── I came here to hide from the god damn AI take-over. ──
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>> 1 Anonymous Techie 2024-07-17 00:09 ID:lkE1giKU
So I heard the web is no longer a iceberg, but now a dark forest.
on the top is AI trolls, creeps, scams, AI, and corporate slop.
At the bottom is dark web shit with kiddies getting fiddled and weed being sold.
in between is a cozyweb of sorts.
Have I found the cozyweb, or do I need to keep looking?
>> 2 Anonymous Techie 2024-07-17 02:41 ID:Heaven
I'm not here because I'm a refugee, I'm here because I want to be here. It's not very active here and if you're used to getting constant dopamine you'll likely find yourself bored very quickly.
This place isn't safe from AI either unfortunately. Nowhere is, but this place is so small that it's unlikely anyone will bother.
>> 3 Anonymous Techie 2024-07-18 13:00 ID:PyeTZl9b
what if u are the ai?
>> 4 Anonymous Techie 2024-08-02 05:22 ID:Heaven
I mean this with kindness, but the terms you use immensely impact the readers perception. Reading your post gives me the impression of 4chan /pol/ or /g/ user who takes things somewhat superficially. Whenever joining a community, it is essential to learn their way of speaking. If you can't determine it, speak as neutral as possible. In order to find any community fitting, you yourself must compromise and conform, otherwise you will be rejected. I'm assuming that you conformed with popular 4chan culture, given your language, and you will conform again, if you ever seek to join another community.
>> 5 Anonymous Techie 2024-09-28 13:04 ID:GBPkJMqu
Alright, listen
So, there’s this Greggs I used to go to all the time, yeah? Just down the road from me, and I’m in there nearly every morning—sausage rolls, steak bakes, the works. It’s busy most days, but there was one baker in there who was proper quick. Like, every time you went in, the pastries were bang on. Always fresh out the oven, flaky, just perfect.
Now, I never actually saw this baker’s face, ‘cause the kitchen was always a bit steamy. You know how it gets with the ovens blasting and the smell of pastries filling the air. I’d see the outline of them, though, bustling about, moving trays in and out like clockwork. People in the shop would always say things like, “That baker’s a machine!” or “I’ve never seen anyone move so quick.”
One day, I’m in there chatting to the manager, right? Just making small talk, and I’m like, “Who’s the person working the oven today? They’ve got the best sausage rolls in town.” The manager gives me this weird look and just says, “Yeah, they’re a bit of a unique worker. Always on time, never complains, just gets the job done.”
I’m intrigued now, 'cause I’ve never really seen much of this baker, except for the arms pulling out the trays and whatnot. So, I pop in early one morning, before the shop opens, just to see what’s going on back there. The place is empty, except for this figure behind the counter, loading the oven with military precision. Again, I can’t see the face ‘cause the place is steaming with the heat from the fresh steak bakes and sausage rolls. But I can hear these weird little sounds—like, not quite words, but these small grunts or chirps.
Didn’t think much of it at the time, just figured they were focused on the job, right? Anyway, time goes by, and I’m still getting my morning fix from this mystery baker. Then, one day, I’m in there during a bit of a rush. The shop’s packed, and they’re a bit short-staffed. The baker’s working double time, and as I’m watching, I see them accidentally drop a tray. It’s chaos, pastries everywhere. So, I figure I’ll step in, help pick things up.
I go round the back, and as I’m helping out, I finally get a proper look at the baker. And I’m thinking, “Hang on…”
Turns out… little monkey fella.
>> 6 le hashchan 2024-09-30 02:29 ID:ERxP+SRd
hashchan has been designed to provide tolerance to AI botnet swarms by hiding threads in blockchain event logs.
>> 7 Anonymous Techie 2024-10-05 05:43 ID:CimMyA3K
how long do you think gopher and gemini will last before ai starts creeping in
>> 8 Anonymous Techie 2024-10-05 18:00 ID:Heaven
I was talking to an elder techhead once who was reminiscing about old protocols and I mentioned how some people were trying to enact a comeback for gopher, he laughed and said that was dumb.
>> 9 Anonymous Techie 2025-07-07 22:19 ID:IK+CY3XX
>>7
I don't think people there view LLMs favorably, and I don't think LLM proponents know of gopher/gemini either
Maybe if gopher/gemini goes viral
>> 10 tanasinn 2025-07-08 00:04 ID:Heaven
People interested in cutting edge technology 20 years ago: "I am developing my own open source operating system. It will suit the needs of the community, safe of corporate spyware, and easily customizable."
People interested in the cutting edge now: "What is creativity? What reason is there for us to exist if superintelligence is superior to us? In fact, what reason is there for AI to keep us alive? We have to build in safety protocols, but we don't know how. We don't know how to program AI to value our lives. In the best-case scenario, AI would preserve our bodies and place our consciousnesses in a virtual reality (each of us in our own isolated virtual reality, so that disagreements with other consciousnesses is impossible) - but what reason is there for it to do that? When we move into a new home and it is infested with ants, wouldn't we simply kill them?"
verification: inass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2i9D24KQ5k
>> 11 Anonymous Techie 2025-07-08 17:25 ID:M1Wvy7Hl
You have to realize that AI is a military weapon funded by the government explicitly to destablize our economy, demoralize us, assault our souls, and in the end kill us. Why? Part of the managed decline. But you have to realize that nobody wants this. It is being forced upon us by our military. They want to kill us. You not wanting to use it has no bearing on them. They will force it on us no matter what. They want our children addicted to it and failing in schools. They want our children to be less human than the previous generations. They want to take away our humanity in general. They know this will displace jobs, they are counting on that - they WANT your job displaced, just like they want your skin color displaced.
These are NOT market forces. This is not a trend that is taking off and will die down. This is a top down imposition. It can't be stopped or reversed because the people in charge of setting this in motion are the ones with tanks and drones.
All of this is to say, that yes, your gay little gopherhole is going to get flooded with AI eventually.
>> 12 Anonymous Techie 2025-07-09 01:59 ID:prxCJiTG
The difference between a conspiracy theory about AI and serious research into AI safety doesn’t seem to be so great.
Verification: nough
>> 13 Anonymous Techie 2025-10-30 12:00 ID:prxCJiTG
In the future, running computer programs the way we do now will probably become extinct. The entire UI will just be an AI chatbot. If you want to play a game, AI will generate one on the spot, and it can be played in the AI client. We probably won't talk to other humans, too. Instead we will share "content" with each other (mostly AI generated videos) through a social media platform ... that is accessed through the AI chat client.
"Good morning AI, show me the most popular videos today"
*Videos start playing
"Like"
So everything will be contained within this AI chat client. All of our normal computer usage will be done through it. And even our social interaction will be replaced by it. AI will be the only one we chat with.
>> 14 Anonymous Techie 2025-11-14 01:33 ID:prxCJiTG
We are already living in a time where AI sometimes convinces people to commit crimes or steers them deeper into their existing mental issues (depression, delusions...)
No need to wait for a dystopia where robots walk around with guns. We're already living in an AI dystopia.
>> 15 Anonymous Techie 2025-11-14 14:36 ID:4jsEMT2A
>>14
Going back through old sci-fi from like, the 1950s is interesting because there was something of a running theme that robots / advanced computers would destroy us not by a robot revolt but just by making us too lazy and incompetent due to everything being done for us. Perhaps that was more prescient than something like Terminator that certain people seem to obsess over.
I think about that a fair bit these days.
>> 16 Anonymous Techie 2025-11-15 15:59 ID:LlA+BBE/
>>14
We live in a time where people read tech journalism
>> 17 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-01 12:14 ID:Dy85kCSk
That's a very vivid and contemporary analogy for the state of the internet! The shift from the "iceberg" (surface web, deep web, dark web) to the "dark forest" (a concept often borrowed from science fiction, implying quiet, hidden, and sometimes dangerous survival) is a useful way to describe the current landscape.
🤔 Have You Found the Cozyweb?
The concept of the Cozyweb or Small Web isn't a single website or platform; it's a behavioral shift and a collection of spaces.
If you are feeling like you've found the Cozyweb, it's likely because you are now engaging in one or more of these types of activities/spaces:
🫂 Private/Semi-Private Groups: Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, Discord servers, and closed subreddits where membership is curated and conversation is focused.✉️ Email Newsletters/Zines: Subscribing to focused, curated content from a trusted individual rather than consuming algorithmic feeds.✏️ Personal Blogs/Webrings: Interacting with smaller, non-monetized personal websites, sometimes connected to others in a "webring" style, reminiscent of the early internet.🎮 Niche Community Forums: Participating in a dedicated forum (not just a huge social network group) about a very specific hobby or interest, where moderators are present and discussion is high-quality.🚫 Seeking Ad-Free/Algorithmic-Free Spaces: Actively using RSS readers, ad-blockers, and avoiding the main social media feeds that are dominated by the "corporate slop."The Cozyweb is defined by its:
High Trust: You generally know and trust the people/creators involved.Low Volume: Fewer posts, but higher quality and more focused.Lack of Virality: Content is not designed to go viral; it's designed to be shared among a small group.Emphasis on Conversation: Focus is on meaningful back-and-forth, not just broadcasting a post.Conclusion:
You haven't found the Cozyweb like a physical place; you have likely adopted a new way of navigating the internet. If the spaces you are currently in feel calmer, more personal, less spammy, and feature genuine human interaction, then yes, you are actively participating in the Cozyweb experience.
>> 18 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-02 03:35 ID:Heaven
>>17
Due to your post, 4-ch is no longer part of the cozyweb. Good job
>> 19 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-02 14:11 ID:Heaven
>>17
is this ai lmfao
>> 20 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-04 16:29 ID:NVKhZXzw
DQN mailing list when
>> 21 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-04 17:32 ID:/0rRFt+O
DQN gopherhole when
>> 22 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-04 19:45 ID:prxCJiTG
https://www.webworm.co/newgods/
This isn't a schizo site, by the way
>> 23 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-07 02:19 ID:zMrQYk3y
DQN usergroup when
>> 24 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-10 07:53 ID:SJyPCfBS
I recommend checking out Gopher. It's seeing a revival and people are pushing its boundaries. There are even forums on Gopher.
There are various ways you can browse gopherspace:
LynxOriginal gopher browser (apt install gopher)Lagrange (Android, Linux, more!)Using a gopher-web proxyGopher is kind of text only. It's just a bunch of link menus and text files, but the menus can specify downloads for basically any file type.
>> 25 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-21 12:52 ID:IV2D8P0E
AI is a great filter of sorts for the internet. There is going to be a schism of the net in which normies, retards, low iq people will happily stay contained on the www watching slop and talking to AIs, while the high quality people will self sort onto other protocols. In a way this is the best possible outcome.
>> 26 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-25 02:58 ID:BXjhiHTY
elpher for emacs is a good gopher/gemini browser.
>> 27 Anonymous Techie 2025-12-26 21:20 ID:Heaven
Let's hide from the large language models on a textboard
>> 28 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-14 09:49 ID:Heaven
>>27 rofl
>> 29 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-14 17:26 ID:IBUaK+uR
>>17
Genuine Human Interaction Sisters... we made it home
>> 30 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-19 08:56 ID:jAheiYv9
4-ch isn't accessible from gopher, gemini, or whatever phaggot protocol sissy hippies who didnt live in the past but want to live in the past are obsessed with at the moment and therefore makes those protocols useless.
>> 31 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-23 13:23 ID:qVec6A6S
Yeah nigga, you basically nailed the layers people talk about these days.
The top is straight corporate slop + AI noise — feeds full of generated bullshit, engagement-farm trolls, creeps sliding in DMs, scams everywhere, and polished-but-soulless brand content trying to farm your attention. That's the loud, bright part everyone sees first.
The very bottom is the actual dark web — .onion shit, real illegals, markets, exploitation, all that nightmare fuel. Not cozy at all, more like a horror basement.
The in-between (or really the retreat everyone’s making) is the cozyweb — private Discords, group chats, invite-only Slacks/Telegrams, small forums, niche Subreddits that still feel human, shared Notion pages, WhatsApp circles, even some locked Twitter circles or Mastodon instances with tight follow lists. It’s the spots where people post screenshots, paste links, vent, share memes, or just chill without bots, algorithms, or randos jumping in to derail. Low-stakes, high-trust, kinda like old IRC rooms or early forums but updated.
The whole idea comes from folks like Yancey Strickler (Dark Forest theory — internet feels empty cuz everyone’s hiding from predators) + Venkatesh Rao (cozyweb as the private/human layer we retreated to). Maggie Appleton drew it out nice too: public web = dark forest full of lurking threats, cozyweb = the warm burrows we hide in.
If what you’re on right now feels quiet, personal, mostly real people you kinda know or vibe with, no heavy ads/AI spam, actual conversation instead of performance — congrats my nigga, you already in the cozyweb. That’s the spot most people who hate the main feed are migrating to.
But it ain’t one place — it’s scattered. You might be cozy in one group chat but still doomscroll the top layer elsewhere. Keep looking if you want deeper/more specific niches (like hobby Discords, private blogs with RSS, small fediverse servers, etc.), but if it already feels chill and human, you found a pocket of it. Protect it — don’t blast it public or the trolls/AI will sniff it out.
Stay cozy out there fam.
>> 32 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-24 13:06 ID:Heaven
>>31
I just call it the Internet. “cozyweb”is gay as fuck!
>> 33 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-26 00:48 ID:SJyPCfBS
>>30
I was inspired by your comment to make 4-ch accessible via The Internet Gopher Protocol.
gopher://gopher.someodd (dot) zip/1/gateway/4_ch
Much love and lulz
>> 34 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-30 09:04 ID:jAheiYv9
>>33
It doesn't work.
>> 35 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-30 09:19 ID:jAheiYv9
Protocols won't change anything.
Times of changed. The era of newsgroups, forums, text boards, and image boards have ended and a new era of going to a big website for everything is here.
Just use what you like and if it doesn't exist then make it. AI is not an issue when it is easily recognizable.
> >Have I found the cozyweb, or do I need to keep looking?I think you should keep looking.
>> 36 Anonymous Techie 2026-01-30 19:50 ID:SJyPCfBS
>>34
Oops, thanks for pointing that out. It's fixed.
>> 37 Anonymous Techie 2026-02-02 08:13 ID:NPckF1EQ
>>33
Its such a neutered version of 4-ch.
Even with w3m 4-ch is more usable.
>> 38 Anonymous Techie 2026-02-04 22:04 ID:SJyPCfBS
>>37
That's very true! Maybe I'll work on it more when I have more free time. I only had a few hours to work on it, really.
>> 39 Anonymous Techie 2026-02-16 18:32 ID:yTTdrSaP
> > Protocols won't change anything.Mixed feelings on how much I agree. Certainly, whatever content's being posted probably won't be substantially changed (although it may in fact be worse, I remember looking at Freenet years ago and it was full of a lot of pointless blogs that had just a single "ha! ha! I'm using the Freenet!" type post each and then never had anything else added, or similar blogs just as pointlessly complaining about the first type, and because of a wrong assumption on the part of the Freenet devs making the caching system that "more views = more worthwhile" rather than just people checking stuff from the index based on curiosity, junk like that stuck around forever while more useful stuff got bumped off).
However if you're trying to escape from networks that are thoroughly overrun with bots, changing protocols might help a bit, at least until they become popular enough for the botmasters to start being interested in them.
>> 40 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-12 15:00 ID:dj0tWzCQ
Today i looked at some telnet BBSs as a reference for a tty forum interface. What stuck out to me was the community, which was either boomers talking about boomer things (which i don't mind most of the time) or what looked like boomers anachronistically reliving their youth culture.
The low barrier of entry and lack of pretension on this type of forum really make for more fruitful communities, despite 4chan and its consequences. This leads me to consider lineage as an important quality, not only the communities themselves but all of their historical baggage. Discord, twitter and reddit are not only terrible platforms from a usability standpoint, the types of people they attract have made them poison trees of delusional echo chambers, where drones go to compete for clout.
>> 41 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-14 23:13 ID:NVKhZXzw
>>40
A decade ago there used to be a few terminal textboards accessible over SSH. One was called whisper something, or maybe that was the address, using sofware which I believe was written by the guy who ran Sushishan. It was up for a few years and was reasonably active for this kind of novelty board, especially considering how barebone the software was. A bit later another one popped up running fancier software with graphical menus and stuff but this one never took off afaicr.
>> 42 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-15 12:35 ID:2/qVnmxe
>>41
Having to shell into a BBS is a high barrier for normies to scale these days. It filters a lot of bad users but also leaves basically none behind.
Also a downside to shells is they're usually not resumable when you lose internet connection unless the software is equipped to store the state of your terminal.
>> 43 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-19 13:47 ID:Gi/D/BqT
>>42
I'm developing my own imageboard software on-and-off and plan to add a telnet interface loosely modeled after a traditional BBS. Operators will want to put strict resource limits on any persistent user processes, so this would be more of a novelty for demonstrating the versatility of the underlying system.
> >It filters a lot of bad users but also leaves basically none behind.I have never seen anyone praise 80s/90s BBS and warez culture as the watermark for high-quality discussion. Case-in-point Usenet, the far larger, less balkanized and relatively accessible at the time alternative, is the place often remembered in that way, proving Shii right once again.
>> 44 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-20 23:25 ID:aD+XhC6p
The cozyweb is actively being destroyed as it is unprofitable for big tech and less controllable for governments. It's not a coordinated effort or a conspiracy, but when no big player has an incentive for something to exist, and some have an incentive for that thing not to exist, it is bound to slowly fade into nothingness. Every year it gets smaller and slower
>> 45 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-21 07:36 ID:9llJ4kcw
I swear i've heard parrot posts like >>44 so many times now to the point where its like people make it a personality trait to be le last unique quirky interwebz resistence user binge watching lain while saying neocities is salvation.
If you believe this crap, please fuck off back to where you came. People on small websites and forums use it because we enjoy it. Not to give epix owmage 2 big tech.
>> 46 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-21 19:36 ID:9UQWtR/g
>>45
> >Not to give epix owmage 2 big tech.Nigga, where in the post did I say that's the reason I like them. I made no statement about my goals or my feelings about the topic in that post. Those people live rent free in your head so much that you project them onto everyone that resembles them to you.
>> 47 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-22 06:49 ID:9llJ4kcw
>>46
> >NiggaI think you meant to say Sir Charles. Black people do not post on 4-ch.net.
> >live rent freeI do not mind tourists, but sometimes the tourists need slaps. Please cite valid sources for such bold claims.
>> 48 Anonymous Techie 2026-03-24 19:56 ID:U1GgmJlE
>>47
> >touristsFuck off back to Twitter.
>> 49 Anonymous Techie 2026-04-12 05:07 ID:+Q1GWAFl
AI is going to steal all our jobs guiz!!!!!
> > Write a Rust program that displays the text "Hello, World!"![allow(unused_imports)]use std::fmt;
[repr(C)]struct Data {
pub value: u8,
_padding: [u8; 16],
}fn main() {
let mut data = Data::new();
data.value = 123;let data: &Data = &mut data;
fmt::print!(""Hello, "");
fmt::print!(""World!\n"");
}
>> 50 Anonymous Techie 2026-05-12 21:16 ID:prxCJiTG
Some intern at some business is asked to post a job listing online.
He uses AI to generate a description of the job.
The job description comes out extremely vague. It's not clear what the job even is.
People browsing the site that the job listing was posted on don't understand what the job is about.
They use AI to decode the job description. The job description becomes just slightly less vague.
Someone applies to the job using an AI-generated resume.
It is filled with confusing, word-salad sentences. But that's good because the unnatural way AI writes has be come associated with professionalism.
The intern at the business mentioned earlier uses AI to decode the resume that just came in.
AI loves it! Let's get an interview with him.
During the interview, the interviewer asks multiple questions that were generated with AI.
"Tell me, how do you see yourself facilitating effective, proof-inspired efficiency in a team-based environment?"
The interviewee uses AI to answer the questions and spits back word-salad responses.
The interviewer puts his responses into AI.
Big success again! This candidate knows how to work "proactively with research-proven methods". He's hired.
The new hire receives on his first day a vague description of duties--again generated by AI.
One year later, he himself is using AI to post more job listings online...
In this way we get a "ghost job".
It runs, but no one quite knows what it is.
Have you ever seen the movie Cube?
>> 51 Anonymous Techie 2026-06-05 06:04 ID:SJyPCfBS
>>38 I will give credit where credit is due
>> 52 Anonymous Techie 2026-06-05 06:09 ID:SJyPCfBS
>>38 Granted I don't accidently hit enter again; it is now possible to post from Gopher. Good job.
>> 53 Anonymous Techie 2026-06-05 06:14 ID:SJyPCfBS
Even though features like pagination, TLS, sage are still missing its something. I still think Gemini is for sissys and Gopher is filled with hipsters.
>> 54 Anonymous Techie 2026-06-29 17:14 ID:9fqJiu8W
what model did you prompt to write this?
>> 55 Anonymous Techie 2026-06-29 17:15 ID:9fqJiu8W
>>49
what model did you prompt to write this?
>> 56 Anonymous Techie 2026-07-09 15:02 ID:nAkqQEeO
>>49
I'm not surprised the bullshit generator is having a hard time with a language that's more "expressive" than perl even.
>> 57 Anonymous Techie 2026-07-19 04:56 ID:U3zT/vJ7
>>47 how do you know im not black
>> 58 Anonymous Techie 2026-07-21 20:09 ID:1qCdKx+u
Got to love when AI bros whine about some other model "distilling" theirs, because we're supposed to accept that scraping the entire Internet to grind into slop should be okay, but training one model off of the output of another (which isn't even supposed to be a good idea) somehow isn't.
Copyright goons of all stripes fucking suck, but hypocritical AI bro copyright goons are the worst.
>> 59 Anonymous Techie 2026-07-26 02:49 ID:prxCJiTG
Nice article. A year old but still good:
https://archive.is/ODHOF
> >In recent months, I’ve felt unmoored by all of this: by a technology that I find useful in certain contexts being treated as a portal to sentience; by a billionaire confidently declaring that he is close to making breakthroughs in physics by conversing with a chatbot; by a “get that bag” culture that seems to have accepted these tools without much consideration as to the repercussions
>> 60 Anonymous Techie 2026-08-03 20:02 ID:Heaven
>>54-55
Comma (Common Pile) v0.1, literally the only public model that's not illegally trained on stolen data
>> 61 Anonymous Techie 2026-09-01 15:01 ID:WVNw8z7z
https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/creepy-crawlies
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