5 ms·

In the article the author refers to his want to return to his cave. It made me think, today's cave is connected to the web. Not only is there an endless archive

by JTon 12y ago

In the article the author refers to his want to return to his cave. It made me think, today's cave is connected to the web. Not only is there an endless archive of knowledge in this cave, but it also can be a social place (via online collaboration). I'm wondering, what fellow introverts did in their caves before caves were connected to the web? Were caves filled with library books? How did we satisfy the need for collaboration while being in the cave?

andyidsinga 12y ago
fidonet and bbs's before that pen-pals before that ( help me out here...)
- PeterWhittaker 12y ago
  I don't know why you were downvoted, I think you were spot on. I'll bet that a lot of history's great letter-writers were introverts. Much of this sort of collaboration took place over weeks and months instead of seconds and minutes, and took place asynchronously. I'd be willing to bet that many early members of the Royal Society were highly social introverts - Society meetings satisfied their need for synchronous collaboration, but most of their work was done alone or in small groups.
  - andyidsinga 12y ago
    i usually get votes down for humor ...but i was most serious in this case. im an introvert, was a fidonet node and an avid BBSer.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Books, books, books.
- bcoates 12y ago
  There was (is?) a whole mail-relay postal service culture. In the mid-90s my grandmother was a node in semi-formalized mailing list system that more than anything resembled a mimeograph version of Reddit. you'd get packets of stuff (jokes, photos, recipes, poems, stories, coupons, what-have-you) from people and sort of mix and match them and send them on to other people in your mailing list who'd like them, copying the good stuff and pruning the uninteresting. I remember seeing literally the same fw: fw: fw: jokes that were circulating on BBSes at the time being circulated on hand-typed pages.
  - andyidsinga 12y ago
    thats really cool. as i was writing my comment above i was imagining that there must have been something just like that. ..but would never have guessed it existed in the 90s!
yodsanklai 12y ago
It reminds me of my grandfather (that I barely knew). He was spending a lot of time in the basement where he kept tons of books. He liked to read, paint and build things there. He also had pen pals from other countries. Writing letters was a big thing at that time! There was quite a lot to do in their caves even without the internet.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
Like others said, writing; actually, not much has changed since then, other than that the letters are written much faster and delivered / replied to instantly. Read biographies or stories about the pre-internet scientists (Einstein, Hawking, andsoforth), and you'll find a lot of references to letters written. In fact, the biographies are often based on those. There's a lot more letters written nowadays (electronically), and a lot of those are short-lived and easily forgotten. Exceptions are those posted on news groups or meticulously archived. Everything someone has ever written on the internet is a veritable treasure trove of people's opinions and lives and whatnot, probably even moreso than personal diaries from back in the day. Also a lot more static.

by JTon 12y ago

andyidsinga 12y ago

fidonet and bbs's before that pen-pals before that ( help me out here...)

PeterWhittaker 12y ago
I don't know why you were downvoted, I think you were spot on. I'll bet that a lot of history's great letter-writers were introverts. Much of this sort of collaboration took place over weeks and months instead of seconds and minutes, and took place asynchronously. I'd be willing to bet that many early members of the Royal Society were highly social introverts - Society meetings satisfied their need for synchronous collaboration, but most of their work was done alone or in small groups.
- andyidsinga 12y ago
  i usually get votes down for humor ...but i was most serious in this case. im an introvert, was a fidonet node and an avid BBSer.
pessimizer 12y ago
Books, books, books.
bcoates 12y ago
There was (is?) a whole mail-relay postal service culture. In the mid-90s my grandmother was a node in semi-formalized mailing list system that more than anything resembled a mimeograph version of Reddit. you'd get packets of stuff (jokes, photos, recipes, poems, stories, coupons, what-have-you) from people and sort of mix and match them and send them on to other people in your mailing list who'd like them, copying the good stuff and pruning the uninteresting. I remember seeing literally the same fw: fw: fw: jokes that were circulating on BBSes at the time being circulated on hand-typed pages.
- andyidsinga 12y ago
  thats really cool. as i was writing my comment above i was imagining that there must have been something just like that. ..but would never have guessed it existed in the 90s!

yodsanklai 12y ago

It reminds me of my grandfather (that I barely knew). He was spending a lot of time in the basement where he kept tons of books. He liked to read, paint and build things there. He also had pen pals from other countries. Writing letters was a big thing at that time! There was quite a lot to do in their caves even without the internet.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

Like others said, writing; actually, not much has changed since then, other than that the letters are written much faster and delivered / replied to instantly. Read biographies or stories about the pre-internet scientists (Einstein, Hawking, andsoforth), and you'll find a lot of references to letters written. In fact, the biographies are often based on those. There's a lot more letters written nowadays (electronically), and a lot of those are short-lived and easily forgotten. Exceptions are those posted on news groups or meticulously archived. Everything someone has ever written on the internet is a veritable treasure trove of people's opinions and lives and whatnot, probably even moreso than personal diaries from back in the day. Also a lot more static.