I'm struggling to identify what it is about this nostalgia that infuriates me so deeply. Perhaps it's just fascinating to me that so many people find it fun to be in stupid situations. I find it barbaric and twisted. More productively, I wonder how people would respond to this after having grown up with the boundary of their 30s knowledge horizon roughly equivalent to that of humanity's experts 10yr prior. Anyone bor…
I find it barbaric and twisted.
Sounds kind of like a high horse. By this line of thought, are you not saying people of fifteen years ago were barbaric? Have we really become so enlightened and superior since then?
I'm struggling to identify what it is about this nostalgia that infuriates me so deeply. Perhaps it's just fascinating to me that so many people find it fun to be in stupid situations. I find it barbaric and twisted. More productively, I wonder how people would respond to this after having grown up with the boundary of their 30s knowledge horizon roughly equivalent to that of humanity's experts 10yr prior. Anyone bor…
For me it's the assumption that if since a particular circumstance triggered an interesting social interaction, that the lack of that circumstance would mean that no interesting social interaction would occur. At the base, it's the same hollow critique of millennials: because they do things differently (e.g. interact socially online as well as in person) they must be missing out on all the great things that the Boome…
This looks to be a Gen X story. I am not sure what the Boomers have to do with this?
I'm struggling to identify what it is about this nostalgia that infuriates me so deeply. Perhaps it's just fascinating to me that so many people find it fun to be in stupid situations. I find it barbaric and twisted. More productively, I wonder how people would respond to this after having grown up with the boundary of their 30s knowledge horizon roughly equivalent to that of humanity's experts 10yr prior. Anyone bor…
> Anyone born since ~2000 perhaps is in this situation. Will they have eliminated this kind of "fun" "bullshit" from their behavior completely?
They find different ways of having fun and bullshitting.
Actually Google (and Wikipedia et al) enabled an even more evolved form of bullshit. The kind were people with shallow (or none) knowledge of a topic check some reference source they half understand and try to pass of as experts in the subject matter... At least with reference books you had to own them in the first place and get into the trouble to locate a reference in their index etc. Now any bozo can check an obsc…
While looking at wiki isn't going to make you an expert, basing your opinion on a wiki article isn't exactly the worst thing in the world to do.
"Where can I find a women's shelter?" "Is it normal to be attracted to other boys?" "Can I claim food stamps?" "Is my employer allowed to deduct breakages from my pay?" "How much is cassava selling for in Lagos?" Knowledge changes lives. As technologists, we are at the forefront of a revolution that has the potential to banish ignorance forever, for everyone. We have a basic moral duty to honour that responsibility,…
I don't think the thesis of the article was that instant access to information is bad for society.
I think the article was more a reflection on how radically things have changed, and that, even if things are generally much better now, there still were unexpected positives to simpler times.
I'm struggling to identify what it is about this nostalgia that infuriates me so deeply. Perhaps it's just fascinating to me that so many people find it fun to be in stupid situations. I find it barbaric and twisted. More productively, I wonder how people would respond to this after having grown up with the boundary of their 30s knowledge horizon roughly equivalent to that of humanity's experts 10yr prior. Anyone bor…
I find it barbaric and twisted. Sounds kind of like a high horse. By this line of thought, are you not saying people of fifteen years ago were barbaric? Have we really become so enlightened and superior since then?
More that we've undergone a pretty significant state change in the past couple decades, and much of how we understand the world now has dependencies on full information access; inflicting variable negative reinforcement on those thought patterns by removing that dependency restricts the smooth transition to a more inclusive and durable self.
I have a rule I always follow, and have convinced many friends of too -- no Googling/Wikipedia-ing in social settings. If nobody knows something (trivia-like), it's almost always a lot more fun to continue not knowing. Sure, look it up when you get home. But a little group self-discipline goes far in keeping the fine art of bullshitting alive. (And it's not just the answer that kills the conversation, but also the fa…
Just back from a family meeting. When someone didn't know some trivia fact, most of the time another one looked it up while te conversation continued. When the right answer was found on Google or Wikipedia, that was often a starting point to go more in depth and explore the topic even further. Or it was the start for an new conversation about other topics. To me, that was more fun and satisfying than just waisting time and having to hear endless bullshit around minor unverified facts.
Right, like "Vaccines cause autism" and "Homeopathy is something you should say without laughing". Also hilarious. There's a dark side to bullshit. There's a side which creates endless pain for no good reason, because things 'sound good' or are 'too good to check' and nobody likes a party-pooper, do they? Especially when the party-pooper is pointing out how this little piece of bullshit could kill someone. No. Go alo…
Yet "vaccines cause autism" has spread like a virus over the Internet. I had never heard about it before the recent (ten years) memification. It's not like the recipients google it and go "no it doesn't" because it you really do you might as well go mad about the insane "facts" put forth. Google and the web in general probably spread as much bullshit as it kills. It's complicated.
On those kind of issues, the google results are a bit muddled. You'll get the results saying "No, of course vaccines don't cause autism", alongside a bunch of BS articles saying "It totally does, because I had my kid vaccinated once, and he's autistic!". Unless you actually search through the sources and figure out which is more credible, it's hard to get a straight yes or no answer.