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I was on the early Internet. I miss it greatly, but also, it was the wild west, which was awesome when I was essentially living in the woods secluded from the o
by owlbynight 6y ago
I was on the early Internet. I miss it greatly, but also, it was the wild west, which was awesome when I was essentially living in the woods secluded from the outside world. The freedom was intoxicating. It ended up shaping my entire life.
I've watched the Internet grow and evolve into what it is and spent the majority of my free time participating in it from 1993 until today and probably until I die.
The thing is, the problem has always existed but its now being scaled up. There were kids pretending to be adults and puffing up their chests at the expense of decency. There was child porn. There were racists. There were pockets of criminals. There weren't many flat out idiots because using the Internet required at least a mononom of intellect to participate.
Yes, it's still early for the Internet, but America is just getting dumber while the Internet is getting easier and easier to use. How does it get better before it gets much worse?
- keiferski 6y agoI think it’s just a natural part of the technology adoption process. Only early adopters use it > widespread usage > simplified, centralized solutions eat the usage market (FB, etc.) > the normal people learn how to be technical users, at least enough to go independent > decentralization takes hold. We’re now in between the last two steps. Compare it to something like reading and writing or paper. Roughly the same process happened.
- raxxorrax 6y agoYou might have grown older and more frightful. I think kids today are fine navigating misinformation that another even older generation thinks will destroy societies.
- bergstromm466 6y ago> How does it get better before it gets much worse? This is the million dollar question. For me I came to see how dogmatic ideas like the Intellectual Monopoly system are. How economic theories fall apart in the face of the gift of digital technology and it's zero marginal cost of reproduction. I am deeply inspired by the writing and work of Arthur Brock and Eric Harris-Braun.