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Was everyone stupid back then?

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Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#41

Post by jonathanlydall »

what_the_h321 wrote: post #25
jfengel wrote: post #16

“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.” Douglas Adams thought he was joking.

Do you have an example of a bloodier war than the World War 1 and 2?

In case you’re being serious, Douglas Adams was an author of comedic fiction and the babel fish is from his Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book and allowed different races from different planets to communicate with each other.

Trying to compare real world history with fictional possibilities is non-sensical.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#42

Post by imnotjames »

what_the_h321 wrote: post #25
jfengel wrote: post #16

“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.” Douglas Adams thought he was joking.

Do you have an example of a bloodier war than the World War 1 and 2?

Well, there was the time that the Krikkit decided to wage war on the entire universe for 2000 years - I believe the estimate was about two grillion casualties.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#43

Post by pfortuny »

trudler wrote: post #35

Just because that there ARE anonymous people posting stupid shit, doesn't mean all people do that when anonymous. In fact, show me a nice invention that wasn't made by a freedom loving person. No bigger freedom than anonymity! We need it. How can you express yourself without being silenced right from the start without it? How can you spread disruptive ideas when people instanly have a name to point fingers to? An ide…

You might want to revise this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:German_inventions_o...

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#44

Post by brk »

shubhamjain wrote: post #6

Did people really think that Internet was going to solve all problems or is that revisionist history by back-in-our-day millenials? Even for a techno-optimist, it would've been hard to forsee the sheer penetration. Yes, the euphoria was there from the beginning. But, there's a difference between saying "it's going to be huge" and imagining an instantly accessible network available in the hands of 60% of the world fro…

There was a good amount of talk about "perfect information economics", which before the internet had only been a crazy idea, but then suddenly seemed like something within grasp.

I'm not sure if there was ever a real belief that the internet was going to cure hunger and bring world peace, but I think most of the opinion in the late 90's internet explosion is that it would make people more informed and understanding overall.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#45

Post by tjr225 »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #26
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

Did people really think that Internet was going to solve all problems or is that revisionist history by back-in-our-day millenials? Even for a techno-optimist, it would've been hard to forsee the sheer penetration. Yes, the euphoria was there from the beginning. But, there's a difference between saying "it's going to be huge" and imagining an instantly accessible network available in the hands of 60% of the world fro…

The talk on IRC in the 90’s was “imagine a war going on with the internet and civilians on both sides could talk to each other, why would anyone fight?”

It is really bizarre the way that the aggregate/news/post/tweet + comment section + upvote/downvote format that is pervasive on the current internet creates an incentive for people not to talk to each other, but to just throw their ideas at the wall hoping to get points from people that agree with them or even points from bots.

Forums and chat rooms were nice because the communities were small and directed. People were jerks for sure but they weren’t getting points. Even among the jerks the communities were localized enough that the jerks that cared enough to stick around weren’t mere trolls.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#46

Post by endymi0n »

Looking back, I guess the main point of why the early internet was so special wasn‘t because of cool new communications technology, but because of the self selection. In order to use BBSes or the early Internet, by definition you had to be above average curious, smart, rich, young (late night dialup tarrifs) and/or based in academia, as well as having a volunteering/cooperating mindset.

We just managed to keep the others out for a miraculous decade by keeping entry barriers hard, costly and complex. Is that an ableist viewpoint? No clue, but it was a bliss for sure.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#47

Post by unconed »

lotu wrote: post #18

The unsaid implication of this comic is that getting rid of the internet would make society better. It would NOT. The ability to have rapid peer to peer communication with anyone on the planet is a good thing. BLM, LGBT rights, disability rights are causes that have thrived thanks to the Internet. The Internet did not cause fascism and any suggestion that it does ignored all of the 20th century.

No post body was provided.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#48

Post by atmavatar »

shubhamjain wrote: post #6

Did people really think that Internet was going to solve all problems or is that revisionist history by back-in-our-day millenials? Even for a techno-optimist, it would've been hard to forsee the sheer penetration. Yes, the euphoria was there from the beginning. But, there's a difference between saying "it's going to be huge" and imagining an instantly accessible network available in the hands of 60% of the world fro…

Before China soundly disproved it with their great firewall, one of the early assumptions about the internet was that it would naturally route around censorship.

This would allow for people in less free societies to read about and interact with people in more democratic societies, eventually causing them to demand their own countries become more democratic. This was also supposed to end war, since democratic countries don't generally war with one another.

It was a blissful naiveté.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#49

Post by EvanAnderson »

ktwbc wrote: post #4

This actually reminds me of a quote in the book The Victorian Internet about the development of the telegraph. Part of the push of the first undersea cable to connect the US and European countries was a belief that with more instant communication there would be no misunderstandings and therefore no more wars. So this belief has been going on a long time.

For anybody not familiar with this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#50

Post by kyleyeats »

YazIAm wrote: post #17

"You thought that an information transfer protocol would solve social problems?" I recognize that this is just a comic strip, but this is a pretty reductionist point. The idea that giving people access to more knowledge about the world and about other perspectives would be a big help in addressing social problems isn't crazy. A major problem, IMO, is that the feeds we use to navigate this sea of information became op…

Imagine saying this about writing, or the printing press. It's not just reductionist but cynical.

Optimizing for outrage is a mass communication problem, not an internet problem, and unfolds roughly the same in every new medium from town criers on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

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