I was on USENET, an ancestor of the internet, in 1981. I knew the personal names of all hundred or so people who posted to USENET news groups. There was a newsg

I was on USENET, an ancestor of the internet, in 1981. I knew the personal names of all hundred or so people who posted to USENET news groups. There was a newsgroup called net.general for discussion of anything at all. The average I.Q. of posters was probably 130+. There was political debate, but it was all thoughtful. In those days, you knew the topology of USENET, so if you wanted to send mail to a person outside of your system, you described the route that reached this person. It wasn't as hard as it sounds, because there were certain systems that had an immense number of connections.