Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Miss the Old Internet

misc-stuff.terraaeon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 317 posts

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#151

Post by anon9001 »

ethagnawl wrote: post #117

I generally agree with the author's sentiment regarding "the Old Internet". However, using "voat" and "thank goodness" in the same breath raised a red flag for me about the author and their motives. They mentioned being kicked off raddle.me for posting links to their site (the one that's currently linked to on the top of the HN homepage); maybe that was with good reason and not a result of gatekeeping? For example, f…

Congratulations! Your personal values are presently inline with corporate values.

The world's largest moderators have you in mind when they're removing content. That must be great for you, because your experience is tailored for your personal satisfaction. And if you ever do happen upon something that offends you, you can report it and rest assured that corporate america will take care of it for you.

Now imagine you have a deeply held belief, and suddenly, it's been canceled. Your content has been banned, even though you made some well-received things. What do you do? Where do you go? Maybe you just give up on that belief, replace it with the new corporate belief, and move on.

But some years tick by, and now you find that all of your old beliefs have been canceled. Have you assimilated and given up contact with people that talk about canceled ideas and share canceled content? That's what you should have done. That's why our corporate monoculture is so harmonious. This is a wonderful thing... right?

If you're not ok with that, then maybe you need to get onboard with platforms that allow alternative opinions, because you might need one some day.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#152

Post by Swizec »

nine_k wrote: post #126
ShteiLoups wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between blogs and hobbyist sites though? A defined purpose? monitization? I suppose it would be a hard fight to get google to specifically favour non-adsensed sites.

The intent. A desire to express an opinion vs an attempt to lure you to buy something while telling you banalities about the topic. Forums mostly see the latter as spam and evict.

How about weirdos like me and other infoproduct indies? We intend to express a genuinely valuable opinion in a useful way and try to convince you to consider buying our stuff.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#153

Post by anon9001 »

danharaj wrote: post #149
anon9001 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What those people really need is to have their opinions challenged by outsiders. That used to happen more on the early internet. Keep in mind that they didn't leave Reddit because they wanted to leave. They left and made Voat because they were banned. Now they don't have to interact with people that have dissenting opinions, and they can ban you if you dissent. Reddit is relieved because their users are no longer exp…

Subjecting people to the degrading and hateful ideas that target them for the sake of the well-being of the people spewing it is not an equitable proposition. You can go to voat and debate white supremacists tho.

> Subjecting people to the degrading and hateful ideas that target them for the sake of the well-being of the people spewing it is not an equitable proposition.

Is that really true on the internet? "Subjecting people" makes it sound so extreme. In reality, all you had to do was hide a few subreddits and you'll never see them again. They were already removed from the frontpage well before any casual user would encounter them.

So by "subjecting people", I don't think you honestly mean subjecting the community to those people. I think you mean that you want to shame the service provider into de-platforming them because you disagree with their views.

You weren't going to see their content on reddit anyway, except due to reddit outrage about how that content was ever allowed on their service.

You'd only find a lot of the things that were banned if you knew where to look.

> You can go to voat and debate white supremacists tho.

I didn't interact with them when I was on Reddit, and I don't care to now. But at least they were in a space where they were frequently challenged by people who did feel like debating them. If you don't want to interact with them, you're free to ignore them. That's why I think it's such a small ask and net good to not de-platform unpopular opinions.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#154

Post by noicebrewery »

anon9001 wrote: post #148
ChristianBundy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voat is a breeding ground and gathering place for white supremacists. A small selection of the top posts on Voat right now: - "jew politician calls for war on whites" -> http://magaimg.net/img/9f2p.png - "NFL player's wife accuses Dolphins owner of favoring 'Jew buddies'" -> https://www.timesofisrael.com/nfl-players-wife-accuses-dolph... - "Everything's about race. Every single thing is about race. Remember that it's…

What those people really need is to have their opinions challenged by outsiders. That used to happen more on the early internet. Keep in mind that they didn't leave Reddit because they wanted to leave. They left and made Voat because they were banned. Now they don't have to interact with people that have dissenting opinions, and they can ban you if you dissent. Reddit is relieved because their users are no longer exp…

One of reddit's most common in-jokes is the moderation team on /r/the_donald banning literally anyone who wasn't pro-Trump while allowing white supremacist posts on their subreddit.

So they were doing that anyway.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#155

Post by cortesoft »

hnzix wrote: post #134
ethagnawl wrote: post #117

I generally agree with the author's sentiment regarding "the Old Internet". However, using "voat" and "thank goodness" in the same breath raised a red flag for me about the author and their motives. They mentioned being kicked off raddle.me for posting links to their site (the one that's currently linked to on the top of the HN homepage); maybe that was with good reason and not a result of gatekeeping? For example, f…

Can you please link to the list of Empirically Correct Viewpoints™ so that I can identify and purge myself of thoughtcrimes?

They aren't thought crimes, but they are views that will get you ostracized... and they should.

The rule is fairly simple, and does not require a list; if you believe that someone should have a different set of rules and expectations just because of a characteristic outside or their control, that is not acceptable.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#156

Post by adg29 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #147
shantly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've taken to appending "reddit" to many of my search queries, because flawed though it is, reddit is one of the few places you can read an actual human thought. Same. It's the only place to find the sort of genuine, informed opinion that used to be common on the first page of Google results, on a wide variety of topics, without an awful lot of digging.

I am six months into reddit detox. The amount of time I have back is amazing. Only semi social site I read is this one. I have internet down to BBCNews, NHK, Reuters, HN, a few comics, Ars, next platform, the morning paper, Matt Levine and el reg. I am much happier :)

Curious but why do you qualify HN as semi social?

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#157

Post by root_axis »

Rose colored glasses. "The old" internet still exists, it's only that there are many orders of magnitude more content available online today than in the old era. The idea that corporate dominance and filtering is hiding content is false, in fact, the opposite is true, today's search engines are better than ever before at finding whatever you're looking for, what has changed is that search habits have become much more directed towards specific tasks rather than used for leisurely "browsing" the web.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#158

Post by PhasmaFelis »

verylittlemeat wrote: post #150
tenpies wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4chan is outright fantastic in some aspects. /g/ is actually quite useful and friendly, especially the DPT (Daily Programming Thread), more-so if you're a beginner. /trv/ (travel) is just good and perfectly slow where you won't feel pressure to keep up with a thread because it will still be there tomorrow. /fit/ has good information and really encapsulates what happens when the internet meets bro-gym culture. Compare…

Yeah 4chan is great but it differs from reddit in a fundamental way. You can have a normal thread where someone will casually drop the N word or other slur and it will just sit there, maybe not even acknowledged but also not downvoted or deleted. That alone is enough to turn people off immediately. They need that sense of retributive justice for a wrong they see in the universe. You're right that reddit can be just a…

> You can have a normal thread where someone will casually drop the N word or other slur and it will just sit there, maybe not even acknowledged but also not downvoted or deleted. That alone is enough to turn people off immediately. They need that sense of retributive justice for a wrong they see in the universe.

Choosing not to hang out with people who casually use the N-word makes me vindictive?

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#159

Post by myrandomcomment »

adg29 wrote: post #156
myrandomcomment wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am six months into reddit detox. The amount of time I have back is amazing. Only semi social site I read is this one. I have internet down to BBCNews, NHK, Reuters, HN, a few comics, Ars, next platform, the morning paper, Matt Levine and el reg. I am much happier :)

Curious but why do you qualify HN as semi social?

Ah, well I guess semi is the wrong word here? I guess I mean HN has a group of people in general that have a shared background. I would guess that a large % of people on HN have some sort of STEM background, which doesn’t match to the reddit community. I do not see many people on /r/the_donald with a STEM background arguing against climate change.

Re: I Miss the Old Internet

#160

Post by PhasmaFelis »

notJim wrote: post #5

I generally agree. I've taken to appending "reddit" to many of my search queries, because flawed though it is, reddit is one of the few places you can read an actual human thought. It feels like nearly all content on the internet is some de-personalized corporate "content marketing" blog at this point. Just give us your email address and we'll send you a PDF (and a drip marketing campaign.) I think the old internet w…

You may be interested in https://millionshort.com, a search engine that lets you filter out results from the top 100 to 1,000,000 (your choice) sites. Depending on the search and the number you pick, it'll give you lots of personal websites and small forums.

I also just found https://boardreader.com, which searches forums exclusively.

Post reply on HN