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Nerdy teen laments being born too late. I remember when I said I regret not being born in the 70s because I missed the 80s. Oh before that it was the 60s and I

Nerdy teen laments being born too late. I remember when I said I regret not being born in the 70s because I missed the 80s. Oh before that it was the 60s and I missed all those Dad Rock err Classic Rock acts. Live your life, not the one you think you should have had.

ranger_danger 2y ago
Hilarious given the second sentence is: I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”
- zorrolovsky 2y ago
  Exactly... the whole point of the post is to elaborate on the problems of the modern internet (addiction, fakeness, shallowness...). It's not a subjective nostalgic rant but a good analysis of everything that's wrong with today's internet.
Rinzler89 2y ago
I don't wish I was born earlier. I wish I was born later to have had access to the much better mental, dental and healthcare in my childhood than what was available back then.
ocean_moist 2y ago
I generally like being born in 2006. Before iPad kids and such. We had the Wii and other nice things. I am also at the age where I can take advantage of the shift towards AI and related technological advancements. I talk about this in the second sentence. I just think the internet is much worse than it was.
- voidfunc 2y ago
  The internet is different, I hesitate to say worse. Yes advertising is constant, but it's not like the old internet was free of it. We had banners and bullshit galore. The monetary model has changed for sure but that was inevitable. The 90s internet was slow. Stuff like IRC and email are a product of their time. Stuff was designed to work on 28 or 56k modems. The lucky few had ISDN. I don't miss the old internet that much. I miss some of the apps and the stripped down low bandwidth UX of stuff. What I really miss is th era of native desktop applications that had a consistent look and feel.
  - muwtyhg 2y ago
    > We had banners and bullshit galore. The problem now is not the visible aspect of advertising on the internet. It's the obsessive tracking and categorization of people to make advertising more effective that I'm upset with. There was no such apparatus in the 90s/00s. Most legitimate websites wouldn't be plastered with banner spam, but all legitimate websites now will attempt to track you.
  - paulpauper 2y ago
    banners are way preferrable to the annoying video ads or ads that pretend to appear as content.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > I generally like being born in 2006. Before iPad kids and such I was a high school senior in 2006. Growing up with computers becoming exponentially faster and better every 6 months was freakin’ amazing and I’m happy to have seen it. > I am also at the age where I can take advantage of the shift towards AI and related technological advancements Me too! This shift comes every few years. The first successful mass deployment of modern AI technology was in the 1970’s when the post office started using computer vision to route mail. The shift to AI that I got to see was Google. That was amazing. Big fan of the current LLM shift too, of course, but it feels less magical than Google did. A little because I understand it better, a little because it benefits me less personally than Google did. Feels more like a marginal improvement whereas Google felt like omg everything is different now the olds are so behind the times they can’t even comprehend!! But I think it’s more that the big shift happens with your newfound ability to grok things, leverage information, and get shit done in your late teens / early 20’s than the actual technology available. Whatever new tech happens around that age will feel like a profound hugely impactful change in the world (but it’s actually you, not the tech). > I just think the internet is much worse than it was It is. And also it isn’t. Depends where you go and who you talk to.
  - nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
    > I was a high school senior in 2006. Growing up with computers becoming exponentially faster and better every 6 months was freakin’ amazing and I’m happy to have seen it. It was very exciting. Every year that followed seemed like a massive leap forward with smartphone evolution, 4G LTE market penetration, application improvements, etc. It was a really fun time and I have fond memories of jailbreaking early iPhones/rooting Android phones. It was all new and very entertaining.
- stackghost 2y ago
  >I just think the internet is much worse than it was. It's definitely worse than it was, in some ways. In other ways it's better. TLS is everywhere now. uBlock origin exists. The bar for pwning web apps is much higher today because we learned collectively from our mistakes/our fun times defacing PHP-Nuke sites. But I miss pirating warez on IRC and scoring game rips from FTP topsites, and LAN parties. Facebook and Twitter were really fun in the early years, but these days Big Social really sucks and "growth focus" in tech is exhausting.
  - doublerabbit 2y ago
    > TLS is everywhere now. TLS is a racket. The protocol is important, it's required, sure. The companies who issue the certificates however have been printing money ever since SSL came to exist. Each certificate issued is a money note. LetsEncrypt only exists now and only because the internet is an heap of security mess. And caused by the same SSL certificate companies. Domains are too.
    - kalleboo 2y ago
      > LetsEncrypt only exists now Let'sEncrypt has been providing service for nearly 10 years now
runjake 2y ago
I was born in the early 70s and lament missing the computers of the 60s and the genesis of usable UNIX. So it goes.
tdeck 2y ago
The second sentence of TFA: "I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements."

ranger_danger 2y ago

Hilarious given the second sentence is: I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”

zorrolovsky 2y ago
Exactly... the whole point of the post is to elaborate on the problems of the modern internet (addiction, fakeness, shallowness...). It's not a subjective nostalgic rant but a good analysis of everything that's wrong with today's internet.

Rinzler89 2y ago

I don't wish I was born earlier. I wish I was born later to have had access to the much better mental, dental and healthcare in my childhood than what was available back then.

ocean_moist 2y ago

I generally like being born in 2006. Before iPad kids and such. We had the Wii and other nice things. I am also at the age where I can take advantage of the shift towards AI and related technological advancements. I talk about this in the second sentence. I just think the internet is much worse than it was.

voidfunc 2y ago
The internet is different, I hesitate to say worse. Yes advertising is constant, but it's not like the old internet was free of it. We had banners and bullshit galore. The monetary model has changed for sure but that was inevitable. The 90s internet was slow. Stuff like IRC and email are a product of their time. Stuff was designed to work on 28 or 56k modems. The lucky few had ISDN. I don't miss the old internet that much. I miss some of the apps and the stripped down low bandwidth UX of stuff. What I really miss is th era of native desktop applications that had a consistent look and feel.
- muwtyhg 2y ago
  > We had banners and bullshit galore. The problem now is not the visible aspect of advertising on the internet. It's the obsessive tracking and categorization of people to make advertising more effective that I'm upset with. There was no such apparatus in the 90s/00s. Most legitimate websites wouldn't be plastered with banner spam, but all legitimate websites now will attempt to track you.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  banners are way preferrable to the annoying video ads or ads that pretend to appear as content.
Swizec 2y ago
> I generally like being born in 2006. Before iPad kids and such I was a high school senior in 2006. Growing up with computers becoming exponentially faster and better every 6 months was freakin’ amazing and I’m happy to have seen it. > I am also at the age where I can take advantage of the shift towards AI and related technological advancements Me too! This shift comes every few years. The first successful mass deployment of modern AI technology was in the 1970’s when the post office started using computer vision to route mail. The shift to AI that I got to see was Google. That was amazing. Big fan of the current LLM shift too, of course, but it feels less magical than Google did. A little because I understand it better, a little because it benefits me less personally than Google did. Feels more like a marginal improvement whereas Google felt like omg everything is different now the olds are so behind the times they can’t even comprehend!! But I think it’s more that the big shift happens with your newfound ability to grok things, leverage information, and get shit done in your late teens / early 20’s than the actual technology available. Whatever new tech happens around that age will feel like a profound hugely impactful change in the world (but it’s actually you, not the tech). > I just think the internet is much worse than it was It is. And also it isn’t. Depends where you go and who you talk to.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
  > I was a high school senior in 2006. Growing up with computers becoming exponentially faster and better every 6 months was freakin’ amazing and I’m happy to have seen it. It was very exciting. Every year that followed seemed like a massive leap forward with smartphone evolution, 4G LTE market penetration, application improvements, etc. It was a really fun time and I have fond memories of jailbreaking early iPhones/rooting Android phones. It was all new and very entertaining.
stackghost 2y ago
>I just think the internet is much worse than it was. It's definitely worse than it was, in some ways. In other ways it's better. TLS is everywhere now. uBlock origin exists. The bar for pwning web apps is much higher today because we learned collectively from our mistakes/our fun times defacing PHP-Nuke sites. But I miss pirating warez on IRC and scoring game rips from FTP topsites, and LAN parties. Facebook and Twitter were really fun in the early years, but these days Big Social really sucks and "growth focus" in tech is exhausting.
- doublerabbit 2y ago
  > TLS is everywhere now. TLS is a racket. The protocol is important, it's required, sure. The companies who issue the certificates however have been printing money ever since SSL came to exist. Each certificate issued is a money note. LetsEncrypt only exists now and only because the internet is an heap of security mess. And caused by the same SSL certificate companies. Domains are too.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    > LetsEncrypt only exists now Let'sEncrypt has been providing service for nearly 10 years now

runjake 2y ago

I was born in the early 70s and lament missing the computers of the 60s and the genesis of usable UNIX. So it goes.

tdeck 2y ago

The second sentence of TFA: "I am not one of those people who think they were “born in the wrong decade”, I think I was born at the perfect time to take advantage of superlinearly growing technological advancements."