Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#101

Post by spiderjerusalem » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #85

Ygg2 wrote: post #12

I'm reminded of the Douglas Adams' quote from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Very insightful. No, I'm not being sarcastic. The internet has in general been great for literally billions of people, but it's not an unalloyed good. It has a dark side, which Adams foresaw. Some people need to be kept isolated. It's great that people who suffer from some rare condition can find and support each other. It's not so great that Nazis can. I don't know the solution. I'm not sure anyone does, or even tha…

The darker phenomenon is that there seem to be a lot more Nazis (sympathizers at least) than one would deem normal.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#102

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #41

Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware, surveillance etc. but with most good things, comes a few bad things. Overall though, Internet has been tremendous in lifting so many people out of poverty AND creating jobs that otherwise people could not dream of before the internet. I can work for anyone ov…

I don't understand your theory of how the internet has "lifted so many people out of poverty".

I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#103

Post by adim86 » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

I find this post quite disappointing. I don't mean to come off harsh but it is quite naive and utopian and I cannot take the call to arms seriously. Saying the internet went wrong is like saying the invention of cars went wrong cause we still have car accidents. For every powerful force in the world, it will be a source of good and bad things. The internet has changed the world, increased communication, allowed people in New York to learn and communicate with people in Egypt. Share stories, cultures, solve problems. A person in Nigeria can teach themselves Hindu, just from pure curiosity and no budget. No publisher needs to approve a book to be published or where it will be sold. We can make phone calls for free at any point in the day. We have Wikipedia, which for free provides more information than any human can process in their lifetime. For everyone who has access to the internet, the bulk of the world knowledge has been democratized and made accessible and something went wrong? Do terrorists use the internet? sure! Has consumerism hijacked parts of the internet? Sure! but these things are only symptoms of how powerful this tool is. Should we try to control and fix these problems of course! But for someone who created something so powerful, I am a bit disappointed at the negative tone of this post on the 50th anniversary of the first message.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#104

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #102

codegeek wrote: post #41

Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware, surveillance etc. but with most good things, comes a few bad things. Overall though, Internet has been tremendous in lifting so many people out of poverty AND creating jobs that otherwise people could not dream of before the internet. I can work for anyone ov…

I don't understand your theory of how the internet has "lifted so many people out of poverty". I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.

Created jobs, increased global trade, allowed for people to teach themselves, new types of products available, higher awareness about what is going on around you, technology share, open source, free products etc.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#105

Post by zpallin » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #63

workthrowaway wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

something definitely went wrong, imo. when that pizzahut website link was posted a few days ago, i felt nostalgic about old web pages. most of them were about favorite topics, shows, hobbies and links! friends (the show) had thousands of fan made websites. websites linked to other websites with similar interest. now it's all about "us" and "me". we don't even link to other websites anymore. blog rolls and guestbooks…

I always find it interesting that different people view the golden age of the internet as happening at a different time. Some say the 2000s. For me it was the late 90s. For others, "eternal september" marked the end of the golden age - 1993. And I'm sure the current crop of children will say it was the 2010s. I think the only common thread here is that the internet changes. And people don't like change. What is new i…

Maybe it was all part of the golden age and people just remember the specific year that they started using it? 20 years of a free internet for the masses was not a very long period of time.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#106

Post by Grumbledour » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

I wonder if it is the internet that has changed or the world around it. No doubt this is hard to entangle, because in the last decades one begat the other.

Sure, today large corporations rule the net and build silos and politicians try to silence free discourse, often at the formers behest, but this is also happening outside of the net and especially we, the technical elite who create software for the net seem to have shifted from "Here is my page about stuff I like" to "Here is my portfolio which I hope to monetize somehow soon".

So has capitalism just eaten the net, or is it eating the world? But at the same time, isn't it up to us, to change the net to what we want it to be? Sure, our parents will stay on Facebook, but that doesn't mean we can not have quirky websites, distributed systems and interlinked webs of discussions and pages on specific topics.

And while one might argue, that the net is now bigger than us and this will change nothing, we have traditionally been the driver for innovation and trends in this space. Facebook and Google are what they are, because we evangelized them for years to all our non techy friends. So could this not happen again over time when we tell people how easy it is to setup your own webpage or why it's a good idea to join a federated service?

I think we need to be the change we want to see.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#107

Post by zpallin » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

yetihehe wrote: post #10

How did it go so wrong - the same way it did go wrong with many other tools - people used them to better themselves at the cost of others. > We could try to push the internet back toward its ethical roots. However, it would be a complex challenge requiring a joint effort by interested parties — which means pretty much everyone. That "everyone" also includes bad actors.

Sounds like what we need is a way to curb the actions of these bad actors.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#108

Post by dudul » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #12

I'm reminded of the Douglas Adams' quote from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

I've always loved this quote since war is so often presented as a failure to communicate :)

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#109

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #81

codegeek wrote: post #41

Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware, surveillance etc. but with most good things, comes a few bad things. Overall though, Internet has been tremendous in lifting so many people out of poverty AND creating jobs that otherwise people could not dream of before the internet. I can work for anyone ov…

If it weren’t for the internet I’d be back home making an average $20,000/year. Instead I’m in SF on an SF salary. Hell, without the internet I wouldn’t even have known it’s possible to get here. Both physically and in mindset. qed

What are the costs of living back home for you?

For instance, $20k/year is a very decent upper-middle class salary in Poland.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#110

Post by mrlala » Tue, Oct 29, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #102

codegeek wrote: post #41

Personally, I think the internet has changed millions if not billions of lives for the better. Yes, it has introduced quite a few bad things like spam, malware, surveillance etc. but with most good things, comes a few bad things. Overall though, Internet has been tremendous in lifting so many people out of poverty AND creating jobs that otherwise people could not dream of before the internet. I can work for anyone ov…

I don't understand your theory of how the internet has "lifted so many people out of poverty". I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.

Well, a homeless person with a smartphone has a hell of a lot better chance of getting a job than they did pre-smartphone, right?

Maybe this can count as more of a smartphone thing an internet thing.. but it's still largely an internet thing that would allow someone in a rough spot to still be able to connect with people online and look/apply for jobs.