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The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

muddy.jprs.me

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Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#231

Post by munificent »

randomNumber7 wrote: post #172
nibbleyou wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have felt the same around me. There is this lack of faith in the institutions now, feeling of distrust. Someone on HN called this the era of shamelessness and I kind of agree to it. The top has gotten shameless and the people at the bottom are trying to scrabble whatever they can to become one of them so that they can escape this hellhole that has been created.

Definitely the fish stinks from the head. I'm also a bit confused about how the people on the top think this will play out. A long time ago there was a french saying "noblesse oblige", or the german pendant "Wohlstand verpflichtet".

> I'm also a bit confused about how the people on the top think this will play out.

I don't know if they are really capable of thinking of the second and third order effects of what they're doing. There is something psychologically broken about many of the ultra-rich today where their behavior comes across as compulsive.

When you have a hole in your soul that can't be filled with a billion dollars, it simply can't be filled, and that black hole drives much of their behavior. You look at people like Trump and Musk, and they seem... miserable. Like, have you ever heard Trump have a genuine laugh of joy? Not the sort of sneering snicker of a bully, but one that comes from delight? Because I haven't.

We are all at the mercy of their actions, but it's almost like they're at the mercy of their irrational compulsions too.

Not that I'm saying they are deserving of sympathy or aren't responsible for their actions. But if we're looking for someone to pump the brakes on the crazy that's happening these days, it's sure as hell not going to be those hollow men.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#232

Post by pseudalopex »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #91
munificent wrote: post #53

I have a pet theory that much of what we're seeing culturally is that the 90s and early 2000s (at least in the US) was a window of time that offered a sense of safety and surplus. 9/11 was extremely culturally disruptive, but aside from that, for many in the US, it felt like there was "enough to go around". That environment breeds a lot of creativity, innovation, whimsy, and doing things for their own sake. But that…

The whole structure has changed. We are not even in the web 2.0 anymore and regressed to a client-server model where what we see is dictated from central platforms with little interaction between actual users. This was not a natural evolution of the web but the consequence of low-tech people accessing the web passively via a tiny touchscreen.

The central platforms began before smart phones were common.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#233

Post by munificent »

clickety_clack wrote: post #157
munificent wrote: post #53

I have a pet theory that much of what we're seeing culturally is that the 90s and early 2000s (at least in the US) was a window of time that offered a sense of safety and surplus. 9/11 was extremely culturally disruptive, but aside from that, for many in the US, it felt like there was "enough to go around". That environment breeds a lot of creativity, innovation, whimsy, and doing things for their own sake. But that…

If you feel that way then you have to question what it is that you’re doing that puts you in a place where you are made to feel that way. Many people (most that I know) don’t feel that way. It may be the online communities that you are in or the news you consume, and the great news about that is that is stuff that is not only optional; you choose to consume it. You can just stop consuming it.

> what it is that you’re doing that puts you in a place where you are made to feel that way.

I live in the US, read the news, and have relationships with other people.

I lived through a global pandemic several years ago and know people who lost loved ones. Now the head of HHS in the US doesn't believe in vaccines. My kids go to school and we've had multiple lockdowns because of shootings nearby. My company and all of the similar companies I might work at have been doing rolling layoffs the past few years. A guy attempted an insurrection and then somehow got himself back in office. We started a pointless war in Iran. My tax dollars went to killing schoolchildren. I had to get air conditioning installed after being comfortable without it for a decade because of climate change. The ultra-rich have a larger fraction of wealth then we've seen at least since the era of robber barons. My daughter is trying to figure out where to go to college and I don't know what to tell her because I don't know what careers will exist after AI.

If you don't think the world is going through some shit right now, I don't know what to tell you.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#234

Post by brightball »

functionmouse wrote: post #214
brightball wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to bring back BBS's over short range radio transmitters. The early dialup and BBS world was magic and it pulls everything completely off of the standard channels.

party van will get you for doing anything like that

What’s party van?

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#235

Post by pseudalopex »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #192
ErneX wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also happens to people commenting about the vibes some cities used to have and how some places that no longer exists were so good. While some of that could be true I’m leaning more towards people actually nostalgic of when they were younger.

They're often not wrong though. Nothing ruins a city quite like a white collar industry boom. It normalizes everything down to the "globalhomo" (for lack of a better word) baseline. The bars, the stores, the government, the transportation, it's all the same. Unless you fixate on appearances like the local architecture (a reflection of local climate for the most part) or minutia like "this city has a park by the river…

> "globalhomo" (for lack of a better word)

(alt-right, anti-LGBTQ slur, Internet slang, 4chan slang, derogatory) The supposed promotion of homosexuality, neoliberal economics, and progressive values coupled with the paternalistic curtailment of freedoms by corporate and political interests. [from 2016] [1]

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/globohomo

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#236

Post by ButlerianJihad »

pseudalopex wrote: post #235
cucumber3732842 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're often not wrong though. Nothing ruins a city quite like a white collar industry boom. It normalizes everything down to the "globalhomo" (for lack of a better word) baseline. The bars, the stores, the government, the transportation, it's all the same. Unless you fixate on appearances like the local architecture (a reflection of local climate for the most part) or minutia like "this city has a park by the river…

> "globalhomo" (for lack of a better word) (alt-right, anti-LGBTQ slur, Internet slang, 4chan slang, derogatory) The supposed promotion of homosexuality, neoliberal economics, and progressive values coupled with the paternalistic curtailment of freedoms by corporate and political interests. [from 2016] [1] [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/globohomo

UrbanDictionary is far more woke to these vulgar definitions, and offers several unique definitions, but NSFW in most cases.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#237

Post by uncircle »

fragmede wrote: post #71
mrits wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music becoming more commercial is a widely held complaint. It’s also mostly all the same chord progression so you could say sloppy as well

Music being too AI generated is the new "pop music is formulaic".

It is too AI generated, and pop music was formulaic. A common trope doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#238

Post by littlekey »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #56

Newgrounds was creative and transgressive; YouTube was goofy and unrehearsed; early Facebook was a fun way to connect with people you knew and forge bonds of common interest with people you didn’t. I think early Facebook was the writing on the wall for the demise of fun on the internet. It was like a prison, or private school forcing everyone into a uniform layout. Especially compared to the wonderfully chaotic mess…

Yeah I had a similar experience, even as a teen I resisted the move from myspace to facebook because it felt so bland and lifeless. Hard to overstate the psychological benefit of having a customizable page that really feels like your own space, especially at that age.

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#239

Post by ButlerianJihad »

functionmouse wrote: post #2

I agree, but it's been said by all... make homebrew software for an old Nintendo console pick up cross stitching or weaving make an independent film with a friend; use stuff from your kitchen as props find a borderline functional instrument at your local thrift store write a 1 page short story in pen it's not enough anymore to merely criticize this bad time we're having

> pick up cross stitching or weaving

Ironically, it was the Jacquard Loom that made redundant a generation of highly-skilled, mostly female, weavers.

Of course, any human can choose to take up this hobby manually, but we will never again compete in the job market with machines that are accurate, blindingly fast, and so far haven’t demanded the right to vote

Re: The fun has been optimized out of the Internet

#240

Post by pseudalopex »

inagiledev wrote: post #95

The fun has been optimized out of large corporate sites thanks to enshittification. However the spirit of the internet is still alive if you know where to look, in places like neocities, nekoweb, and other indie web hosts. People are still putting things on the internet for the fun of it and not to primiarily get ad revenue.

Easy discovery was part of the fun for people who complain now I think.
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