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I connected quite a bit earlier, mostly Usenet and BBS’, and when EFnet came along a lot of that. People like to talk about Eternal September and other depredat

I connected quite a bit earlier, mostly Usenet and BBS’, and when EFnet came along a lot of that. People like to talk about Eternal September and other depredations of communities, but the truth is that while things functioned more smoothly earlier on, it was always a bunch of people and people more or less act like warring groups of primates. If someone had come back from the future and only told us about the extent of the internet in this time, I think that a lot of people could have extrapolates the shit-show of today from what we’d experienced back then. The only semi-surprise was the move to mobile devices opening the internet up to people who are almost too stupid to live. Not just tribal, not just willing to fight for their version of reality, but dumb as rocks. There used to at least be a filter (which steadily widened) of needing to know how to use a computer and get online. That is just gone now, and we’re in the true agora. It is not fun, and all of which is to say it is as you say, a sociology problem. BJT it exists in this form because of powerful and ubiquitous technology. It’s also true that the underlying sociological problem has been ruthlessly capitalized on by people who realized we warring primates could be readily exploited for attention and therefore, revenue. It was always going to be messy, but instead of people trying to fight against then current, some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money.

doctorpangloss 8y ago
BBSes were never as great of an advertising buy as an image-adjacent to an Instagram pic. Nobody looking at a BBS could anticipate why BBSes would eventually vanish, while Instagram is truly here to stay.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Depends on how you define "here to stay." All fashions come and go. I am willing to absolutely guarantee that there will be no trace of Instagram in 50 years, maybe it would vanish in 20 years. It could be irrelevant even earlier than 10 years. Same with Twitter, Facebook, and other so-called giants. 50 years ago, Woodstock didn't even happen yet. A lot changes in that amount of time.
  - oblio 8y ago
    Depending on how big they are, they can sustain themselves. The pioneers have a high mortality rate, but the survivors are usually pretty rugged. Commodore and DEC went under, but Apple and Microsoft will probably bury us both. Facebook, via both its main site and also WhatsApp and Instagram, seems to be solidifying its position. Google's already there. Twitter: hard to say, they're the ones most likely to go under in my opinion.
- jazzyjackson 8y ago
  I would be curious to know your theory on why BBS's vanished, and also why you suppose Instagram is here for good. Because of the advertising revenue, or something eles? For contrast, I just figure BBS died due to eternal September on the hardware scaling side - the rate at which people became computers users increased much faster than the rate at which people became sysadmins and moderators. So, the internet became unmoderated, un-administered.
Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money. This is a big part of the problem IMO. General loss of moral values. I'm not religious at all, and criticize religions all the time, but one has to admit that when Christianity was the driving force in the western world, there were at least some values that were kind of universally accepted. Yes, there was lots of hypocrisy, and people acted against said values routinely, but at the very least most would feel bad about it or fear for their public image, and try to not be needlessly extreme at breaking them. Now, Christianity has been replaced by ruthless capitalism, and people don't even have to pretend that they care about anything else than making piles of money. And if a company is criticized for using manipulative or exploitative techniques to make more money, regular people will even jump to defend it. I see it everyday on the Internet (e.g. forums for free games with monetizing techniques that border on inducing gambling addiction). They have accepted making money as the supreme value. These capitalist morals that place money in the center of everything must die and be replaced by something else, or we are headed for dystopia.
- MrsPeaches 8y ago
  Christianity before the reformation was pretty wild with things like the purhase of indugences being common[1]. Point being that Christianity is not some bastion of past hope and glory but is a mutable set of morals that have radically changed in their 2000+ years of exsistance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage
- severine 8y ago
  Now? Really? Francisco de Quevedo, some 400 years ago: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/poderoso-caballero-es-don-dinero-lord-dollars.html https://lyricstranslate.com/en/poderoso-caballero-es-don-din...
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Perhaps you have heard of the Spanish Inquisition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition Perhaps the point of Jesus dying on the cross was to try to give some push back in the world against how truly horrifying things were two millennia ago, but it wasn't that long ago that personal duels were socially acceptable in the US and even more recently lynchings of people of color were a thing. I'm not convinced that there is actually some lost golden age of wonderful morality somewhere in our past. I'm highly skeptical of such claims.

doctorpangloss 8y ago

BBSes were never as great of an advertising buy as an image-adjacent to an Instagram pic. Nobody looking at a BBS could anticipate why BBSes would eventually vanish, while Instagram is truly here to stay.

ryandrake 8y ago
Depends on how you define "here to stay." All fashions come and go. I am willing to absolutely guarantee that there will be no trace of Instagram in 50 years, maybe it would vanish in 20 years. It could be irrelevant even earlier than 10 years. Same with Twitter, Facebook, and other so-called giants. 50 years ago, Woodstock didn't even happen yet. A lot changes in that amount of time.
- oblio 8y ago
  Depending on how big they are, they can sustain themselves. The pioneers have a high mortality rate, but the survivors are usually pretty rugged. Commodore and DEC went under, but Apple and Microsoft will probably bury us both. Facebook, via both its main site and also WhatsApp and Instagram, seems to be solidifying its position. Google's already there. Twitter: hard to say, they're the ones most likely to go under in my opinion.
jazzyjackson 8y ago
I would be curious to know your theory on why BBS's vanished, and also why you suppose Instagram is here for good. Because of the advertising revenue, or something eles? For contrast, I just figure BBS died due to eternal September on the hardware scaling side - the rate at which people became computers users increased much faster than the rate at which people became sysadmins and moderators. So, the internet became unmoderated, un-administered.

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago

some of the richest, most powerful and brightest people are actively trying to sweep people away for money. This is a big part of the problem IMO. General loss of moral values. I'm not religious at all, and criticize religions all the time, but one has to admit that when Christianity was the driving force in the western world, there were at least some values that were kind of universally accepted. Yes, there was lots of hypocrisy, and people acted against said values routinely, but at the very least most would feel bad about it or fear for their public image, and try to not be needlessly extreme at breaking them. Now, Christianity has been replaced by ruthless capitalism, and people don't even have to pretend that they care about anything else than making piles of money. And if a company is criticized for using manipulative or exploitative techniques to make more money, regular people will even jump to defend it. I see it everyday on the Internet (e.g. forums for free games with monetizing techniques that border on inducing gambling addiction). They have accepted making money as the supreme value. These capitalist morals that place money in the center of everything must die and be replaced by something else, or we are headed for dystopia.

MrsPeaches 8y ago
Christianity before the reformation was pretty wild with things like the purhase of indugences being common[1]. Point being that Christianity is not some bastion of past hope and glory but is a mutable set of morals that have radically changed in their 2000+ years of exsistance. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence#Late_Medieval_Usage
severine 8y ago
Now? Really? Francisco de Quevedo, some 400 years ago: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/poderoso-caballero-es-don-dinero-lord-dollars.html https://lyricstranslate.com/en/poderoso-caballero-es-don-din...
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Perhaps you have heard of the Spanish Inquisition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition Perhaps the point of Jesus dying on the cross was to try to give some push back in the world against how truly horrifying things were two millennia ago, but it wasn't that long ago that personal duels were socially acceptable in the US and even more recently lynchings of people of color were a thing. I'm not convinced that there is actually some lost golden age of wonderful morality somewhere in our past. I'm highly skeptical of such claims.