3 ms·

Oh no, no, it wasn't. Nostalgia is fun, but I've slowly realized all the stuff we didn't have - Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar and hav

Oh no, no, it wasn't. Nostalgia is fun, but I've slowly realized all the stuff we didn't have - Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar and having to figure it out by yourself. You could ask at some gas station, with varied results - Very poor public transport info - No food delivery services, you could order pizza and that was it - No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. And maybe you could leave a message So, no, thanks, but I prefer the world of today for the most part

coldtea 4y ago
None of those was any kind of big problem. Minor incovenience at times at best, and lazy dependance now at worse. I mean "- Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar", and amazingly billions still managed to get to their home, work, activity place just fine, even as tourists! >- No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. And maybe you could leave a message It was trully a marvellous time then!
- raverbashing 4y ago
  True, most weren't a big problem until they were (car broke down somewhere outside the city, you got really lost and took a lot of time to find your way back, etc) Yeah, I'll take the downsides, thanks (and you can always set "do not disturb")
  - coldtea 4y ago
    Yeah, after all what is more technological dependence, more surveillance, constant attention hijacking/addiction, huge powerful conglomerates like Apple and Google controlling huge parts of the economy, mediated experience of the surroundings, and so on, compared to being able to more quickly find your way back when your car breaks somewhere outside the city!
  - klyrs 4y ago
    > you can always set "do not disturb" This is my hill to die on. You can't set your friends' phones to DND. Camping with friends means that somebody is still tethered to the internet, blathering about the news that I'm generally trying to get away from. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook are ever-present even if you don't personally use them. You can't log out, even if you never logged in. AR will bring that to a whole new level. Fuck this future.
klyrs 4y ago
> Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar and having to figure it out by yourself. You could ask at some gas station, with varied results We had this miraculous invention called a "map." Local ones were usually free. I did a lot of cross-country driving and got turned around once before making the habit of picking up a map on arrival to a new place. After I started that habit, I was never lost. > Very poor public transport info Similar to maps, when I was using transit, cities provided paper copies of bus and train schedules. Help lines were staffed by actual humans who would help with complex route-finding. Librarians were great for that too. > No food delivery services, you could order pizza and that was it Not true! I had vietnamese, chinese and thai favorites that all delivered in the late 90s. And that's not even a thing. Even today, you can still use a desktop for food delivery, no phone required. > No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. And maybe you could leave a message Yeah, we had this thing called "peace and quiet." It was amazing. People got bored, and found creative outlets. And yeah, get-togethers required more planning, but we didn't have this "social freeze" bullshit where nobody commits to anything.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Thanks, of course I used maps and paper copies of public transport info Now try using a map while driving. And remembering the turns you need to take to get to a place you know or want to go. Oh but your map is slightly out of date and now that way goes a different way (this can happen with GPS as well, sure, but you can then drive in the general direction you want and have it pick up at a later position once away from the change)
  - klyrs 4y ago
    > Now try using a map while driving. I did that. All the time. It was fine. I never experienced a map so out of date that I couldn't get to my destination. Sometimes I'd need to find an alternate route. A minor inconvenience. A common strategy for route planning was to exerpt the route onto another sheet of paper. Draw just the streets you'll need, and their names, and maybe the names of some of the cross streets leading up to a turn. I kept a little notebook in my car for these "mini-maps" which made for really easy at-a-glance route finding. I find automated route-planners to be quite annoying because they're making micro-optimizations that might shave seconds off a route at the cost of another dozen turns. By picking simple, straightforward routes, I quickly learned the layouts of cities to the point that I didn't even need my notebook. I self-navigate to this day, but the maps are built into my car, which is a bit more convenient than handling paper. Not a life-changer though. Smartphones are enabling laziness and stupidity. You can do without. It just takes thinking, planning, and effort.
justsomehnguy 4y ago
>No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. In transit? Sure. But we knew the numbers of friends, relatives, offices.

coldtea 4y ago

None of those was any kind of big problem. Minor incovenience at times at best, and lazy dependance now at worse. I mean "- Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar", and amazingly billions still managed to get to their home, work, activity place just fine, even as tourists! >- No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. And maybe you could leave a message It was trully a marvellous time then!

raverbashing 4y ago
True, most weren't a big problem until they were (car broke down somewhere outside the city, you got really lost and took a lot of time to find your way back, etc) Yeah, I'll take the downsides, thanks (and you can always set "do not disturb")
- coldtea 4y ago
  Yeah, after all what is more technological dependence, more surveillance, constant attention hijacking/addiction, huge powerful conglomerates like Apple and Google controlling huge parts of the economy, mediated experience of the surroundings, and so on, compared to being able to more quickly find your way back when your car breaks somewhere outside the city!
- klyrs 4y ago
  > you can always set "do not disturb" This is my hill to die on. You can't set your friends' phones to DND. Camping with friends means that somebody is still tethered to the internet, blathering about the news that I'm generally trying to get away from. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook are ever-present even if you don't personally use them. You can't log out, even if you never logged in. AR will bring that to a whole new level. Fuck this future.

klyrs 4y ago

> Getting lost on the city due to a wrong turn or similar and having to figure it out by yourself. You could ask at some gas station, with varied results We had this miraculous invention called a "map." Local ones were usually free. I did a lot of cross-country driving and got turned around once before making the habit of picking up a map on arrival to a new place. After I started that habit, I was never lost. > Very poor public transport info Similar to maps, when I was using transit, cities provided paper copies of bus and train schedules. Help lines were staffed by actual humans who would help with complex route-finding. Librarians were great for that too. > No food delivery services, you could order pizza and that was it Not true! I had vietnamese, chinese and thai favorites that all delivered in the late 90s. And that's not even a thing. Even today, you can still use a desktop for food delivery, no phone required. > No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. And maybe you could leave a message Yeah, we had this thing called "peace and quiet." It was amazing. People got bored, and found creative outlets. And yeah, get-togethers required more planning, but we didn't have this "social freeze" bullshit where nobody commits to anything.

raverbashing 4y ago
Thanks, of course I used maps and paper copies of public transport info Now try using a map while driving. And remembering the turns you need to take to get to a place you know or want to go. Oh but your map is slightly out of date and now that way goes a different way (this can happen with GPS as well, sure, but you can then drive in the general direction you want and have it pick up at a later position once away from the change)
- klyrs 4y ago
  > Now try using a map while driving. I did that. All the time. It was fine. I never experienced a map so out of date that I couldn't get to my destination. Sometimes I'd need to find an alternate route. A minor inconvenience. A common strategy for route planning was to exerpt the route onto another sheet of paper. Draw just the streets you'll need, and their names, and maybe the names of some of the cross streets leading up to a turn. I kept a little notebook in my car for these "mini-maps" which made for really easy at-a-glance route finding. I find automated route-planners to be quite annoying because they're making micro-optimizations that might shave seconds off a route at the cost of another dozen turns. By picking simple, straightforward routes, I quickly learned the layouts of cities to the point that I didn't even need my notebook. I self-navigate to this day, but the maps are built into my car, which is a bit more convenient than handling paper. Not a life-changer though. Smartphones are enabling laziness and stupidity. You can do without. It just takes thinking, planning, and effort.

justsomehnguy 4y ago

>No convenient messaging of other people independent from wires. You had pay phones and that's it. In transit? Sure. But we knew the numbers of friends, relatives, offices.