4 ms·

> Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? H

> Remember the effort us lifers put into making tools that allowed "the masses" access to programming, like BASIC, Visual Basic, Turbo Pascal and all of that? How can we now, with any credibility, bemoan the very future so many of us tried to build? I think the problem I see is that the future we tried to build hasn't come to fruition. The future I was trying to build around the turn of the millennium was one in which people had information to make educated decisions and to achieve their goals. The actuality that has come about is that more than ever people are falling for hype and being sidetracked from their goals. It used to be that if you wanted to become a more educated voter, going online would result in you landing on a few political-science related resources and you'd end up reading some pretty hardcore theory: Bob Black, Michel Foucault, Karl Marx. Maybe it was a bit extremist but you would actually have a theoretical understanding of the issues. Now it's more likely you'll come across carefully-crafted "grassroots" political blogs that hype one side or the other without actually encouraging you to make an educated decision. It used to be that if you wanted to bike across the country, Sheldon Brown's webpage[1] would help you figure out how to do it. Now it's more likely that you'll get distracted by Reddit and Facebook while your bike rusts. I, for one, didn't work for this future. I don't give a fuck about cat pictures and I'm actively against the advertising, astroturfing, and distraction that social media results in. I think that while the internet allows us to potentially make our lives better, the majority of people aren't using it that way, and the future we have built makes most people's lives worse. [1] http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html http://sheldonbrown.com/tires.html

Thriptic 12y ago
At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. People have been provided with access to one of the greatest multipurpose tools of all time. How they choose to use that tool is up to them. The fact that most people choose to use it to look up cat videos and share pics on instagram is revealing.
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. It is partially the fault of the average person, but from a stoic perspective, that's not something we can do much about, so we shouldn't waste time thinking about it. What we can do is refuse to write socially irresponsible software. The internet is what mindless people make it, but it's also what software developers make it. EDIT: Also, I'm not really down on cat pictures, I just don't care about them. If the worst people did online was view cat pictures, I'd be less frustrated by the current state of the internet. My frustration comes from the fact that the internet has become a better tool for predatory corporations and authoritarian governments than it has become for the average person.
vitd 12y ago
This reminds me of how people feel when they remember high school. Like many technical people, I was picked on and had a lot of social problems. When I think about those things, I feel like my life was horrible in high school. But I also had really close friends who had similar experiences and when I remember spending time with them, I think life was awesome in high school! I had a band, and we threw parties for our nerd friends, and we played technical pranks on each other. It was great! These days, we have video available instantly on demand without advertisements. But we also have crappy websites that try to throw up an interstitial ad before you can even read the content. I find the tools make it really easy for me to ignore ads and get at content that is as in-depth as I want in just about any direction (for better or worse). I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US).
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  > I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US). I'm not down on talking about dogs or playing scrabble, but does doing these things online instead of in person really improve your life? I mean, you're not actually learning about this person's culture by playing scrabble with them, or seeing life through their eyes. The internet enables these facile interactions between people. Again, it's fun, but it's at best equivalent to things we could do before. I play Scrabble too, but I don't think that playing it on my phone with someone 10,000 miles away is any better than playing it with my neighbor. If I couldn't play Scrabble on my phone it would be no loss to me.

Thriptic 12y ago

At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. People have been provided with access to one of the greatest multipurpose tools of all time. How they choose to use that tool is up to them. The fact that most people choose to use it to look up cat videos and share pics on instagram is revealing.

copsarebastards 12y ago
> At the risk of being cynical, perhaps the problem lies more with the people themselves. Perhaps most people aren't that driven; perhaps they aren't that skeptical; perhaps they don't really care about doing deep dives on topics. It is partially the fault of the average person, but from a stoic perspective, that's not something we can do much about, so we shouldn't waste time thinking about it. What we can do is refuse to write socially irresponsible software. The internet is what mindless people make it, but it's also what software developers make it. EDIT: Also, I'm not really down on cat pictures, I just don't care about them. If the worst people did online was view cat pictures, I'd be less frustrated by the current state of the internet. My frustration comes from the fact that the internet has become a better tool for predatory corporations and authoritarian governments than it has become for the average person.

vitd 12y ago

This reminds me of how people feel when they remember high school. Like many technical people, I was picked on and had a lot of social problems. When I think about those things, I feel like my life was horrible in high school. But I also had really close friends who had similar experiences and when I remember spending time with them, I think life was awesome in high school! I had a band, and we threw parties for our nerd friends, and we played technical pranks on each other. It was great! These days, we have video available instantly on demand without advertisements. But we also have crappy websites that try to throw up an interstitial ad before you can even read the content. I find the tools make it really easy for me to ignore ads and get at content that is as in-depth as I want in just about any direction (for better or worse). I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US).

copsarebastards 12y ago
> I'm a very cynical person overall, but I love where we are. I have a supercomputer in my pocket that can get just about any piece of data I want instantly. (I was video chatting with a friend while walking my dog the other day! And it was no big deal!) I can also play scrabble with someone I've never met in a country I'll never visit 10,000 miles away. If other people want to keep track of which celebrity slept with whom, so be it. But I'm enjoying life like never before, and it seems like most of what I can do is accessible to most people (at least here in the US). I'm not down on talking about dogs or playing scrabble, but does doing these things online instead of in person really improve your life? I mean, you're not actually learning about this person's culture by playing scrabble with them, or seeing life through their eyes. The internet enables these facile interactions between people. Again, it's fun, but it's at best equivalent to things we could do before. I play Scrabble too, but I don't think that playing it on my phone with someone 10,000 miles away is any better than playing it with my neighbor. If I couldn't play Scrabble on my phone it would be no loss to me.