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I was six years old during Apollo 11 and have just fragmentary memories of it. One is of my grandfather tearing up at the lunar landing and saying "when I grew

I was six years old during Apollo 11 and have just fragmentary memories of it. One is of my grandfather tearing up at the lunar landing and saying "when I grew up I used to carry flint and steel to start a fire" ... which would have been in the 1890s. If he grasped what he was seeing I think he'd be about as future shocked by the internet as exemplified by this link.

420codebro 7y ago
That is amazing - the generational spans. I was born in the 1980s, but I can only imagine the feeling of that day in 1969.
sharkweek 7y ago
My dad even talks about that - he’s in his late sixties and has been pretty blue collar careered his whole life. How he simply couldn’t even begin to fathom something like the internet being a thing when he was in his 20s. Makes me wonder what I can’t imagine now that I might see in my lifetime.
- dmoy 7y ago
  I'm holding out for actually good VR Probably I'm wrong and it'll be something else
  - omilu 7y ago
    i'm holding out for post scarcity, no more 40 hour work week
- copperx 7y ago
  Probably over a million JS frameworks. I could never fathom such a language in my youth, let alone so many solutions to the same problem.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    The future is now, my friend.
fortran77 7y ago
I, too, was 6 years old and have good memories of it. They made a Big Deal of it in school, leading up to the launch, and we were reading books like "You Will Go To The Moon" by Mae and Ira Freeman, and seeing films and hearing stores about it.
sizzzzlerz 7y ago
I was 14 years old that day and I remember sitting on our couch absolutely transfixed. The entire Apollo 11 mission remains one of the most significant event in my entire life. For those too young to have witnessed the moon landings, for a recreation of what it was like, I suggest finding a copy of HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon”.
- cobalt 7y ago
  the new Apollo 11 documentary that just came out is also very good
rebuilder 7y ago
Even my mother's childhood chores included churning butter by hand. They were not a poor family. It's difficult to imagine seeing the same kind of change in lifestyle in my lifetime as the previous two generations did.
- acqq 7y ago
  The daily life changed for most of the people by the scale of the modern technology, but the previous generations were already familiar with the concepts we consider recent. - In the time of Napoleon France already had an operational telegraph service. That was even before the electricity could be used for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_telegraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_telegraph - The first transatlantic telegraph cable became operational in 1858, that was 160 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable "reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days – the time it took to deliver a message by ship – to a matter of minutes." So even then the people were absolutely able to understand the "internet." Not in the terms of the infrastructure, but in the terms of the effect. In the terms of infrastructure, even the people of today who don't directly work on that mostly use some simplifications, if they are even aware of the technical details of what is actually involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes The "series of tubes" (from 2006) is just one of possible analogies, which can even be good enough for some scenarios (e.g. when discussing the throughput being limited by the capacity of the installed cables).
  - ghaff 7y ago
    You're talking about one specific aspect though. Yes, the concept of an email is pretty familiar to anyone with experience with telegraphs. I'd argue the availability of information, and certainly information that isn't curated by a single source, is a pretty fundamental discontinuity.
    - acqq 7y ago
      > information that isn't curated by a single source is a pretty fundamental discontinuity. Even in Ben Franklin’s time his paper was only one of at least four in Philadelphia.
pault 7y ago
I was really entertained by the banter between the crew as they're orbiting the moon, given the gravity of the moment. They're almost jovial, which is a pretty stark contrast to the way it's depicted in hollywood. Especially First Man; that movie was so brooding it was hard to take seriously.

420codebro 7y ago

That is amazing - the generational spans. I was born in the 1980s, but I can only imagine the feeling of that day in 1969.

sharkweek 7y ago

My dad even talks about that - he’s in his late sixties and has been pretty blue collar careered his whole life. How he simply couldn’t even begin to fathom something like the internet being a thing when he was in his 20s. Makes me wonder what I can’t imagine now that I might see in my lifetime.

dmoy 7y ago
I'm holding out for actually good VR Probably I'm wrong and it'll be something else
- omilu 7y ago
  i'm holding out for post scarcity, no more 40 hour work week
copperx 7y ago
Probably over a million JS frameworks. I could never fathom such a language in my youth, let alone so many solutions to the same problem.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  The future is now, my friend.

fortran77 7y ago

I, too, was 6 years old and have good memories of it. They made a Big Deal of it in school, leading up to the launch, and we were reading books like "You Will Go To The Moon" by Mae and Ira Freeman, and seeing films and hearing stores about it.

sizzzzlerz 7y ago

I was 14 years old that day and I remember sitting on our couch absolutely transfixed. The entire Apollo 11 mission remains one of the most significant event in my entire life. For those too young to have witnessed the moon landings, for a recreation of what it was like, I suggest finding a copy of HBO’s “From the Earth to the Moon”.

cobalt 7y ago
the new Apollo 11 documentary that just came out is also very good

rebuilder 7y ago

Even my mother's childhood chores included churning butter by hand. They were not a poor family. It's difficult to imagine seeing the same kind of change in lifestyle in my lifetime as the previous two generations did.

acqq 7y ago
The daily life changed for most of the people by the scale of the modern technology, but the previous generations were already familiar with the concepts we consider recent. - In the time of Napoleon France already had an operational telegraph service. That was even before the electricity could be used for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_telegraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_telegraph - The first transatlantic telegraph cable became operational in 1858, that was 160 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable "reducing the communication time between North America and Europe from ten days – the time it took to deliver a message by ship – to a matter of minutes." So even then the people were absolutely able to understand the "internet." Not in the terms of the infrastructure, but in the terms of the effect. In the terms of infrastructure, even the people of today who don't directly work on that mostly use some simplifications, if they are even aware of the technical details of what is actually involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes The "series of tubes" (from 2006) is just one of possible analogies, which can even be good enough for some scenarios (e.g. when discussing the throughput being limited by the capacity of the installed cables).
- ghaff 7y ago
  You're talking about one specific aspect though. Yes, the concept of an email is pretty familiar to anyone with experience with telegraphs. I'd argue the availability of information, and certainly information that isn't curated by a single source, is a pretty fundamental discontinuity.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > information that isn't curated by a single source is a pretty fundamental discontinuity. Even in Ben Franklin’s time his paper was only one of at least four in Philadelphia.

pault 7y ago

I was really entertained by the banter between the crew as they're orbiting the moon, given the gravity of the moment. They're almost jovial, which is a pretty stark contrast to the way it's depicted in hollywood. Especially First Man; that movie was so brooding it was hard to take seriously.