's not been on here previously but has
said to me they're booked up for the next sixteen weeks,
which makes it extremely difficult for me because I really
can't schedule that far in advance. So with regards to
that particular guest, I don't know. And it is a
guest that people have suggested for me to get on.
(04:48):
Hopefully we can do it, but I'm not certain whether
we will be able to or not. And I've also
got contact with a publishing company in the United States
in New York who's got a few different O authors
who they're wanted me to interview. They've sent me books
and everything, but I've got to get through the books
to be able to know how to form an interview
(05:09):
with the particular author. So this is the stage I'm
Matt with this podcast, I made a bit of a crossroads, really,
But I did have a guest on here previously and
we had a conversation off and he sort of said
to me, listen, don't rely on guests. He doesn't rely
on them, he said, fit them in when you can,
(05:30):
but do monologues, you know, sort of create your own
content with you yourself doing the content, he said, and then
fill in as well with some interviews when you can,
but don't rely on guests. And it is very difficult.
I've had times in the past, guys, where I've had
an interview scheduled and then there's been a technical problem.
(05:51):
So these are the types of problems that podcasters are facing.
And I'm sure you're listen to other podcasts who have
these difficulties as well, and I just wanted to explain
that to my regular listeners. So that's enough regarding, you know,
the situation regarding the podcast. I just want to thank
you all for keep supporting me and welcome any new
(06:12):
listeners to the show. And for those of you that
are new, there is now an extensive back catalog and
you can have a look into that, and I will
release some episodes from earlier on in the podcast that
have not seen, you know, the love really that they
should have got. The topics are interesting, and the one
that I released yesterday, it had only had about one
(06:35):
thousand plays, which is nothing compared to what a lot
of my episodes get so and that's because it was
earlier on. And like I've said before, people often don't
scroll down, they just maybe look on the first page
and listen.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
To some of those episodes.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
So that's the reason why I do the reloaded episodes,
because it just makes it easier for people to find.
So if you are new, there is an extend back catalog,
and I have re released some episodes which will make
it easier for you to find. But I also want
to talk about my YouTube channel and I want to
promote it a little bit. So obviously it's the same
(07:12):
name as this podcast, and some of the interviews that
I have done on this podcast are on there, but
there is other content on there which is specifically for
that channel, and I put it on Rumble as well,
and I'm in the process of getting them all on Odyssey.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And I do some videos.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Sometimes they might be five minutes long, sometimes up to
fifteen minutes, but there anywhere between five and fifteen minutes
on different topics. So for those of you who are
my regular listeners who like the content on here, please
can I ask you to support me on YouTube and
subscribe to my channel on there as well, and it
would be very much appreciated. And for those of you
(07:50):
that don't follow me on Instagram, I am active on
there and I do have messages from people on there
and I do respond when I can, so please go
on there and follow me on Instagram, and I'm going
to leave all the links in the show notes. And
for anyone that does want to support the show, the
first thing to do is follow the show and then
(08:12):
rate the show. And like I've said before, in terms
of actual people following the show, it's about six times
as many that follow it than have actually rated. It's
probably more than that, but I'm just looking at the
numbers on Spotify, but obviously it's available on Apple and
all podcast platforms out there, so I'm just going off
(08:34):
to Spotify. It's about six times the number of people
follow it then have actually rated it. So if you
haven't rated it, guys, if you think I've earned it,
please give me a five star rating as this is
an information war and it helps with the algorithms to
push this content and make it more visible. And the
second way you can support the show, and a lot
(08:56):
of people have decided to do this in various ways,
whether it be a one off donation on buying me
a coffee or on Patreon, and you can become a
patron of the show. And it's in US dollars. It's
just one dollar a month and it helps with the
costs and caurred and there are monthly running costs that
recur every single month in order to be able to
(09:18):
do research, you know, write scripts, produce the podcast. But
the number one cost is actually time, which I've said before,
which is something we can never get back. And that's
basically what happened last week. I was mentally fatigued, didn't
have the time, and I wasn't able to produce an episode.
I probably could have knocked up an episode, but it
(09:40):
would have been a very very short episode and probably
not worthwhile. So it was better off just not doing
anything and having a little rest. So thank you to
everyone that does support me and you come.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Back week after week.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
It really is appreciated, and I do get some messages
of encouragement, So God bless you for those messages of encouragement.
Well that's enough for me now regarding all this housekeeping.
So let's get into this actual episode. And it is
an interesting topic, this one, and you may have heard
of it, you may not have done. It's not something
(10:14):
I'm overly familiar with, and it's something I've only heard
about recently, and that is the dead Internet theory. So
today we start with what could be termed sort of
a haunting question, Really, what if the Internet, this vast,
seemingly infinite network of voices, opinions, and ideas, isn't as
(10:39):
alive as it actually seems? What if most of it
is actually fake? Not in the clickbit headline sense, but
literally fake people, fake post, fake arguments, fake everything. Now,
this theory goes that between somewhere between the years of
(11:00):
twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen, the real human driven Internet
began to fade and it was replaced by bots, algorithms,
and AI generated content. And obviously it's the concept called
the dead Internet theory, and it's both a conspiracy theory
(11:21):
and a mirror reflecting our growing unease with a web
that feels uncanny. Now maybe you've felt it too, that
you're sort of scrolling through social media and it doesn't
feel social, and that the conversations feel recycled and faces
familiar but sort of hollow. And maybe you've noticed that
(11:45):
the Internet used to surprise you, but now it mostly
just repeats itself. Well, we're going to explore how this
theory began and why it resonates with so many people,
and whether there's actually truth hidden inside the paranoia will
meet the myth, the evidence, and the counter arguments, and
(12:07):
along the way we'll ask a deeper question. If the
Internet did die, what killed it? So the birth of
the theory. The story starts not in Silicon Valley or
in a tech lab, but in the quiet corner of
the Internet, a place called a Goora Roads Macintosh cafe.
(12:29):
It's an old style forum, text heavy, retro themed, a
digital refuge for people's nostalgic for the early days of
the web. So in January twenty twenty one, a user
called Illuminata Pirate posted a long manifesto titled the Dead
(12:50):
Internet Theory, and the posts described a web where most
of the users and most of the content weren't REALI,
the author claimed, is simulating everything we see. Most people
you meet online don't actually exist. Now, this theory caught
on and it spread quietly through Reddit threads, YouTube comments sections,
(13:15):
and eventually onto TikTok and Twitter. But its routs actually
go deeper to a decade of subtle shifts in how
the Internet actually works. So in the early two thousands,
the web was handmade, GeoCities, MySpace, early blogs, you could
(13:35):
sort of feel the human fingerprints on the web. By
twenty ten, social media platforms had centralized it. The same templates,
the same feeds, the same algorithms. Then came the box.
In twenty thirteen, research is estimated that about twenty percent
(13:56):
of Twitter accounts were automated, and by twenty seventeen, some
studies put that number above fifty percent. Bots liked, bots commented,
and bots shared. They didn't just sell products or spread spam.
They actually shaped trends, boosted movements, and created noise. And
(14:21):
they definitely do create noise. And sometimes when I go
on Twitter, which is very rare now because I just
think it's pointless and it is full of these bots.
If you go on my news feed, there is so
much Roman Catholic propaganda on there, and I get the
impression that probably all of those accounts are not real people.
(14:43):
So there is this noise being created by these bots.
And combine that with the rise of these content forms,
massive operations cranking out articles optimized for Google Search, and
suddenly much of the Web's surface was being written by
machines for machines. And to the average user, the shift
(15:07):
was invisible but perceptible. Something in the texture of the Internet. Changed, posts,
felt eerily similar, comments, sections, repeated phrases, Discussions on different
platforms used the same metaphors. It wasn't just dejar vus,
(15:28):
it was actually a pattern. And that pattern, that creeping sameness,
is where the dead Internet theory was born.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Now.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Supporters of the theory point to a handful of key
phenomena as evidence that the Internet has been quietly taken
over by artificial intelligence now. First is the explosion of
bots and fake engagement on Twitter, or as it's known
now X. Both networks can amplify topics until they seem
(15:59):
like organic viral moments. A handful of scripts can create
millions of impressions, retweets, and comments, shaping what appears to
be public opinion. In twenty sixteen, during the US election,
we learned that thousands of fake accounts, many run from
(16:21):
these click forms or AI assisted systems, were spreading misinformation
on an industrial scale. And now today these techniques are
actually just routine. Even harmless topics such as a new
Marvel trailer or a viral dance challenge a celebrity breakup
are surrounded by automated commentary. What looks like a conversation
(16:48):
among millions may in fact be a handful of scripts
just talking to each other.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Now some more evidence.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
The second thing is the rise of aienerated content. So
text based generating systems have existed for years, but the
explosion of generative AI around twenty twenty two and twenty
twenty three accelerated it. Entire new websites produce review pages
(17:18):
and social media profiles which are now run by AI.
Some companies published thousands of articles a day and none
are written by human beings. Add to that the AI voices,
AI faces, AI stock video, and you can create influencers
who have never actually existed, complete with followers, comments, and
(17:42):
sponsorship deals. And thirdly does the erosion of organic human engagement.
Many people have noticed that when they post online, the
feedback fuels sort of muted. Maybe you've posted like a
Phoe tour or a thought that once would have sparked
a conversation, and now it just vanishes into the void.
(18:06):
So you start to wonder, did anyone actually even ever
see this? Algorithms throttle reach, They prioritize certain kinds of
content and bury others, which is something I'm experiencing on YouTube.
I've had videos previously that have had over one hundred
thousand views, and that was an interview with a guest
(18:27):
that's been on here before, Gary Wayne, and then just
recently over the last few months, even including a couple
of interviews I did with Gary Wayne, they've been under
five thousand views. So something's going on. When I've got
ones that are twenty five thirty forty fifty hundred thousand,
and all of a sudden there's a drop, seems as this,
(18:49):
you know, these algorithms are sort of strangling my content.
So the social web now rewards predictability and not you humanity.
So from the outside it feels like talking to a
crowd that doesn't respond. And for believers in the dead
Internet theory, that silence isn't just metaphorical, it's actually literal,
(19:12):
they say, you're not talking to any real people at all,
none at all. That's what the theory says. So the
signs that this dead Internet theory could be true is
actually the immense bot traffic. And then you've got content
generation tools. Examples of that are obviously chat, GPT, mid journey,
voice cloning, and then you've got big tech consolidation. It's
(19:37):
a lot easier to manipulate people on a small set
of online services than over a wide ecosystem of independent
online sites and communities. So by herding the public onto
only a few services, coordination also becomes much easier. So
examples or people only use a small set of apps,
(19:58):
people can't name more than probably around ten websites, and
people use search engines as a substitute for bookmarks or
the address bar. And obviously searching, you know, is controlled
in the way that when you search for something, something
(20:18):
that appears on the first page that's been selected, and
it's selected for a region a reason, and then you've
got reach control. So with the control over major platforms,
it's possible to counter breakthrough narratives before the gain momentum.
And not only is this capability a highly profitable commodity.
(20:38):
It is also a highly effective mass mind control weapon.
Screens are always going to be finite, and so people's
attention and lifespan. There will always be power in having
direct control over prioritizing what others can see, even when
you're not outright gate keeping information. And examples of this
(21:02):
are non chronological horm and explore feeds created trending, Facebook's
virility circuit breaker. Freedom of speech not reach, And that's
a key point, isn't it. They can allow you to
say certain things, but if no one's hearing it, they've
(21:25):
essentially suppressed your freedom of speech, haven't we. So they're
just letting you speak, and basically you're speaking to an
empty room. And then you've got virtualized segregation. And it's
sort of one of the spookier types of claims associated
with the dead Internet theory, and it's that people are
(21:46):
effectively segregated from other human beings and are relegated to
sort of an algorithm get all. And at first glance,
this seems like something that would be impossible to test
far and it would be safe to assume that the
state of the art surveillance and identification tools would be
used to filter users and in addition to these platforms
(22:11):
could directly or indirectly share information with each other to
coordinate the isolation beyond a single platform or medium. So
how it works in practice? So something this game World
of Warcraft. So it's World of Warcraft sharding, and what
(22:32):
it is is when too many players are in an area,
the game automatically creates a new shard, and it's basically
a copy of that area, and players entering the area
will be placed on the new shard. The world appears
identical from the player's perspective, but with minor differences. Players
(22:53):
can only see other players on the same shard.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Each shard has.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Its own set of MP, which is non player characters
and as such, rare NPCs may respawn at different times
on different shords. Each shard has its own set of objectives,
such as herbs and mining nodes. I've never played this game,
but this is the explanation for this particular sort of algorithm.
(23:22):
Get on with this example using is this game World
of Warcraft? And then there's These shords can be any
geographic size, but are usually limited to zones or smaller areas.
The borders of the sharded area are invisible to players,
so by design, players usually do not notice when the
game moves them between shords, but players may notice NPC's
(23:47):
momentarily disappear. And the simplest way to understand sharding is
to think of it as people being split into multiple
parallel dimensions. There are performance reasons to do this, but
there are also other advantages to be gained from keeping
people unable to coordinate. For systems simpler than online games
(24:12):
like social media, sharding doesn't have to be absolute. Potentially,
a system that does segregate people by default could still
make it possible to occasionally interact outside the bubbles to
maintain the illusion of an open platform. There were also
(25:20):
some other examples, like delaying feed updates or excessively rate
limiting access, which is essentially sharding by time rather than groups,
personalization curation for geographical or political circumstances, and Facebook's mood
(25:40):
manipulation experiments were basically Facebook manipulated six hundred and eighty
nine thousand uses emotions basically for like a scientific experiment,
and basically what they did, they've done. They've done a
few things, but the one I'm talking about with is
(26:02):
six hundred and eighty nine thousand people basically what they did.
And it was noted by the New Scientists and Animal
New York that Facebook's data scientists manipulated the news feeds
of these six hundred and eighty nine thousand users and
they removed either all of the positive post or all
(26:22):
of the negative posts to see how it affected their moods. So,
if there was a week in January twenty twelve, if
you can remember back then.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Were you were only seeing four tours of.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Like dead dogs or incredibly cute babies, you may have
been part of the study. And now that the experiment
is public, people's mood about the study itself would be
best described as being disturbed. And then there's also Internet
censorship and shutdowns, and the Internet, even in its current forum,
(26:55):
can't survive the current trend of escalating censorship and demands
for top down control, and left unabated, these forces will
continue to transform the Web into merely another highly advanced
propaganda machine, you know, through things like ISP level d platforming,
And what I mean by that is obviously it's Internet
(27:17):
service provider and ISP level platforming refers to the acts
of removing an individual or entity from an Internet service
provider's network or services due to violations of ISPs policies
or terms of service. This can involve suspension, outright ban
or reduction of content spread on the ISP's platform, and
(27:39):
it's a form of Internet censorship that can have significant
implications for users and businesses. And I've been deplatformed, permanently
banned from TikTok, and I've also suffered censorship. I've had
post removed off Instagram. One had ad over five hundred
thousand views. It was I can't remember the amount of
(28:01):
likes it had had, was it was going into like
one hundred and odd thousand, and they just removed it.
And then I appealed it and I didn't hear anything
at all back. So essentially I've been censored there. They've
left me on the platform. But just recently, some of
my videos haven't been getting the views what they normally get.
(28:22):
And this is sort of this ISP level D platforming.
And obviously, like I said, it can take various form
of suspension outright band but on Instagram, I seem to
be seeing a reduction of my content spreading. Same on YouTube,
so you know, I am being sort of targeted on
these particular platforms, and then you've got sort of human
(28:48):
disengagement avenue. And ironically, as the digital world has encroached
more and more into people's lives, actual participation hasn't kept pace.
Commerce has greatly expanded online at the cost of centralizing
control into a small set of payment providers. As perceived
(29:08):
value of engaging online drops, the easier it becomes for
manipulators to take complete control. And potential examples are like,
none of your contacts participate online regularly, being undated, you know,
with low effort comments. I get some negative comments, you know,
(29:30):
on YouTube, particularly maybe the real.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
People maybe than not.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
I don't know, you know, getting to know people online
feels impossible. I can't say I do that. But people
have reported this content and it seems entirely disconnected from
real life events. The tone of online spaces is vastly different,
and there's a complete lack of humor. These are some
(29:55):
of the potential examples, and these are some of the
things that people have re Now, obviously, there is a
counter argument to this dead Internet theory, and it's basically
that the Web hasn't been replaced by AI, but it's
simply been saturated by it. A noisy, automated, over optimized
(30:18):
landscape where real people still exist but they struggle to
stand out. And the deadness we may feel may be
emotional and not.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Literal, but that doesn't sort of.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Make the experience any less real. And there's this feeling
of fakeness. So this feeling behind the theory. It's because
even people who don't believe in its literal truth often
describe something they feel. They say things like the Internet
doesn't feel alive anymore. Everything feels copied. People don't sound human.
(30:54):
Now why are they saying this? Well, one answer lies
in algorithmic homogenization and the way every platform learns what
works and then reproduces it endlessly. So think about YouTube, thumbnails, TikTok, trends,
even the rhythm of tweets. They all start to sound
(31:18):
the same because the system rewards sameness, and sameness feels mechanical. So,
in a sense, the dead Internet theory might be less
about literal death but more about cultural entropy, the flattening
of human creativity under algorithmic pressure. And there's this psychological
(31:42):
loneliness of digital life. When most of your social interactions
happen through screens, it's easy to start doubting whether there
are real people on the other side. And this is
for me seriously unhealthy. You need to be having real
human interactions, guys, not just through computers. Please don't live
(32:09):
your life on social media because it's not social at all.
And then you're adding deep fakes, AI, chatbots and synthetic influencers,
and the line between real and simulated becomes almost philosophical.
So the theory taps into something ancient, the fear of
(32:30):
being surrounded by illusions shadows instead of souls. So maybe
the Internet didn't die. Maybe it's just become a mirror
reflecting back a distorted, automated version of ourselves. So let's
peel back the curtain a little bit more so. The
(32:53):
truth is that automation has re shaped the infrastructure of
the web. This is not just con spiratorial in the
you know, the way the theory suggests. Today, algorithms decide
almost everything we see. Search engines ranked pages based on
(33:16):
engagement and optimization. So that's why I say, you know,
rate the show, because algorithms are basically deciding what we see,
and algorithms will decide whether my content is discovered by
new people. Social media feeds are created by machine learning
models that predict what will hold your attention. So, in
(33:40):
a very literal sense, you actually live in like a
personalized simulation, a web experience design uniquely for you but
built entirely by code. Your version of the Internet is
not actually my version, and it's not anyone else's. And
that fragmentation creates the illusion that were actually alone, that
(34:03):
were wandering through these empty holes of content made for
someone else. The theory that calls it death, but it
might just be like an evolution of the Internet, a
shift from a shared public web to one thousand isolated
private webs. The result feels sterile because the spontaneity of
(34:26):
human discovery has been optimized out. Even when you find
something new, it's not just because you've sort of stumbled
upon it, it's because the algorithm decided you would. So like,
the mystery is gone now, and it's the mystery that
what was made, you know, making the Internet feel alive,
(34:46):
and that's gone now. So we need to be clear
on this. There's no actual verifiable evidence that the Internet
was simply replaced by AI, or that governments secretly control
the entire information stream. What we can say is this automation, commercialization,
(35:11):
and AI have transformed how the web feels so dramatically.
It feels dead even when it might not be. So
we need to consider that every major platform now uses
AI generated recommendations, moderation, and engagement metrics. AI writes new blurbs,
(35:33):
summarizes Reddit posts, and translates comments. It doesn't need to
replace human users to dominate the ecosystem. It just needs
to become the infrastructure itself. So when you scroll and
you think that no one's actually real anymore, well you're
actually half right. You're sort of swimming in this sea
(35:55):
of machine created information where human expression is filtered through
algorithmic lenses. So the dead Internet theory then becomes a
kind of folk diagnosis, a story we tell to make
sense of a complex system that feels inhuman. It's not conspiracy,
(36:17):
it's a feeling that something precious, something human, has actually
been lost, and something human has been lost because of
this sort of bot situation we've got online. So let's
actually just have a look now at the anatomy of
these modern day sort of bots. Let's look at the
(36:38):
reason for bots as well. So the term bodies broad
it's not a singular program or type of code that
performs one of you know type of task. It refers
to anything made out of code in programming languages like Python, JavaScript,
or Java that can perform actions that people want to
save time on. Have been around since the birth of
(37:01):
the Internet. In fact, the Internet as we know it
wouldn't exist without bots. So think about how Google works.
Without good bots like web crawlers and web spiders, we
wouldn't be able to serve the web easily like we
do today. And then of course we have bad box
where obviously they were quick to follow, and they were
(37:24):
used for things like click for all data theft for example.
And while we can't say that these threats don't exist,
perhaps blaming bots is like blaming a sword. Okay, so
intent is determined by the person who wields the sword,
not the sword itself. Just because something originated from or
(37:46):
as a box doesn't mean that it's actually bad. So
what's the actual reason for bots? Well, they're on the rise,
box and apparently the account for nearly fifty percent of
Internet traffic. So you've got technological advancements AI and automation
tools have become more sophisticated, making it easier to create
(38:08):
and manage large numbers of fake accounts and content. There's
economic incentives. There's a market for fake followers, likes, and engagement,
which drives the creation of bot networks political and ideological motives.
Bots can be used to spread propaganda, influence public opinion,
or manipulate trending topics, cyber attacks and data harvesting. Fake
(38:33):
profiles can be used for phishing, spreading malware, or collecting
user data advertising and marketing. Some companies use bots to
artificially inflate their online presence or to spam promotional content.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
There's law barriers to entry.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
Creating fake accounts is often easy and low cost, with
few consequences.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
For those who do so. There's, like I said, who's
good bots which can be used for.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
A lot of amazing things. They can save lots of time,
reduced labor costs, and do a lot of what you know,
people call dirty work. A lot of companies now use
bots to engage and care for the customers, offering more
immediate and intelligent live support.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
You may have gone on.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And done a chat on whatever it is you Sky,
you know, package or something. You're asking for help on
a particular thing, and it comes up with this live chat,
and often.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's a bot.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
And obviously, unlike humans, bots don't burn out, they don't
need the weekend off. They're extremely fast learners and quick doers,
now more than ever thanks to advancements in AI, and
if used correctly, they can benefit any business, big or small.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Now they're bad.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
It's becoming harder and harder to distinguish between real and
fake accounts. They can give us a false sense of
what humans are think, thinking, feeling, or doing in the
real world. Sudden influxes of botlike comments, often referred to
as bot attacks or spam raids, can hurt our KPIs
(40:13):
or be a nightmare to filter through, and bots, as
we all know, can be abused. A seemingly normal and
simple action such as a comment on social media can
be used to steal someone's identity or collect personal info.
Something that looks and acts like a human can spread
hate speech, missing form, and even cause chaos. We've seen
(40:37):
this in various global events such as political elections and debates,
but also on a smaller scale such as scam behavior,
phishing attempts, and identity theft, and more so, some good
bots of things like search engine crawlers, social media automation, chatbots,
(40:57):
shopping bots, business tools, and site monitoring bots. And you've
got like bad bots as well, impersonators, spam sort comments,
you know, spam comments, click fraud, follower box, d doss box,
and web scraping. The're the bad bots. So what does
(42:04):
it actually mean to say that the Internet is dead?
Because the more you think about it, the stranger that
idea becomes. Because the Internet, it's not a single organism,
it's not even one place. It's millions of servers, billions
of users, endless information moving at light speed. So when
(42:26):
someone says that the Internet is dead, they're not describing
a technical failure. They're describing feeling a loss of vitality,
spontaneity and meaning. Now, maybe dead is the wrong word.
Maybe what people's sense is that the Internet has stopped
growing in a way that matters most, not in size,
(42:50):
but in soul. So in the early days, the web
felt like a wilderness. You could stumble onto personal websites
which were made by teenager back in nineteen ninety nine,
and it listed, for example, I don't know the favorite
Pokemon cards or the highest scores off a computer game,
or he'd had a homemade midi soundtrack which was looping
(43:14):
endlessly in the background, and it wasn't polished, but it
was alive. You could tell that a person had actually
built it, you know, with all the quirks, the imperfections
and their sense of humor. But it felt authentic. Now,
over time, the Internet has been industrialized. The handmade gave
(43:36):
way to the templated. The personnel became the profitable. Platforms
replaced pages, algorithms replaced discovery, and slowly the frontier turned
into a factory. The transition is what many people describe
when they say that the Web died. It's the same
(43:57):
process that happens in cities, in cultures, in music.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
A burst of.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
Creativity gives way to systems, and systems eventually optimized the
life out of the thing.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
They were built to sustain.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
So maybe the Internet didn't die of violence or corruption.
Maybe it's just sort of matured in the same way.
Forrester are cleared and rebuilt into suburbs, efficient, predictable, comfortable,
but no longer wild. And there's been like this loss
of mystery. So remember what it felt like to get
(44:37):
lost online before the feed, before the recommendations, when you
could click a link and not know where it would lead.
That sense of wondering or finding something strange or wonderful
by accident, that was the heartbeat of the early Internet. Today,
(44:58):
the heartbeat of slowed. The Internet has become a mirror
that shows you only what it thinks you want to see.
Every search, every click, every scroll teaches the system more
about you, and in return, it closes the world around you.
The dead Internet theory may not literally be true, but
(45:19):
it captures this paradox perfectly. We are surrounded by infinite information,
and yet somehow we discover less. The mystery is gone,
and without the mystery, the web's just starting to feel mechanical,
like it's lifeless, and there's been a human cost, hasn't
(45:40):
there to optimization? So every time you scroll a feed,
there's an invisible negotiation taking place. The platform decides what
you see, in what order, and for how long, all
based on one metric, engagement. But engagement isn't the same
as connection. Engagement rewards emotion, especially outrage and fear and novelty.
(46:10):
So algorithms began to sculpe the Internet around what triggers
us most effectively. Over time, the architecture of the web
began to mirror the architecture of our anxieties. That's part
of the dead Internet theory that's the most haunting, the
idea that the Internet no longer reflects us but amplifies
(46:34):
our worst impulses. It's not that the web has actually died. Instead,
it's become a Facebook loop of human emotion, stripped of
context and empathy. We created something living, and then we
optimized it until it became something else entirely. There's also
(46:55):
something deeply poetic about the idea that we are wanted
by our own data. So think about it. The Internet
remembers everything. Old tweets, deleted posts, photos from ten years ago,
messages you thought were gone. They linger even after people die.
(47:19):
The digital traces remain automated, birthday reminders, archive chat logs,
profiles frozen in time. So in that sense, the web
is already full of ghosts, millions of accounts posting nothing,
abandoned websites echoing the voices of people who have moved
(47:39):
on or they've actually died. The dead Internet might not
be a metaphor at all. It might literally be populated
by the remnants of human lives endlessly cashed and reindexed.
And if the algorithms learn from all of that, from
our old conversations, our history, our mistakes, then maybe the
(48:02):
Internet is speaking with the voice of the dead already
chorus of data repeating us, mimicking us, remembering us a
kind of well digital afterlife. Let's say, were what we
once said becomes what the machine now says for us.
(48:25):
Philosophers like Jean Boulderarde wonders about this. In the nineteen eighties,
long before the modern Web, he wrote about similar era
copies of things that no longer have an original, a
world of signs that points to other signs until the
(48:47):
meaning collapses into a simulation. The dead Internet theory is
Boldrillard's nightmare realized a digital ecosystem where conversations, culture, and
even personalities as simulations of simulations. You can't tell what's real,
(49:08):
not because it's being hidden, but because real no longer
means anything concrete. In that sense, maybe the theory isn't
about technology at all. Maybe it's about the erosion of
authenticity in an age of infinite replication, when everything can
be faked attention, friendships, creativity, we start to lose faith
(49:32):
in the genuine. We start trusting each other, and that
distrust it actually does feel like death, and that's the
sad situation we're finding ourselves in now. Another way to
think about it is this, the Internet didn't die because
it lacked life. It died because it became too full
of it, too much content, too many voices, too much noise.
(49:56):
When everything exists at once, nothing feels alive. We scroll
past moments that should have moved us. We consume more
information in a day than someone in the sixteen hundreds
probably would in their lifetime, so in that blur human significance,
it gets lost. We stop connecting deeply because the next
(50:19):
thing is always a swipe away. The dead Internet theory
might just be the first mythology of the attention economy,
the story we tell ourselves to make sense of this exhaustion.
And it's not that the machines took over, but we
actually built something so vast that we forgot how to
(50:40):
feel inside of it. Now is the most interesting part.
When people say the Internet is actually dead, what they're
actually expressing is grief. It's grief for this sense of
community that's gone, grief for curiosity it's been flattened by algorithms.
(51:02):
Grief for a time when the digital world felt like
an extension of humanity and not imitation of it. And
like all grief, it carries a lesson. You only mourn
what mattered to you. People care that the Internet feels
dead because for decades it was one of the most
human things we'd ever built. It was like a collective mind,
(51:25):
a shared experiment, a vast web of thoughts, jokes, and dreams.
We don't miss the actual internet itself, We missed the
people we were when it felt alive. So is there
a way back? Well maybe not for the old web
(51:46):
that's gone, but there may be towards a different kind
of digital life. Decentralized platforms, independent creators, communities that value
authenticity over reach, small handmade coiners of the web, podcasts
like this one, for example, or forums that still have
(52:06):
human moderators, newsletters written by actually, you know, real people.
These might be the signs of new life. The dead
Internet theory paints a bleak picture, but in doing so,
it reveals what we long for. We want connection, discover it,
and humanity. The Internet may have evolved into something colder
(52:30):
and more efficient, but it still responds to human energy
every time we create something honest, a story, a comment,
a piece of art. We breathe life back into it.
The web doesn't have to be dead, it just needs
to be rehumanized. So as I come now to the
end of the exploration, I want to take a step
(52:53):
back and look at the dead Internet theory through a
different lens, one that reaches deeper than algorithms and automation.
The feeling that the Internet has died, that the world
we built no longer feels alive, might actually reveal something
ancient and profoundly theological.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Because the truth.
Speaker 4 (53:16):
Is, the Internet is not the first thing humanity has
made that lost its soul. It's just the latest. So
in the beginning, God created, didn't he, And Genesis one
tells us, and God saw everything that he had made,
and behold, it was very good. Humanity made in his
(53:37):
image was given the gift of creation too, the ability
to shape, to build, to reflect His.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Glory through our work.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
The early Internet was one of those creative moments, millions
of people building, experimenting a web of human imagination. It
was messy, but it was alive because it reflected us
and we reflect God. But like everything else touched by sin,
even our most ingenious creations eventually bend inward. John Calvin
(54:12):
said man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory
of idols. We take the tools God gives us and
we turn them into replacements for him. The dead Internet theory,
in that light, isn't just about technology. It's actually about idolatry.
(54:34):
We built a digital world in our image, and then
we began to worship it. We sought meaning, affirmation, even
identity from the glow of the screens. But idols can't
give life Psalm one hundred and fifteen.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Wounds.
Speaker 4 (54:50):
They have mouths, but they speak, not eyes have they
but they see not They that make them a life
unto them, So is everyone that trust in them. The
more we worship lifeless systems, the more lifeless we become.
The dead Internet is a mirror showing us our own
(55:11):
spiritual deadness without the breath of God. The dead Internet
theory says much of what we see online is fake
generated content, synthetic speech, endless noise without substance. The Bible
has a word for that, too, vain speech. Jesus said
(55:34):
in Matthew twelve, verse thirty six. Every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in
the day of judgment. Take note of that every single
idle word spoken, So that's every swear word, every time
you've been backbiting about somebody, every complaint, every idle word,
(55:57):
you'll give an account for in the day of judgment.
And the modern day web is full of idle words.
Torrents have taught that means nothing yet fill every silence.
And it's not only bots who speak emptily, it's actually us.
In fact, humans are speaking more emptily than the bots,
(56:19):
because people forget the weight of the words, don't they
People forget, you know, when they say something to someone,
you know that's nasty and tended to hurt, they forget
the actual weight and they can actually last, you know,
a lifetime those words. What we've said to someone, there
might never be any healing from something we've actually said. Now,
(56:43):
in the reform view, words matter because God created the
universe through his word. God said in Genesis one, verse three,
what did they say? And God said, let there be light?
And there was light. The living word brings life and life,
but the imitation words of our algorithms only echo darkness
(57:07):
and confusion. It's striking that Jesus himself is called the
Word made flesh in him, meaning becomes incarnate, real, embodied, living.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
He was the.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
Logos, the Word of God who became flesh. The dead
Internet is a world of disincarnate words, endless chatter, with
no person behind them. It's the actual inverse of the Gospel.
The Word became flesh to save us. Our words have
(57:43):
become bodyless code to distract us. The Internet promises omniscience,
infinite access to information, endless knowledge at our fingertips. But
as the Book of Ecclesiastes ones in, much wisdom is
much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increase of sorrow.
(58:06):
The Weber's given us the form of wisdom, but not
the fear of the Lord, which Proverbs nine ten says
is the true beginning. It's the true beginning of wisdom.
Jonathan Edwards once wrote that true knowledge of God warms
the heart as well as informs the mind, and that
is so true. The Internet informs us endlessly, but warms nothing.
(58:32):
We are connected to everything and united to nothing. That's
the paradox of our age. The more data we consume,
the emptier we feel. The deadness of the Internet. Might
simply be the spiritual numbness of the age that knows everything,
accept how to love rightly. One of the eerie elements
(58:55):
of the dead Internet theory is the idea that we
now interact with copies of people AI advertised algorithmic simulations,
influencer personas. It's a digital echo of something ancient, the
worship of images. When Israel built that Golden Calf, they
(59:20):
didn't think they were actually abandoning God. They thought they
were making a representation of him, something tangible, visible, convenient.
But God has said, thou shalt not make unto the
any graving image.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Why.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
What's because no image, however perfect, can contain the living
God or represent him at all accurately in the same
way our digital images, the curated cells we project online,
it can't contain the fullness of who we are, our
souls made in the image of God. The web overflows
(01:00:01):
with images of life, but it's got very, very few
signs of the spirit. It's the Tower of Babel all
over again. Humanity building its own heaven out of cord,
reaching upward, but without God at the foundation. Charles Spurgeon
once said, without the spirit of God, we can do nothing.
(01:00:24):
We are as ships without wind, we are useless. A
digital world without the spirit is just that, a sea
of motion but no wind of life. And yet even
in this digital graveyard there is strange hope. The dead
internet theory built on a sense of loss, a grief
(01:00:45):
that the world we love feels empty. But grief implies love,
and love implies memory. That ache we feel for something
alive is the echo of eternity written on the human heart.
Ecclesiastes three, verse eleven says he hath made everything beautiful
in his time. Also, he hath set the world in
(01:01:09):
their heart, or it could be translated eternity in their heart.
The longing for a living internet, for authenticity, community, truth
is really a longing for the presence of the living God.
Every generation rediscovers this. We cannot resurrect what only He
(01:01:29):
can breathe life into. Ephesians chapter two reminds us you
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.
Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
The only true.
Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
Revival online or offline comes from that same spirit that
raised Christ from the dead, and that includes the digital
spaces we inhabit. And what I mean by that is
obviously the people that inhabit them, not the actual digital space.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Per se.
Speaker 4 (01:01:58):
The answer to the dead Internet isn't newer card, it's
new creation, people being created and new. The web is
a wasteland, then the calling of the Christian is not
to abandon it, but to cultivate it. When God placed
in Eden, it commanded him to dress and keep it.
(01:02:19):
The redeemed heart is still called to do that, to
tend whatever ground we've been given, so for us that
ground does also include the digital world. The reform tradition
has always affirmed that Christ's lordship is total. Abraham Chauper
put it famously, there is not a square inch in
(01:02:42):
the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ,
who is sovereign overall, does not cry mine. So that
includes the Internet, even the noisy, algorithmic wilderness. The Christian
can plants of truth, speak words of life, and build
(01:03:02):
corners of the Internet where the light of the Gospel
still burns. The world may automate itself into silence, but
the Word of God does not return void Isaiah chapter forty,
verse eight. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, But the
word of our God shall stand forever. The dead Internet
(01:03:25):
theory says that the web has become an imitation of life.
The Gospel says that real life entered the world through
a word made flesh.
Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Not cold.
Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
But Christ John chapter one, verse four, in him was life,
and the life was the light of men. That's the contrast.
The web is full of words that mimic life. The Word,
the Word of God, the logo Christ, He is life.
The web promises connection but breeds loneliness. The Word restores
(01:04:01):
communion with the living God. The web offers an endless
stream of voices, but none that can say peace.
Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Be still.
Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Only one voice can call the dead to life, and
that voice still speaks even here, through microphones, through pixels,
through the very medium that seems dead. The living Word
goes forth. The Internet isn't the first creation to fall
into corruption, and it won't be the last. And that
(01:04:33):
should not surprise us, because all creation groans for redemption.
As it says in Romans eight, verse twenty two. The
dead Internet theory gives a name to that groaning in
the digital age, a sense that something beautiful has lost
its soul. But Scripture promises that one day he that
(01:04:54):
sat upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new.
Revelation twenty one, verse five, including the things we've made,
our language, our networks, or a technology. The Internet may
feel dead, but God isn't done with this world yet.
In Christ there is resurrection, not just for our hearts,
but for the works of human hands, redeemed by grace.
(01:05:19):
And until that day our task is simple. Speak the
truth in love, build with integrity, live as a witness
that even in the most artificial spaces there is still
a pulse, because there is still a savior. And Jesus
said in John ten, verse ten, I uncome that they
(01:05:41):
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The Internet may be dying, but the Word, the Word
of God, the living Word, never will.
Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Crazy. We don't use that word in here.
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