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Was everyone stupid back then?

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Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#71

Post by fullshark »

tgv wrote: post #59
fullshark wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was extreme optimism, and (pretty much) everyone thought the internet was going to solve the particular problems they cared/obsessed over. Most commonly: now everyone is going to agree with me and governments will do what I want them to do. But also generally there was a belief that everyone was going to be smarter, more capable and productive and society would accelerate advancement dramatically.

I wouldn't say everyone, but there was a vocal, idealistic minority that had high hopes, that's true. > But also generally there was a belief that everyone was going to be smarter That still gets regurgitated: "Gen Z -> technology -> smarter." Utter bollocks, of course.

We aren't smarter for sure but we're less ignorant i'd say, if ignorance = unawareness of random facts (e.g. the weather, how old some actor is, if a store is open) now that we have devices capable of retrieving those facts at any time in our pockets. What to do with those facts, what facts actually matter, and what do they actually mean in the context of solving problems? Who knows really...

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#72

Post by rfrey »

We were naive idealists, but not for the reason the comic says. We thought a lot of societal problems had their roots in centralized control of information by government and big media companies. Democratizing communications would lead to good outcomes for the oppressed. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" and all that.

In some ways, that was true. Police treatment of black people in some parts of the US, for example, is incontrovertible now whereas in the 90s most people simply wouldn't believe it.

We weren't wrong about the sunlight, but we were wrong about what it would do - what the human reaction would be to the lights being turned on.

Rousseau has been in the ring with Hobbes, and Rousseau lost.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#73

Post by unconed »

Syonyk wrote: post #57
unconed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> and it was mainly smartphones that enabled that, because they let you take the internet outdoors. I'm not sure it was "taking the internet outdoors" that made the difference - we could do that before, I certainly did with laptops. The key difference with smartphones, IMO, was the conversion of the internet from a "pull" technology (I had to choose to go to a website) to a "push" technology (that website/service can…

Think about why people wanted push in the first place: because the internet was now always-on instead of something you checked or surfed periodically. It has everything to do with carrying it in your pocket.

Personally I don't let apps interrupt me and I keep my phone fully muted by default.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#74

Post by bilbo0s »

lob_it wrote: post #39
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…

Social problems == culture divide It makes it funny when illiterates try to culture clump :)

Social problems are not only culture problems. They are also economic. They are mental health problems. They are education problems. They are industrial (logistical and infrastructural). And so on and so forth.

All things that would be problems even where you have only one culture. For instance, ask the average Japanese about Japan's social problems, from mental health up to and including the nation dying.

I think what you mean is that the cultural dimension is the only dimension you care about. Which is a valid view, but on the internet it won't be the only view. (Which kind of speaks to the issue the subject comic of this post was talking about.)

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#75

Post by autotune »

thedorkknight wrote: post #13
autotune wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics were not mentioned, in any way, yet you are trying to inject politics into it. What is wrong with you?

This website is weird. Anecdotally I've noticed it tends to generally be more level-headed and non toxic than other websites I go on (mainly reddit...) yet at the same time the mods seem to be pretty polarized

I left reddit about a month ago after having been on there for years, substituting in healthier habits like running, listening to music, and meditation when I need a break, and have been much happier as a result. HN is pretty good like 75 percent of the time but yeah there are occasionally hiccups like the comment from OP that make it through.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#77

Post by unconed »

chris_wot wrote: post #61
unconed wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

That “drug addict” was murdered. LGB rights aren’t being curtailed by transgenderism, but I’d argue that if a large part of your identity is wrapped up around ideas of gender, then you might not want the “T” part of LGBT to gain any traction.

He was also hysterically complaining way before anyone leaned on him.

The problem with transgenderism today is that it actually is extremely regressive to say that just because you don't conform to the male or female stereotype, you therefor are transgender and should transition.

It is the exact opposite of what gay acceptance strived for.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#78

Post by jasmer »

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…

We mostly assumed things would be better because we assumed the net would be 'information'.

The military, academia, government, business are 'conscientious' culture who assume people act rationally.

But go to the drug store and look at the magazines: games, sports, sex, porn, gossip, celebrities, fashion, vacations etc..

And that's the 'above bar' stuff - now you have to add in all the things people are interested in that's not 'regulated' by social mores of 'what can be in a magazine'.

The internet is a 'giant ball of noise' that are are thoughts, and it's mostly not about knowledge, civility etc.

Even as people have access to 'information' they don't want to access it, often they prefer to live in a bubble of someone telling them what they want to hear.

So the web is a bit like 'everyone's voices being raised very loudly, some more than others' and that's that.

There is 'some' information in there, but even then it's still hard to parse through the noise. Even in ultra conscientious culture we debate about what reality is.

Take heart: I really do believe that 2022 might be the start of a 'post noise' era. Every one of us realizes that we've been duping ourselves a bit. We all know Instagram and LinkedIn are a bit vapid, Facebook is a bit rubbish, TikTok is meaningless, Cable News is into flame wars. We continue to use them for their nominal value but I really believe we are bit sick of it. Even the 'ultra digital native' Gen Y are tuning out a bit.

It's here to stay obviously but I think we are developing a new relationship with it.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#79

Post by torstenvl »

kyleyeats wrote: post #50
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

Agreed. The printing press is probably the second-most socially transformative development in the history of human kind, right after fire.

Tribalism and feudalism reigned for a millennium from either the death of Theodosius or Odoacer deposing the last emperor, depending on how you measure it. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century led to an explosion of communication and education.

Perhaps most importantly, it arrived at a time when the Medici-funded artistic and humanist influences were at their peak, allowing those ideas to spread until they led to the Renaissance.

The idea that a new, cheap, fast global network of communication (the Internet) at the same time as a major global cultural moment (the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War) could lead to a flourishing of democracy, humanism, and reason... was not unprecedented. And it's not entirely clear that it failed, either.

Re: Was everyone stupid back then?

#80

Post by BlueTemplar »

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…

Moore's Law was already known about. Techno-optimists especially expected something even more dramatic. I have a cybernetics encyclopedia for childrens written in the 80's (or was it late 70's ?) that discusses neural networks in one chapter, and in another Moore's Law including some scifi projections of the expected computer power (IIRC fairly accurately) and new computer types like optical/photonic and organic computers (IIRC too optimistic, though they were careful to not give a precise timetable).

For the 90's look up terms like "the global village" and also maybe Charles Stross' Accelerando for a differently optimistic viewpoint :

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera...

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