"Good ol' days"
Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
21–30 of 157 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#22Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
> iii) The fact that the present is shrill, exhaustively hyped, manipulated and in a sense damaged. Tech is no longer a force for good and we long for the time when this illusion was available. I agree with this sentiment to some extent. Yet, I am struggling to identify if it's "just me getting old" or if there is more to it.
Speaking as someone who started working in the mid 90s, we're definitely well past The Internet's "Golden Hour".
These days we can see first hand just how much societal degeneracy it has helped facilitate. All the latest Culture Wars, malice, scams, cancellations, filter bubbles, misinformation madness etc would not be possible without the Internet.
This easily helps explain the point of looking backwards to when the tech was just just that, tech.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#23It's always been like that I think... I guess the only difference is that I've noticed I'm doing it too now. But I think that's only because I now have a past to be nostalgic about.
Perhaps the same is true of HN / tech communities more generally. Tech as a sector was much smaller a couple of decades ago. And many of us probably only got our first computers in the late 90s early 2000s. I'd argue it was until the 2010s that the internet really become ubiquitous. I'm guessing a large segment of us have only recently been able to talk about past technology in any meaningful way.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#24Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
(i) Do anyone knows where that would be, or you know specific Discord servers? I would very much like to see how younger generation talk about tech, programming, entrepreneurship
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#25Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
I am old but would talk in discord if it had a better search and if it saved archives online so I can find past convos. It’s painful how much really good conversations and tech info gets lost when someone deletes a channel.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#26If you get a chance to read Computer Power and Human Reason by Weizenbaum, now is the time to do it by any means available - especially if curiosity drives your question.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#27Its likely a combination of many factors. i) The demographics of the user base. Maybe "Young Hacker News" happens inside discord or whatever. ii) The fact that the past keeps growing . The body of interesting developments keeps growing and while some stuff is obsolete / nostalgic, other stuff is totally not. In fact revisiting the mindset and vision of past decades is many times very inspiring and educational. iii) T…
> iii) The fact that the present is shrill, exhaustively hyped, manipulated and in a sense damaged. Tech is no longer a force for good and we long for the time when this illusion was available. I agree with this sentiment to some extent. Yet, I am struggling to identify if it's "just me getting old" or if there is more to it.
I think it’s both, but ageing plays a significant role. As I have grown older, I am able to both notice and ignore more things. Knowing more about the state of the world means you just hear more, from less. An article that required 10min read and 3 min looking up definitions now requires 3min skim and I can move on to another one.
This makes the present “more shrill”. Being able to more quickly identify content of value (or lack thereof) means you trawl more easily through large amounts.
Of course, it’s important to remember that we are not infallible and trusting yourself too much with these techniques is an easy way to become disconnected from the real world.
Being younger means more easily being able to narrow your focus, and less easily feel like the world is too loud.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#28Because there is no future.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#29The only certainty in tech, is that there will always be some tool/software package that looks to solve an already established solution with a new approach, only time will tell if it will be successful. Reflecting on the past can shed light on why somethings remain unchanged decades later, and why others have fallen behind. But I think the real answer to your question, is whilst having a coffee/tea/break whatever, it can be nice to read an older article, or a new article on old software, to remind yourself about the "old days" or see how you wold solve a past problem today. It's a bit like classic cars, some people like to buy the car they had or couldn't afford when they were a teenager, equally now as a tech worker (hopefully earning good money) you can indulge and purchase a snes/COM64/Apple 2gs or whatever.
Re: Ask HN: Why are we more and more talking about the past here on HN?
#30Software went from being a new industry to an industry. There's more history to discuss. And now there is a bygone era to view through rose-tinted lenses.