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Being Raised by the Internet

jimmyhmiller.github.io

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Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#201

Post by ZeWaka »

rescbr wrote: post #180
AlienRobot wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from the Internet :-) I think the problem is that there is a huge number of people now whose only contact with the Internet has been social media. For them, that is where the Internet begins and where it ends. They'll use Reddit and not call it a "website" but an "app," because they have "installed" Reddit on their smartphones. It doesn't help that most online forums have become subreddits, and that Google will s…

I’m also from the Internet :) I miss that cozy weird familiar and insane place. OTOH, 20 years ago my only concern was school and I had the energy to pull all-nighters. Now I have to pay my bills.

in the modern age of Forums not being as popular, Discord (rip IRC) communities seemingly occupy this space now - they can be quite cozy, and give off a lot of the old vibes

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#202

Post by rightbyte »

xp84 wrote: post #190
ipaddr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were running adsense and Amazon affilates in 2004. I visited many websites who would let you spin a wheel and send you a check if you won. Browsers would pay you to surf. Money was a big factor and you would have to go pre dot.com or the bbs world to find it. Geocities had ads. Punch the monkey was everywhere.

I remember the weird ‘paid to surf’ things. Hilarious what wildly silly business ideas pop up when money is cheap and people are exuberant.

Was that some kind of ad revenue sharing?

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#203

Post by rightbyte »

Loughla wrote: post #149
Aeolun wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, not certain about wait staff. I’m certain that barbers do it everywhere I’ve ever been though.

Historically, in the United States, the barbershop was a meeting place. It was a place you went to talk and relax. It's weird in the modern society of fast cuts and what not. But barbers tend to go into that business because they like talking to people. And you're right, every barber I've ever had has pried into my life. But I've also been more willing to share life experiences with barbers, and listen to their exper…

> But I've also been more willing to share life experiences with barbers, and listen to their experiences than any other profession. Not sure why.

It is like going out for a smoke on a party to talk with some prospect partner.

Having an excuse to talk other than talking makes it easier.

You are not flirting. You are smoking.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#204

Post by yblu »

used to be one of the “sharers,” maintaining a fairly popular blog, writing tutorials on platforms like DZone and CodeProject, answering questions on StackOverflow, and creating open-source projects that collectively amassed millions of downloads.

At one point, I decided to monetize one of my open-source projects by creating a commercial fork. That’s when a group of people, none of whom had contributed to the project in any way, started a witch hunt over a few super trivial lines of code they accused me of “stealing” from contributors. Despite having the full support of all actual contributors, the backlash from these outsiders left me drained and disillusioned. So I stopped sharing my work and contributing to open source altogether—and honestly, I’m happier for it.

To all the Jimmy Millers who genuinely appreciate the goodwill of creators: be aware that there are people who will leech off it or even destroy it.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#205

Post by amatecha »

kragen wrote: post #137
ThinkingGuy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm old and fortunate enough to have gotten on the Internet in 1993, when it was smaller, more communal, and less commercial. As much as we old-timers lament the direction things have gone, there are still corners of the Internet where people still help each other, where people seek to share their knowledge freely, and help other humans, even strangers, without regard to artificial reputational or commercial gain. Yo…

i only lament some things; others have gotten better. there's enormously more free software and better information, and disks are big enough for kiwix to be a thing. consider: wikipedia, openstreetmap, library genesis, sci-hub, the internet archive, bitcoin, stack exchange, tor, debian, termux, f-droid, and lineageos. heck, even firefox is noticeably better than lynx was when i joined the internet! and, as i alluded…

Ah man, thanks, I was trying to remember the name of "Kiwix" for a while now!

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#206

Post by amatecha »

kragen wrote: post #187
ipaddr wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were running adsense and Amazon affilates in 2004. I visited many websites who would let you spin a wheel and send you a check if you won. Browsers would pay you to surf. Money was a big factor and you would have to go pre dot.com or the bbs world to find it. Geocities had ads. Punch the monkey was everywhere.

2004 was yesterday i was on the internet in 01992: before adsense, before monkey punchers, before geocities, before amazon, but not before dot-com, as my references to lynx and the nsf should have told you. money was a big factor but not in the way you are describing

same year for me. I have such fond memories of those few years where you could just scour through university FTPs and websites for hours, finding so much cool (and informative) stuff. It felt like getting a peek into so many worlds I knew nothing about, and it felt limitless (especially as I was a kid at the time). Indeed, the openness and "generosity" of people online in those days set such a good example for me, that I try to "pay forward" in my daily actions and work.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#207

Post by amatecha »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #107
tbrownaw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your self-image includes the structure of the world around you, or the behavior of people other than yourself, you'll run into problems. I enjoy working with computers. I happen to work at a particular company doing computer things. Only one of those is an innate "what makes me, me " thing. Even if computers didn't exist, I'd still probably tend to gravitate towards things that are fun for the same sorts of reason…

And if you hit a physical or health issue that takes that away, or dramatically reduces the amount of time you can spend on it? This isn’t hypothetical; I have worked with people who’ve had to quit this form of work for the following reasons: Carpal tunnel that prevented using keyboard and mouse, brain injury, neck injury that made it impossible to sit at a computer (or desk), long Covid and “brain fog”. I imagine th…

Yeah, this is why I still wear a KN95 mask everywhere. Losing my sharpness or ability to code and work deeply with computers would not only trash my career but utterly shatter a huge piece of my life. I'm acutely aware that one day the depthful involvement in tech (among other things I enjoy) may end, so I absolutely try to make the most of it and mitigate threats to it.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#208

Post by amatecha »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #189
sweeter wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but it happens all of the time. Its immensely painful of an experience. Painters who lose their sight, musicians who damage their fingers, car lovers who get too old to drive... That's just the fragility of life and people deal with it in different ways. Some people overcome it, some don't. I think it's important to recognize that reality and still choose to love those things knowing full well it could…

I’m not suggesting that we should “pull back” from the things we love for fear of the potential pain of losing them. What I am suggesting is that the worth of a person is not in what they can do. Their identity should be more than the things they enjoy or are good at. My grandmother is 100 years old. She has led an incredible life filled with all kinds of achievements. Her passion for reading, learning, languages and…

I've imagined this future, and I did think of one possible workaround that may or may not be feasible: morse code. One of my motives for learning it is, you can "copy" morse code by any of your senses except taste. I've imagined where I may be blind, or deaf, or even both. As long as I have the sense of touch somewhere about my body at the bare minimum, and can move a finger, I could communicate via morse code. I know it sounds kinda stupid, but it's comforting to know I have that "last resort option" in my back pocket.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#209

Post by amatecha »

ghodith wrote: post #200
malfist wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way off in a tangent but that's kinda why I think a UBI won't lead to mass unemployment. So many people self identify with their work that it's almost always the first question when you're getting to know someone.

For the first generation of UBI recipients, sure. I'm more concerned about the people that will grow up having never worked.

By the time I was old enough to work, I had recorded dozens of my own songs and made countless websites for fun. I made computer graphics and learned tons about computers and could fix them for all my friends and family. These were all forms of "work", valuable to others (to varying degrees), and I received zero payment for any of that. People like to do things, particularly things that benefit those they care about. Not everyone is like that, but we don't actually really need everyone to be like that, IMO.

Re: Being Raised by the Internet

#210

Post by amatecha »

synicalx wrote: post #148
yapyap wrote: post #87

cute article, whenever I hear about someone “raised by the internet” I usually think of a negative result but glad to hear this is a positive one

I was fully prepared for a list of image board and ogrish/liveleak related trauma but this was relatively wholesome.

I guess I could say I found ogrish or liveleaks traumatizing but it wasn't the site, it was human beings. I felt I had a responsibility to understand what humanity was capable of, because I only had vanishingly-minor hints of it growing up in a nice conflict-free region of the world. Honestly, being exposed to the stuff on those sites gave me a better understanding of what people might do to each other (or to other life forms). It was rough to see some stuff, but I am actually thankful I was able to access that kind of stuff at that age and learn more about what humans are. I don't know if many people relate to that mindset, but I never once had a sense of "I wish I didn't watch that". Each was a learning experience.
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