4 ms·

A person living from 1970s to today also went from "having to go to the library or ask someone with domain knowledge about any tidbit" to "being able to find a

by tiznow 3y ago

A person living from 1970s to today also went from "having to go to the library or ask someone with domain knowledge about any tidbit" to "being able to find a near-infinite amount of domain knowledge with a pocket-sized gadget".

082349872349872 3y ago
The difference is almost everyone is driving on the freeways at times, but only a few are searching out new domain knowledge with their pocket-sized gadget; most seem to use it to consume short snippets of entertainment, dance, pranks, pro sports, and ASMR, all interrupted by ads. (more encouragingly, fitness may also be up there; was Vysotsky just a bit ahead of his time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HWJlBSMSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HWJlBSMSc ) EDIT: more specifically, access to domain knowledge hasn't increased that much; in the 1970s I was already in biking distance of 3 libraries and had several university libraries in a 1 hour radius, so there was already more domain knowledge available (probably even in a single library) than I could have learned in a lifetime. Yes, now I can browse talk slides that I would've had to attend in person back then, but we still had journals, and they are almost as good if one is not on the bleeding edge of a field. What has changed dramatically is access to worlds beyond one's own. In the 1980s, I was involved in anime fandom and tangentially with UK sci fi fen. The first was paradoxically easier, because both Japan and the US were NTSC, so they didn't require camera copying. We samizdat'ed madly, and "sub or dub" wasn't even an issue, because neither was widely available. Now with the internet I can see what soviet 80's hairdo rock was like; what real Caucasian pop music is; Finnish tango; various Monkey King cartoons; etc. (anyone have recommendations for chinese pop?) at the click of a mouse. EDIT2: in part why I think life hasn't changed that much may be because the future, back then, was supposed to be: https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/Bernal_Interior_AC76-0628_5716-scaled.jpg https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/Bernal_Interior_AC76-0628... , which would have been a major difference.

by tiznow 3y ago

082349872349872 3y ago

The difference is almost everyone is driving on the freeways at times, but only a few are searching out new domain knowledge with their pocket-sized gadget; most seem to use it to consume short snippets of entertainment, dance, pranks, pro sports, and ASMR, all interrupted by ads. (more encouragingly, fitness may also be up there; was Vysotsky just a bit ahead of his time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HWJlBSMSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_HWJlBSMSc ) EDIT: more specifically, access to domain knowledge hasn't increased that much; in the 1970s I was already in biking distance of 3 libraries and had several university libraries in a 1 hour radius, so there was already more domain knowledge available (probably even in a single library) than I could have learned in a lifetime. Yes, now I can browse talk slides that I would've had to attend in person back then, but we still had journals, and they are almost as good if one is not on the bleeding edge of a field. What has changed dramatically is access to worlds beyond one's own. In the 1980s, I was involved in anime fandom and tangentially with UK sci fi fen. The first was paradoxically easier, because both Japan and the US were NTSC, so they didn't require camera copying. We samizdat'ed madly, and "sub or dub" wasn't even an issue, because neither was widely available. Now with the internet I can see what soviet 80's hairdo rock was like; what real Caucasian pop music is; Finnish tango; various Monkey King cartoons; etc. (anyone have recommendations for chinese pop?) at the click of a mouse. EDIT2: in part why I think life hasn't changed that much may be because the future, back then, was supposed to be: https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/Bernal_Interior_AC76-0628_5716-scaled.jpg https://nss.org/wp-content/uploads/Bernal_Interior_AC76-0628... , which would have been a major difference.