5 ms·

Listening to music? Looking at television screens? Pushing typewriter keys? Playing videogames? Programming computers? Video calls? While more expensive when a

Listening to music? Looking at television screens? Pushing typewriter keys? Playing videogames? Programming computers? Video calls? While more expensive when adjusted for inflation, all were commercially available in the '60s. You could make video calls in Grand Central in 1964, even if you could only call DC or Chicago and it cost $5 a minute. The future was already here, as Gibson observed. The internet seems like the last thing humanity invented. Every meaningful (commercially available) "invention" since then has been an internet application or appliance (or has by now been beaten in the marketplace by an internet application or appliance).

helen___keller 5y ago
This past week: I smoked ribs for the first time in my life. Despite having 0 bbq experience and being a relatively new owner of a charcoal grill, I for free and on a whim tapped into the nearly infinite font of human knowledge available at my fingertips to learn about the 3-2-1 method of competition barbecue and made amazing hickory smoked ribs. Without the internet I wouldn't have even bothered, and acquiring that knowledge would have required a trip to a book store or a personal contact with a BBQ expert. I gave a tour of my newly renovated home to my mother who lives in another state and is in quarantine, having recently tested positive for covid. I navigated somewhere I've never been easily using a handheld GPS which can navigate any modality (ie, bus directions and train directions for us city folk) I drove 70 minutes to another state for a small collectors sale in my niche hobby and found something to add to my collection. I wouldn't have known about the sale, or hell even adopted this hobby in the first place, if I didn't have an internet group with dozens of strangers in my city all interested in the same topic. I made two sales of items in said niche hobby to other hobbyists in my city. Absolute strangers I've never met before. I listed the item in the weekly "deal or no deal" style thread, after striking a deal I sent my address, and when they said they were on the way I left the item on the doorstep for them. I watched a significant amount of TV without a single commercial break and on my schedule. Not pay per view either. I left a message for my downstairs neighbor that the contractors are scheduled to show up Monday to replace their basement windows. My neighbors were in another state and got the message anyways. I continue to work a job with my boss who lives in a other state (and has been for years). These are all examples of "massive progress and insane improvements to efficiency" In particular with respect to information, hence why this is called the information revolution.
- maxwell 5y ago
  Most of what you describe could've been accomplished with sufficiently advanced telegraphy, optical media, and mechanical transport. Untenably expensive, but doable with 19th century tech. The idea of "timeshifting" TV has been around since at least the '60s, Jeannie paused live TV one time so they wouldn't miss the game. But yeah, there's been innovation in "TV," though I suspect you're actually talking about videos on the internet (as opposed to DTV), and most of the recent moves seem to be massively empowering rights holders over viewers by shifting permanent ownership of physical media to fleeting licenses and subscriptions with terms that could change tomorrow. And, with the removal of the Paramount Decrees and decline of feature films + cinemas, we seem to be heading back to the bad old days of a studio system. Satellite-based navigation, first implemented with GPS between '73 and '93, is a good example of innovation, and real advancement, after the late '60s though.
  - helen___keller 5y ago
    > Most of what you describe could've been accomplished with sufficiently advanced telegraphy, optical media, and mechanical transport. Untenably expensive, but doable with 19th century tech. But it wasn't, which is the whole point
    - maxwell 5y ago
      There's no reason to think telegraphs, physical media, and mechanical transport wouldn't have continued to scale and improve, merging in typewriters, punch cards (following Jacquard and Hollerith), CRTs, etc. As well as, say, high quality, "pro-sumer" sewing machines, machining tools, woodworking tools, etc. You know, the means of production. Instead, analog technologies were strategically deprecated and phased out in favor of more easily surveillable digital alternatives, under the guise of "efficiency," in terms of energy and performance. Once a central network was put in place, innovation outside the network, in what we used to call the "real world," mostly stopped. It's all been fancier and fancier network protocols, applications, and appliances. Everything is "smart," but under someone else's control. And the means of production are more centralized than ever.

helen___keller 5y ago

This past week: I smoked ribs for the first time in my life. Despite having 0 bbq experience and being a relatively new owner of a charcoal grill, I for free and on a whim tapped into the nearly infinite font of human knowledge available at my fingertips to learn about the 3-2-1 method of competition barbecue and made amazing hickory smoked ribs. Without the internet I wouldn't have even bothered, and acquiring that knowledge would have required a trip to a book store or a personal contact with a BBQ expert. I gave a tour of my newly renovated home to my mother who lives in another state and is in quarantine, having recently tested positive for covid. I navigated somewhere I've never been easily using a handheld GPS which can navigate any modality (ie, bus directions and train directions for us city folk) I drove 70 minutes to another state for a small collectors sale in my niche hobby and found something to add to my collection. I wouldn't have known about the sale, or hell even adopted this hobby in the first place, if I didn't have an internet group with dozens of strangers in my city all interested in the same topic. I made two sales of items in said niche hobby to other hobbyists in my city. Absolute strangers I've never met before. I listed the item in the weekly "deal or no deal" style thread, after striking a deal I sent my address, and when they said they were on the way I left the item on the doorstep for them. I watched a significant amount of TV without a single commercial break and on my schedule. Not pay per view either. I left a message for my downstairs neighbor that the contractors are scheduled to show up Monday to replace their basement windows. My neighbors were in another state and got the message anyways. I continue to work a job with my boss who lives in a other state (and has been for years). These are all examples of "massive progress and insane improvements to efficiency" In particular with respect to information, hence why this is called the information revolution.

maxwell 5y ago
Most of what you describe could've been accomplished with sufficiently advanced telegraphy, optical media, and mechanical transport. Untenably expensive, but doable with 19th century tech. The idea of "timeshifting" TV has been around since at least the '60s, Jeannie paused live TV one time so they wouldn't miss the game. But yeah, there's been innovation in "TV," though I suspect you're actually talking about videos on the internet (as opposed to DTV), and most of the recent moves seem to be massively empowering rights holders over viewers by shifting permanent ownership of physical media to fleeting licenses and subscriptions with terms that could change tomorrow. And, with the removal of the Paramount Decrees and decline of feature films + cinemas, we seem to be heading back to the bad old days of a studio system. Satellite-based navigation, first implemented with GPS between '73 and '93, is a good example of innovation, and real advancement, after the late '60s though.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  > Most of what you describe could've been accomplished with sufficiently advanced telegraphy, optical media, and mechanical transport. Untenably expensive, but doable with 19th century tech. But it wasn't, which is the whole point
  - maxwell 5y ago
    There's no reason to think telegraphs, physical media, and mechanical transport wouldn't have continued to scale and improve, merging in typewriters, punch cards (following Jacquard and Hollerith), CRTs, etc. As well as, say, high quality, "pro-sumer" sewing machines, machining tools, woodworking tools, etc. You know, the means of production. Instead, analog technologies were strategically deprecated and phased out in favor of more easily surveillable digital alternatives, under the guise of "efficiency," in terms of energy and performance. Once a central network was put in place, innovation outside the network, in what we used to call the "real world," mostly stopped. It's all been fancier and fancier network protocols, applications, and appliances. Everything is "smart," but under someone else's control. And the means of production are more centralized than ever.