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The internet is already over (2022)

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Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#221

Post by account42 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #31
peterleiser wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nobody makes Monty Python or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references anymore. I had a boss 15 years ago who had watched all things Star Trek, just like me; Knew all the things. But at one point he mentioned he wasn't really a fan, it was just "required reading, part of the literature". This is an interesting one. There used to be certain things that all nerds knew, and could talk about, use as analogies a…

Back in the day of The Internet of 1994 , HHGTTG was only 15 years old. But today, HHGTTG is very nearly 45 years old. For how many decades should references to novel fiction persist, do you suppose?

I think you are missing the point. It's not that interest in these things is what is essential to the old internet but that a shared interest and shared language is - and this includes as gp has pointed out metaphors and imagery.

But to your question, Tolkien, Asimov, Lovecraft, et al. are still a heavy influence on modern Fantasy, Sci-Fi and Horror. Why do you think a mere 45 years should mean that something is no longer referenced?

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#222

Post by nooormal »

JohnFen wrote: post #202
imiric wrote: post #151

This is an overly wordy article, that I think misses the mark. The internet _as the Western world knows it today_ will not be the same in a few decades. But then again, it's hardly the same today as it was 30 years ago either. A few things affect this: - Advertising. It's everywhere and corrupts every form of media. Content is made to appease advertisers, and web services are built to extract data from users. The int…

> The internet will survive. It will just be very different. The internet will continue to exist, certainly. However, it does become a more hostile and unpleasant place over time. Because of that, it's much less useful to me than it used to be and that trend doesn't appear to be changing.

More hostile as in... you open some random webpage, you get 3 popup windows with porn ads playing at full volume? And when you close them, infinitely more open, like a hydra, until it locks up and you have to reboot.

Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word.

This was my internet experience in 1999. I think the derangement has been a constant over time.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#223

Post by drdeca »

itishappy wrote: post #205
account42 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is probably an even worse “platitude”. Most people go with the flow so if you’re immersed in a lot of wokism, you will probably end up being woke eventually. Then it just spreads, especially if you couple the wokism with humor. Wokism is tribalism and seems naturally engrained so it’s something you have to actively resist. Funny how well a simple word replacement can work.

> This is probably an even worse “platitude”. Most people go with the flow so if you’re immersed in a lot of NASCAR, you will probably end up being A NASCAR FAN eventually. Then it just spreads, especially if you couple the NASCAR with humor. NASCAR is tribalism and seems naturally engrained so it’s something you have to actively resist. > This is probably an even worse “platitude”. Most people go with the flow so if…

If you remove the last sentence of each of these, I think they seem somewhat true.

Personal interest plays a role of course. To varying degrees?

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#224

Post by breuleux »

Galatians4_16 wrote: post #156
imiric wrote: post #151

This is an overly wordy article, that I think misses the mark. The internet _as the Western world knows it today_ will not be the same in a few decades. But then again, it's hardly the same today as it was 30 years ago either. A few things affect this: - Advertising. It's everywhere and corrupts every form of media. Content is made to appease advertisers, and web services are built to extract data from users. The int…

> The idea that connecting the world will make it a better place and undo the millennia of tribalism is a romanticized platitude of the 1990s. This only applies in media that allows censorship, and controls visibility. If it doesn't, the bigots are easy to identify and weed themselves out. If it foes, the bigots can form bubbles, and foster tribalism.

Fully open and uncensored platforms do not force bigots into bubbles, but they do not prevent them from creating them willingly. If it serves the bigots' interests to form bubbles in order to foster tribalism, then they will.

Basically, if there exists a strategy for an ideology to spread under censorship, it is hard to believe that removing restrictions would make it any less effective. Bigots won't out themselves and discredit themselves on an open platform just because they can, they are not idiots.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#225

Post by JohnFen »

nooormal wrote: post #222
JohnFen wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The internet will survive. It will just be very different. The internet will continue to exist, certainly. However, it does become a more hostile and unpleasant place over time. Because of that, it's much less useful to me than it used to be and that trend doesn't appear to be changing.

More hostile as in... you open some random webpage, you get 3 popup windows with porn ads playing at full volume? And when you close them, infinitely more open, like a hydra, until it locks up and you have to reboot. Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word. This was my interne…

It's true that the internet was already well down that road in 1999, but it has become much worse since then. I'm really comparing it to internet earlier than that. It was about 2000 when I started considering the internet as effectively dead in terms of being able to provide the value I used to get from it.

But "more hostile" includes not only advertising and tone, but spying, overtly hostile actors such as crackers and other criminals and so forth.

> Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you

I don't count this as part of the general degradation of the internet, though. That's more about the online gaming community. Things were that way before the internet was the most common method of online gaming.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#226

Post by itishappy »

drdeca wrote: post #223
itishappy wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is probably an even worse “platitude”. Most people go with the flow so if you’re immersed in a lot of NASCAR, you will probably end up being A NASCAR FAN eventually. Then it just spreads, especially if you couple the NASCAR with humor. NASCAR is tribalism and seems naturally engrained so it’s something you have to actively resist. > This is probably an even worse “platitude”. Most people go with the flow so if…

If you remove the last sentence of each of these, I think they seem somewhat true. Personal interest plays a role of course. To varying degrees?

I'd be more surprised if they didn't! I'd argue that's just how culture works. The counter-examples are probably a lot more interesting.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#227

Post by kjkjadksj »

_heimdall wrote: post #211
lapphi wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The mob” being the voting citizens of a free and open democratic society, of course. Interesting point of view/source of internal tension there.

Yeah for sure. Revolutions are messy and its easy to lose sight of that when you're on the winning side. I'm personally very glad to not live under a imperial monarchy, but I do wish the founders could have kept their concerns over voters out of the way. There are historical examples of why trusting the mob goes poorly, but keeping that on the table fundamentally ruins the point of a democratic society. Its all well…

I don’t think the founding fathers much less the ancient greek democrats anticipated the level of idiocy in the public discourse we are dealing with today. A huge swath of the country has been manipulated by propaganda to the point of not believing in reality at all. It’s a dangerous position we find ourselves in today.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#228

Post by hellojesus »

nooormal wrote: post #222
JohnFen wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The internet will survive. It will just be very different. The internet will continue to exist, certainly. However, it does become a more hostile and unpleasant place over time. Because of that, it's much less useful to me than it used to be and that trend doesn't appear to be changing.

More hostile as in... you open some random webpage, you get 3 popup windows with porn ads playing at full volume? And when you close them, infinitely more open, like a hydra, until it locks up and you have to reboot. Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word. This was my interne…

> Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word.

I do have a strange nostalgia about those days. It was a culture that didn't exist in meatspace, and there was something fun about that.

However, when covid hit and my wife and I started playing games, I quickly learned my wife severely disapproves of typing "kys" to others in games, and now I try to only say positive things. It is a better experience, but then again I'm now a parent and hoping to spare my children from interacting with college me.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#229

Post by woooooo »

imiric wrote: post #151

This is an overly wordy article, that I think misses the mark. The internet _as the Western world knows it today_ will not be the same in a few decades. But then again, it's hardly the same today as it was 30 years ago either. A few things affect this: - Advertising. It's everywhere and corrupts every form of media. Content is made to appease advertisers, and web services are built to extract data from users. The int…

> romanticized platitude of the 90s.

I'm staying in romantic land, it beats the heck out of the government moderating which information I see for my own good.

Re: The internet is already over (2022)

#230

Post by shrimp_emoji »

hellojesus wrote: post #228
nooormal wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More hostile as in... you open some random webpage, you get 3 popup windows with porn ads playing at full volume? And when you close them, infinitely more open, like a hydra, until it locks up and you have to reboot. Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word. This was my interne…

> Or you drop into a public game of CS, and a dozen teens start screaming at you over low bitrate compressed audio streams, to logoff and kill yourself because you sound like an n-word. I do have a strange nostalgia about those days. It was a culture that didn't exist in meatspace, and there was something fun about that. However, when covid hit and my wife and I started playing games, I quickly learned my wife severe…

It's what the Internet is for -- a place where things don't matter and where you could go to blow off steam. The Dionysian night to real life's Apollonian day.

Needing to be polite in every aspect of our lives because of this stupid demand to collapse down to the lowest common denominator of humor or mental fortitude is ruining the Internet and making the world and media less fun. It's also Orwellian. There's people who want to dox you and make sure you get fired or never get hired for being mean in a CoD lobby. That's psychotic. Those people are mentally ill, and we've let them run the show and tell us what to do. And of course, it's symbiotic with corporations and advertisers who want things as anodyne and rated E as possible since that makes the most $$$ (if only we can collectively accept more mediocre art and experiences as we forget what better ones we had).

I'm glad the pendulum seems to be swinging back as people are figuring out that having had less for fun for the last 10 years accomplished absolutely nothing worth caring about.

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