“Most of human suffering comes from an exaggerated belief in agency and purpose, a belief that the personalized aspect of Web 2.0 accelerates. “What should be done and who am I?” is the question it poses to us repeatedly, as if the answer mattered. What’s on my mind? Where is my mind? Is what I see on the screen an expression of my mind? Philosophy of digital culture is perpetually torn between two overkills: declaring the internet a blessed place of productive schizophrenia, where we lose our own self-importance to communicate with the world, or, to the contrary, condemning it as a narcissistic delirium, where everything we do fortifies our self-importance. Benjamin Bratton captures this contemporary paradox by noticing that “paranoia and narcissism are … two functions of the same mask.” What should be done and who am I?”
— Bogna Konior, The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet
