4 ms·

I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring freedom rather than just rebuild traditional social structures but with co

by swiley 6y ago

I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring freedom rather than just rebuild traditional social structures but with complicated software mixed into them.

forinti 6y ago
Maybe it hasn't been around for long enough.
ovi256 6y ago
Not just that, now the culture clash is whose traditional social structure to extend to the internet.
jancsika 6y ago
Give sufficient detail wrt what that freedom looks like. The moment you do I bet you'll hit up against some laws that your teenage self should have spent decades fighting against instead of writing code.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  I assume people need some examples to better understand this, so let's provide some. DMCA 1201 is totally useless at its state purpose (stopping piracy) because pirates can distribute their circumvention tools in the same channels as the pirated materials. If you could stop that then you wouldn't need DMCA 1201. So what it does in practice is act as an anti-competitive cudgel to prohibit adversarial interoperability. The CFAA does something similar -- it's excessively broad and basically everything it prohibits which is actually bad was already prohibited by other laws. There are a wide variety of financial regulations (mandatory chargebacks, KYC) that effectively require the result that you can't have a low-friction anonymous digital payments system. This means that if you want to consume media on the internet where the author gets paid instead of them paying to host content, without all your media consumption ending up in a dangerous central database associated with your social security number, it has to be supported by advertising. And then we're back to the dangerous central database. These laws are harmful to a free and democratic society.
amelius 6y ago
In the early days of the internet, when technology was strictly the domain of engineers, we had such a utopia. When the "normal" people joined, all the problems started ...
- jondwillis 6y ago
  Alas, before September... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
  - clankyclanker 6y ago
    I believe that's provably false. Here, we have Mockapetris and Dunlap reflecting on rolling out DNS to UC Berkeley (the B in BSD) between 1985 and 1988 [0, 1]: > Educating even the sophisticated Berkeley user community on the new form of [DNS] addressing turned out to be a major task. They're complaining about how some of the most technically inclined users and researchers at one of the most technically advanced organizations couldn't RTFM. It seems like, depending on your perspective, the Eternal September might've started a bit early that decade. 0: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/52324.52338 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/52324.52338 1: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA203901.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA203901.pdf
- archsurface 6y ago
  Back when cyberspace was a separate world, not just a digital representation of this one. I feel the same about the industry regarding work - the work place and ways of working have changed, and I no longer enjoy it. Where is the new off-world to escape to?
  - jakear 6y ago
    VR inhabited by GPT? I don’t want it, but I feel it coming.
  - rasengan 6y ago
    There’s a new internet [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/Q3QbXMFjro0 https://youtu.be/Q3QbXMFjro0
ryanmarsh 6y ago
Same. I remember reading McLuhan as a teen thinking the future would be a golden age of communication. Instead resembles a superfund site, politics, graft, and all.
- loveistheanswer 6y ago
  Not sure why your reading of Mcluhan would lead you to that conclusion, he gave countless warnings about how electronic media would destroy the societal institutions founded on literacy and the printing press. "Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence." –Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962
- shaunxcode 6y ago
  But wait - McLuhan was also warning us of this specific potential future and providing a solution. We need to “cool” the media e.g. make the news interactive, discoverable and participatory instead of what we currently have which is the death rattle of cable news attempting to maintain its strangle hold on our attention.
throwaway894345 6y ago
In some sense, the additional connectivity has (or seems to have) worsened those social structures. Namely, Twitter and co have groomed us to hate each other much more (more efficiently?) than traditional media--even cable news--had ever done. Of course, at this point traditional media are really stepping up their game. I'm assuming of course that we're ready to admit our hatred issue and that we're not still pretending that our hatred for the other side is good, moral, just, and indeed the only way to cure racism, cancer, etc? Hopefully I'm not being too optimistic. And it's not just hate for the sake of ad clicks; previously lobbying was a problem and now we have lobbying plus social media giants selling influence over us (including our votes) to the highest bidder. Maybe this all boils down to ad driven revenue model such that we can address it with regulation, and the positive aspects of the Internet can remain?
rektide 6y ago
> I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring freedom rather than just rebuild traditional social structures but with complicated software mixed into them. I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring unbounded forms of communication & evolving, personalized mediums & interchanges rather than just ongoing increasing centralization of all speech activity into fewer and fewer large hubs (which we then under ever-increasing pressure war over how they ought be run). I'm on the fediverse, where text is hosted almost entirely with two systems, Mastodon & Pleroma, which is better but still such a limited form of diversity/alternative. Projects such as scuttlebutt/ssb & gemini come to mind, as other people trying things. There's so much anger & distrust & hate of Big Tech, but I see almost none of the proportioned response I would expect, none of the resistance, the trying & supporting other attempts. The main thing that makes me miserable is how miserable everyone else seems to want to be. Go forth, find your golden paths all. The future is open to us. Build it. If we build it, we will come. I believe.

by swiley 6y ago

I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring freedom rather than just rebuild traditional social structures but with complicated software mixed into them.

forinti 6y ago

Maybe it hasn't been around for long enough.

ovi256 6y ago

Not just that, now the culture clash is whose traditional social structure to extend to the internet.

jancsika 6y ago

Give sufficient detail wrt what that freedom looks like. The moment you do I bet you'll hit up against some laws that your teenage self should have spent decades fighting against instead of writing code.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
I assume people need some examples to better understand this, so let's provide some. DMCA 1201 is totally useless at its state purpose (stopping piracy) because pirates can distribute their circumvention tools in the same channels as the pirated materials. If you could stop that then you wouldn't need DMCA 1201. So what it does in practice is act as an anti-competitive cudgel to prohibit adversarial interoperability. The CFAA does something similar -- it's excessively broad and basically everything it prohibits which is actually bad was already prohibited by other laws. There are a wide variety of financial regulations (mandatory chargebacks, KYC) that effectively require the result that you can't have a low-friction anonymous digital payments system. This means that if you want to consume media on the internet where the author gets paid instead of them paying to host content, without all your media consumption ending up in a dangerous central database associated with your social security number, it has to be supported by advertising. And then we're back to the dangerous central database. These laws are harmful to a free and democratic society.

amelius 6y ago

In the early days of the internet, when technology was strictly the domain of engineers, we had such a utopia. When the "normal" people joined, all the problems started ...

jondwillis 6y ago
Alas, before September... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- clankyclanker 6y ago
  I believe that's provably false. Here, we have Mockapetris and Dunlap reflecting on rolling out DNS to UC Berkeley (the B in BSD) between 1985 and 1988 [0, 1]: > Educating even the sophisticated Berkeley user community on the new form of [DNS] addressing turned out to be a major task. They're complaining about how some of the most technically inclined users and researchers at one of the most technically advanced organizations couldn't RTFM. It seems like, depending on your perspective, the Eternal September might've started a bit early that decade. 0: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/52324.52338 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/52324.52338 1: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA203901.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA203901.pdf
archsurface 6y ago
Back when cyberspace was a separate world, not just a digital representation of this one. I feel the same about the industry regarding work - the work place and ways of working have changed, and I no longer enjoy it. Where is the new off-world to escape to?
- jakear 6y ago
  VR inhabited by GPT? I don’t want it, but I feel it coming.
- rasengan 6y ago
  There’s a new internet [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/Q3QbXMFjro0 https://youtu.be/Q3QbXMFjro0

ryanmarsh 6y ago

Same. I remember reading McLuhan as a teen thinking the future would be a golden age of communication. Instead resembles a superfund site, politics, graft, and all.

loveistheanswer 6y ago
Not sure why your reading of Mcluhan would lead you to that conclusion, he gave countless warnings about how electronic media would destroy the societal institutions founded on literacy and the printing press. "Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence." –Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962
shaunxcode 6y ago
But wait - McLuhan was also warning us of this specific potential future and providing a solution. We need to “cool” the media e.g. make the news interactive, discoverable and participatory instead of what we currently have which is the death rattle of cable news attempting to maintain its strangle hold on our attention.

throwaway894345 6y ago

In some sense, the additional connectivity has (or seems to have) worsened those social structures. Namely, Twitter and co have groomed us to hate each other much more (more efficiently?) than traditional media--even cable news--had ever done. Of course, at this point traditional media are really stepping up their game. I'm assuming of course that we're ready to admit our hatred issue and that we're not still pretending that our hatred for the other side is good, moral, just, and indeed the only way to cure racism, cancer, etc? Hopefully I'm not being too optimistic. And it's not just hate for the sake of ad clicks; previously lobbying was a problem and now we have lobbying plus social media giants selling influence over us (including our votes) to the highest bidder. Maybe this all boils down to ad driven revenue model such that we can address it with regulation, and the positive aspects of the Internet can remain?

rektide 6y ago

> I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring freedom rather than just rebuild traditional social structures but with complicated software mixed into them. I miss being a teenager and thinking pervasive computing and connectivity would bring unbounded forms of communication & evolving, personalized mediums & interchanges rather than just ongoing increasing centralization of all speech activity into fewer and fewer large hubs (which we then under ever-increasing pressure war over how they ought be run). I'm on the fediverse, where text is hosted almost entirely with two systems, Mastodon & Pleroma, which is better but still such a limited form of diversity/alternative. Projects such as scuttlebutt/ssb & gemini come to mind, as other people trying things. There's so much anger & distrust & hate of Big Tech, but I see almost none of the proportioned response I would expect, none of the resistance, the trying & supporting other attempts. The main thing that makes me miserable is how miserable everyone else seems to want to be. Go forth, find your golden paths all. The future is open to us. Build it. If we build it, we will come. I believe.