I am more and more learning about how personal interests often conflict with societal interests (as simple as it may sound). We are globally going to understand soon enough that democracy isn’t worth shit as long as feedback loops that allow personal interests to creep in are “meta”.
Loads of people have lots of ideas on how to run countries and communities, but ideology and doctrines are not really proven concepts.
And the other big problem is that to declare new forces within existing infrastructure (creating counter power to prevent positive feedback mechanisms), societal interest must still be powerful enough to not require a revolution to be enacted in a sensible and effective way.
A lot of countries have already in my mind gone way over that threshold, it’s recognisable when actual societal interests, long term initiatives and big questions about the future are not asked anymore because the political power is working at consolidating their position and redistributing favours they owe to the soon to be oligarchy.
But you can’t really allow anyone to be a defeatist because cynism is the last nail in the coffin, staying awake and fight hoping that enough will join soon enough is the only way to keep existing.
It’s the way forward, and a somewhat comfortable one at that for people who would rather start a homelab than talking to random humans (including myself). Internet is bound to be corrupt because of it’s inherent lawlessness and political power through mass propaganda. I would advocate for a ban of centralised social media, but that would only be a temporary solution since bots and trolls creep everywhere and communities online might still have a hard time surviving.
But to fight against the shit flooding, it’s hard to see how you’d do without meatspace option and evidently (as dumb as it may sound) you might want to get involved actively into associations or political activities around you. The high individuality (by that I meant the social atomisation) of the US is why it’s been so susceptible to false information and the far right online propaganda. Real life social fabric is what makes resilience against trolls and AI, and ultimately you’ll only be able to fight the root cause when you’ll be free of that dictator of yours.
So I am with you, and it’s hard to see at first but you’re not alone thinking like you do and finding groups around where you live to talk and think together is the best thing that can be recommended to anyone.
Teaching like another comment says would be such an option to consider.