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Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#141

Post by seventhtiger »

kthejoker2 wrote: post #140
seventhtiger wrote: post #120

I think culture used to be more united. There were significant limitations in the channels for producing and consuming culture. Used to be, to get people to read your writing, you had to go through either the effort of printing and distribution, or you had to submit to some editorial selection and review. Then the only channel people had to consume it was to get a physical print of it. Now anyone can write anything a…

To be fair, the monoculture was almost exclusively white, Western, Judeo-Christian approved media. It created a giant tidal wave of conformity on which progress rose, but it drowned out a lot of other voices. Always tradeoffs.

Perhaps where you lived. I experienced this fracturing of culture in a non-white, non-western, non-Christian country. I think it is a global effect.

I agree that the centralization of culture allowed the people in power to suppress diversity and control the cultural narrative. But now there is no longer a cultural narrative at all. It is too fractures to make any holistic sense.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#142

Post by xtiansimon »

behnamoh wrote: post #114
wpietri wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 40s as well, and I'd agree. It reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote: “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably ge…

I agree. However, people like Steve Jobs literally did their best after the above-mentioned 35 years of age. Apple basically introduced so many "new" technologies which "broke the wheel" under Jobs' leadership, and he was way passed 35. Although there are always exceptions like SJ, I agree with the general notion you quoted.

Wow. Strange example. SJ ran a company with thousands of employees.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#143

Post by tptacek »

rootusrootus wrote: post #108
kasey_junk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CD players in cars were extremely common by the mid 90s.

Yeah, I had a factory CD player in my 1994 Mustang GT, and IIRC it was standard starting the year before that.

I had a CD player in my 1994 Nissan Sentra.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#144

Post by idlewords »

tptacek wrote: post #143
rootusrootus wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I had a factory CD player in my 1994 Mustang GT, and IIRC it was standard starting the year before that.

I had a CD player in my 1994 Nissan Sentra.

I insisted on the richer, warmer sound of in-car vinyl.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#146

Post by Aeolun »

dual_basis wrote: post #130
Aeolun wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel fairly safe in the assertion that DOS was simpler than Windows 10.

Simpler for what it does? It's an unfair comparison. You could say that walking is simpler than flying, but that's not true if you're trying to get from New York to Beijing.

That is still true if you are trying to get from New York to Beijing. There is waaaay more chance that something will break in your ability to fly to Beijing than in your ability to walk there.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#147

Post by theamk »

Aeolun wrote: post #88
civility wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except it was a little harder to get a hold of people I certainly don't miss using the yellow pages to find a store or service, or looking on a paper map to find where the street is.

I think I do. The yellow pages never ran out of power, and wasn’t influenced by a spotty internet connection. Same thing applies to paper maps.

Why would you miss them? They are not gone. For some reason, I am still getting a yellow pages book every year (it goes straight to recycle), and there still maps in my car, just in case everyone’s phones die while at the trip.

Are you still getting yellow pages? What do you do with them?

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#148

Post by theamk »

Arete314159 wrote: post #6
CPLX wrote: post #5

Yes. The thing I miss the most is the sense that I, and everyone around me, used to be mentally in the same place they were physically. Obviously people were distracted or preoccupied from time to time, perhaps they had a sick far away relative, say, that dominated their thoughts. But those kind of situations were the exceptions. Now literally every single person you interact with is mentally in the middle of several…

Truth. In the 90's, if you went to a party and sat in a corner reading a book, it was usually....odd. The idea was that you were supposed to at least try to be interacting with others. Some of us were geeks, some of us found social interaction difficult, but since there wasn't a real substitute for it, we had to stick it out and learn how to be with people. And then we got the benefits of being with people. Now there…

> if you went to a party and sat in a corner reading a book, it was usually....odd

Yes, because why would you go to the party for that? I have spent plenty of time in thne 90s skipping the super boring parties.

Re: Ask HN: Do you miss 90s simplicity?

#149

Post by dual_basis »

Aeolun wrote: post #146
dual_basis wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simpler for what it does? It's an unfair comparison. You could say that walking is simpler than flying, but that's not true if you're trying to get from New York to Beijing.

That is still true if you are trying to get from New York to Beijing. There is waaaay more chance that something will break in your ability to fly to Beijing than in your ability to walk there.

What? No, you would drown if you tried to walk there. I'd say that's about as broken as it gets. What are you talking about?
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