> I would also agree the internet has been a huge net positive.

I thought that not terribly long ago. I have to admit, though, that with every passing day I become less sure that it's really a net positive.

Agreed, I think there was a point, when we could still benefit from the pre-existing social trust network, that it was a net positive. Now that the pre-internet trust network has deteriorated, and with no trust mechanism built into the internet, it is rapidly devolving toward a net negative for social stability.

I think relying on the internet to have a trust mechanism built in is a bit like relying on our road-builders to ensure our vehicles are safe.

While the average internet user will just trust the sites and apps they use, there's nothing stopping those who are able from designing/building/using/sharing technology which they can reasonably trust. The building blocks are there (crypto / networking libraries etc.).

When open source software gets outlawed, I'll be worried.

> a bit like relying on our road-builders to ensure our vehicles are safe

And yet there are lots of ways road-builders can design roads so that they're safer.

It's very natural for people to take good things for granted and focus on the negatives. Regardless of objective measurements.

Of course, sometime things areactually bad, so that's to to say you're wrong. Just a good bias to keep in mind.

Of course, it is. Put it this way, there is absolutely zero evidence that it’s not net positive.

those who downvoted me, I am curious what evidence you have that it's not net positive. I've never seen any such evidence, only a list of problems, which of course exist with any human endevour.

I didn't downvote you, but I don't know what you mean by "evidence it's not a net positive".

You determine whether something is a net positive or net negative by listing all of the negatives and positives and seeing how they balance out. With the internet, there are clearly both negatives and positives. The "evidence" either way is the full list of these factors.

Do they balance out in the positive or negative direction? The answer to that depends on how you weight the various factors, and I rather suspect that different people will weight the various factors differently. In other words, this is more a judgement call than some sort of hard objective truth regardless of whether you consider the net effect to be good or bad.

"net" positive!