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Benefits of publishing using older protocols and formats

By Alexander Kotov 

telegra.ph

July 26, 2023

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Let us look at things from the standpoint of those whose ideal is really material well-being, and who therefore really admire all the changes that modern progress has brought to life. But are they not deceived? Does the use of rapid communication and other such things, and the more hectic and complicated modern life, really make today's people happier than their ancestors? On the contrary, rather the opposite is true: lack of balance and balance cannot be a condition for true happiness.

René Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), chapter 7

The development of digital means of communication often goes in the direction of reducing the costs of information transfer. For many, instant messaging and social networking have replaced mail and web browsing. For most areas of human activity, this trend has both negative and positive sides. One can argue about their relationship, and I will consider this topic separately.

At the same time, I am sure that the reduction in the costs of information exchange has led to a real disaster for journalism, that is, in those areas where there are no objective criteria for truth. This includes philosophy, religion, ethics, politics. In the absence of criteria, the success of an idea depends on how the audience perceives it. At the same time, an increase in the number of audience or the frequency of publication of materials is often taken as success. However, these spheres of human knowledge do not tolerate quantitative assessments. Truth does not depend on how many people share it. For the triumph of justice, the quality of people and their readiness to act in accordance with the declared principles are more important. So much the worse that technology gives a voice to those who would otherwise have no authority, preferring empty talk to action. The criticism of this crowd can undermine the resolve of even the strongest.

Even worse, if instead of inaction, you decide to resist this pressure with the methods that are being imposed on you. Taking out of thin air topics for publication for the sake of quantity, publishing other people's materials without properly evaluating their content, using a more emotional style to increase audience engagement. By doing so, you risk sacrificing truth in exchange for success. And what is success worth if it is built on the spread of lies, manipulation and degradation?

I suggest that you artificially limit yourself to such old protocols and formats that create high overhead. This will force you to draw attention to your content based on the quality of its content rather than its form or quantity. Complexity will allow you to be more selective in your choice of words, because you can re-read the material before publication and even involve another person in this for a fresh look. However, you don’t need to completely get rid of social networks. Just publish there only links or copies of materials. Your audience will probably be smaller at first, but it will be more active and engaged. Past generations have used such technology, but that hasn't stopped them from having a big impact on our world. Next, I will look at a few examples.

Own website

To create a website, you need to master HTML and CSS (although you can do without styles). Accommodation is possible on your own server. It will cost you a very small price, about a few dollars a month. In this case, I recommend using Nginx. Earlier , we described in detail the server administration process. You will also need a domain name. As a reliable, uncensored registrar, I recommend Epik . It is possible to host without the cost of paying and administering the server, for example on Netlify or GitHub Pages , however, consider the possibility of censorship. In any case, I recommend using your own domain name, otherwise you will be completely dependent on the censorship policy of the service.

To keep your site minimalistic, I recommend not focusing too much on appearance. Avoid using JavaScript. Join 1MB Club and no-JS Club . However, don't ignore the really important modern practices like IPv6, HTTPS security, standards compliance. The tools that we previously talked about in the article “ Website analysis tools ” will help you.

RSS and Atom feeds

These standards allow you to read periodic publications without visiting websites, without JavaScript, without specifying your data somewhere. The feed author simply publishes a periodically updated XML document to a fixed URL. Creating such a document is not difficult, you just need to follow the RSS and Atom standards . The simplicity and privacy of these formats allows them to remain very popular today. Many news sites and even social networks have such feeds. There are a lot of feed readers out there, but I use the proprietary Feedly .

Gopher and Gemini

Gopher is the forerunner of HTTP, introduced in 1991. Mainly used for simple text content with hyperlinks. Such documents can be viewed even in text-based terminal browsers such as Lynx. Many resources are still available under this protocol, although it is rather inconvenient by modern standards: it does not support various text encodings well, is designed for a fixed screen width, which makes it difficult to break into paragraphs on mobile devices, does not have security like TLS and does not support identification content type using MIME.

Gemini is a new protocol inspired by the minimalism of Gopher, but fixes all the shortcomings outlined above. A very simple markup language, gemtext , is used to create documents . Use the Molly Brown software to distribute content from your server . For browsing in Gemini, I recommend the Amfora text terminal browser .

Email distribution

Despite the prevalence of instant messaging and social networks, email remains a popular means of communication due to its asynchrony. The user chooses when to read emails and reply to them. Email standards (SMTP, IMAP) are free and there are many server and client software implementations. I usually use Postfix, Dovecot, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mutt.

E-mail can also be used for periodic publications. This experience will be similar to reading RSS and Atom feeds. However, due to the antiquity and complexity of the standards, email is prone to the problem of spam, and setting up your own mail server and even more so a mailing list can be problematic. Therefore, it is easiest to use third-party services that specialize in such services. If you still decide to implement the mailing list yourself, then pay attention to the mlmmj software .

Paper editions and more

Finally, you can stop using digital and electronic technologies altogether. This option has the highest costs, but is also the most valued. Yes, and the costs vary depending on the format, quality of paper, binding. In addition, it is sometimes easier to raise money for a paper publication: people are more willing to pay for material goods than for information.

The easiest way is to join an existing handicraft publication (samizdat) whose topic is close to you. Here, even the thoughts that you want to convey fade into the background. You become a participant in a collective action that has tangible results in the material world. Isn't that the point of sharing information? However, if you decide to launch your own publication for your own content, that too will be a collective action. The reader is a participant in the process. This is especially noticeable precisely when he has to make some efforts to get information. The greater this effort, the more confident you are that your content is valuable to your audience.

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