4 ms·

Being one of those pre-internet era kids who started out with a C64, I don't think so. Not having a company and private mobile phone wouldn't change anything to

by aluhut 10y ago

Being one of those pre-internet era kids who started out with a C64, I don't think so. Not having a company and private mobile phone wouldn't change anything to me. I rarely use it and the company can call my cable phone at home when I'm not in the office (where mobiles don't work due to the architects fail). When I'm not at home and not in the office, I'm in the car where I'm forbidden by the employer to use any means to be able to use the phone. For safety reasons. Without the internet, I wouldn't have a job at all. I needed internet before mobiles and I would need it afterwards too. I don't even believe most of the people would carry around those chunky screens (got one of those huge Lumia things as a company phone...ridiculous) with them without being able to access internet with it. Sure being reachable is important but not as important as not having the internet. We managed without mobiles and we still manage when the batteries die.

eli 10y ago
I doubt your skills are so specific to the internet that you would be unemployable in a universe without it.
- aluhut 10y ago
  A brave doubt on hn.
- throwanem 10y ago
  Says the guy whose company is so specific to the Internet that it wouldn't exist in a world without one. Not that I don't see what you're saying, but there are a lot of us out here who've built careers around the Internet which are, at the very least, far better than any other prospect that might've been available to us. Certainly in my own case - absent the Internet, I'm nothing but a mouthy unlettered redneck with no meaningful prospects beyond maybe doing menial lab work for the local university, earning maybe $10k a year over the local median in exchange for a lifetime of daily health risks and all the nonsense that goes with being staff in an academic environment. Don't get me wrong - I'm still a mouthy unlettered redneck, either way. But in a world where the Internet is a thing, I'm a mouthy unlettered redneck who is unaccountably able to earn a very good living for himself, enough so that he can not only support himself in comfortable style but help look after family back home who weren't so fortunate, including the distant cousin who nearly died when his meth lab blew up. So while I'm not wholly unsympathetic to commentary like the Quartz author's, I find myself forced to take it with a grain of salt. Sure, the current situation is not ideal. There are a lot of things that could change for the better. Healthier habits around mobile devices. A more conscious understanding of the effect the Internet has on perception. Facebook burned to the ground, the ground salted, and the ashes buried under a crossroads at midnight. All kinds of things. There are also a lot of people out here like me for whom life in a world with even the Internet we have is vastly better than the best lives we'd be able to make for ourselves in a world without. I think that's something worth keeping in mind in a conversation like this. But then, of course, I suppose I'd almost have to think so, wouldn't I?
  - majewsky 10y ago
    I think you got the original article wrong. The author didn't argue against the connected life. He observed that the people who know life without the internet are starting to go extinct, and argues that we should preserve the unconnected experience by going offline for a few days every so often.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      As well to say we should "preserve the pre-electrification experience" by tripping the house main breaker for a few days every so often. Or that we should preserve the "pre-air-conditioning experience" by turning that off for a while. (I actually read such an article not long ago, in case that sounds too absurd to be borne. Cite on request.) The past is a foreign country. It is also dead. To study it has value. To pretend oneself a tourist there has not.
  - eli 10y ago
    The business I'm in is media. It's been around before the internet.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      True; on further examination I see you publish trade news, and there is nothing uniquely Internet-dependent about that. You'd have needed much greater capital investment to do so without it and would probably be less profitable for the same revenue, but those aren't the points I made in my initial cavil, which I now gather was unjustified. Fortunately, said cavil is also severable.

by aluhut 10y ago

eli 10y ago

I doubt your skills are so specific to the internet that you would be unemployable in a universe without it.

aluhut 10y ago
A brave doubt on hn.
throwanem 10y ago
Says the guy whose company is so specific to the Internet that it wouldn't exist in a world without one. Not that I don't see what you're saying, but there are a lot of us out here who've built careers around the Internet which are, at the very least, far better than any other prospect that might've been available to us. Certainly in my own case - absent the Internet, I'm nothing but a mouthy unlettered redneck with no meaningful prospects beyond maybe doing menial lab work for the local university, earning maybe $10k a year over the local median in exchange for a lifetime of daily health risks and all the nonsense that goes with being staff in an academic environment. Don't get me wrong - I'm still a mouthy unlettered redneck, either way. But in a world where the Internet is a thing, I'm a mouthy unlettered redneck who is unaccountably able to earn a very good living for himself, enough so that he can not only support himself in comfortable style but help look after family back home who weren't so fortunate, including the distant cousin who nearly died when his meth lab blew up. So while I'm not wholly unsympathetic to commentary like the Quartz author's, I find myself forced to take it with a grain of salt. Sure, the current situation is not ideal. There are a lot of things that could change for the better. Healthier habits around mobile devices. A more conscious understanding of the effect the Internet has on perception. Facebook burned to the ground, the ground salted, and the ashes buried under a crossroads at midnight. All kinds of things. There are also a lot of people out here like me for whom life in a world with even the Internet we have is vastly better than the best lives we'd be able to make for ourselves in a world without. I think that's something worth keeping in mind in a conversation like this. But then, of course, I suppose I'd almost have to think so, wouldn't I?
- majewsky 10y ago
  I think you got the original article wrong. The author didn't argue against the connected life. He observed that the people who know life without the internet are starting to go extinct, and argues that we should preserve the unconnected experience by going offline for a few days every so often.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    As well to say we should "preserve the pre-electrification experience" by tripping the house main breaker for a few days every so often. Or that we should preserve the "pre-air-conditioning experience" by turning that off for a while. (I actually read such an article not long ago, in case that sounds too absurd to be borne. Cite on request.) The past is a foreign country. It is also dead. To study it has value. To pretend oneself a tourist there has not.
- eli 10y ago
  The business I'm in is media. It's been around before the internet.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    True; on further examination I see you publish trade news, and there is nothing uniquely Internet-dependent about that. You'd have needed much greater capital investment to do so without it and would probably be less profitable for the same revenue, but those aren't the points I made in my initial cavil, which I now gather was unjustified. Fortunately, said cavil is also severable.