95 for me. I think the big change (for me at least) was when the internet went from a thing you connected to for a short period of time (check email, catch up on slashdot, do research for some school paper, etc...) to a thing that simply was.
I would argue that the internet is a substantial part of the reason for the level of insanity in modern politics. We might have ended up here anyway, but the ability to curate your social environment until you're surrounded by people who agree with you or provide you with nothing but positive reinforcement has definitely accelerated and exacerbated the problem.
It's made it easier for the dictators to push through their dictatorship too. People wouldn't have stayed home as long. You wouldn't have digital vaccine passports, digital ID, and face recognition.
Ironically the internet was known as the bringing information to the masses and a brighter tomorrow. It has been used for the opposite.
I would argue that it's always been pretty insane- maybe not to this degree, but it's much easier to find out about goings on outside of your immediate influence. The elites no longer have total control over information from the outside and shareable content is amplified over true or important, but boring events.
Interesting one. Since I presume all of this is based around continuing to live in the current world as we know it I'd have to throw in a few caveats like required use for work, etc.
Otherwise, better availability of physical media mainly outside of the internet. Books, video, music, software, games, etc. A lot of this has gone to either non-existent or hard to procure locally at times.
Also, a legit old school newspaper. Not the New York toilet times. Something more local with at least some journalistic integrity and like it used to be with physical delivery to my house.
Otherwise, not the Internet but related. I'm not giving up regular old SMS texting, it works too well to keep up with family and friends as it is. Also, keeping a cell phone but a dumb phone is fine. Not that either of these would I mind giving up, but the world has moved on. Phone for example, sometimes you really do need communication when out somewhere and payphones are a thing of the past.
Short answer, if we could roll the methods and availability of product back about 30 years, I could give up the internet right now.
I haven't tried many garage sales, but thrift stores can be good too or there's this "antique mall" that's more of a junk shop that I've bought at. I tend to overdo it a bit when it comes to books/games/movie collecting. So a couple years ago I set a pretty tight budget on that now just as a personal goal to force myself. I was buying stuff I would watch/read/play just once and be totally disinterested in ever wanting it again, but letting it take up space. It's been good to try to understand my tastes and be more selective.
Cell phone wise, if I could get my first BlackBerry before everything went smartphone and touchscreen, I'd be happy forever. I think technically it did internet, but very poorly. It was very good at texting, e-mail, and calls and that's all I really want from a phone.
I've tried several times, but electronic communication + politics has infected and destroyed everything social I use to do.
I've lived on my own for 20 years so son't think that I'm actually this young, but the rick and morry clip basically captures what it's like to do anything with my parents, it's like me speaking causes them pain and discomfort if I say anything that's not a rehash of when I was a kid. They'll invite me over endlessly (it's not like they don't actually want me around) then act like if we don't rehash the same conversation we've had 100 times I'm a bad person. https://youtu.be/bRBPrcBfimI
My friend from high school got into politics + a manager position and he's intolerable.
I could go on, but it's been several cycles of hyping myself into getting together with someone, taking a social beating that often didn't use to be there, going "what was I thinking going to extra effort to get together with people like this" and I end up back on the internet. I mean, at least it wakes my brain up.
Which parts? Social media I could leave now for nothing because I don't really do social media anyway. I could also do without the steady stream of the propaganda that masquerades itself as news. Pirate stuff for media that's decent and gaming would be far harder. There's still some decent content on sites like YouTube depending on what you're interested in and how good you are at evading an algorithm determined to flood your recommendations with shit if you watch unapproved content.
The internet is absolutely dead, trash, compromised, largely worthless, compared to what it was and could have been. That doesn't mean I see much need to 'leave' it. I've already left most of the communities I valued long ago because they changed or simply ceased to exist. But now I'm left behind in enemy territory and getting glimpses into modern information warfare tactics every day. It's not fun any more, but it's still informative if you proceed inductively from what you're initially shown, assuming you have the patience for counterspying.
Also they never did manage to stop piracy. Any media that's ever been digitised is still hanging around here somewhere, waiting for us to do whatever we want with it (which, if we're smart, should be to stick it back onto physical media and local backups wherever possible).
Nothing keeping me online except my business. Give me enough money/resources to independently live offline, and I'm outta here.
But I'm assuming you mostly mean social media. It would be nice to know what's going on in the world. Word of mouth only goes so far. I watch YouTube for entertainment but that's easy to quit.
I'm still trying to make it work. Cultivating RSS feeds from sources with something interesting to say. Even most explicit rightwing sources are written by complete nobodies with empty life experiences. News at this point is pretty much Zero Hedge, Legal Insurrection, Memology, and Victor Davis Hanson's podcast. There are, surprisingly, a few /pol/ threads of value still.
The internet is invaluable for hobbyists. Nothing can replace it. I own a zillion woodworking books and I still find randos on the internet with better information. Maybe they just know their audience better and aren't filtered through an editor that insists upon generalizing content. For very, very niche subjects in technical fields, books are king though. For instance, there are zero insightful websites on nuclear energy. None. It's all second hand propaganda from industry shills who've never spent a day around a reactor. You've gotta really dive into published or declassified papers to get meaningful insights on the subject.
Streaming services are a wasteland now. Good riddance.
Hard to find good communities. I guess this is my go-to community, even though I didn't even know about Gamergate until it had passed.
Hacker News is kind of interesting. Tech bois with lefty views but still thoughtful comments.
That's about the extent of my internet use anymore. A few select small communities and an information resource. Also, I guess things that would otherwise be done by mail in the same fashion like bills and finances.
I gave up almost all of what I had left of the big sites during the BLM Saint Floyd Summer Tour. It was the last straw really, and at the time I think the only posts allowed had to be about wearing a mask or kneeling for the riots. I've not missed. All those places did is serve to agitate me. Occasionally someone will ask me, "did you see ___ say ___ on Twitter?" I just answer with "No I don't really go on there anymore" and that's the end of it.
I use the net for streaming media, communications and the odd fact finding curiosity these days. But I do remember a time when the net was more beautiful and informative vibrant.
I think that things like Web 2.0 intermingling with Smartphones being status objects and the "kleenex-ing" of social media, which would later nurture dependency and FoMO culture has greatly hindered any type of uniqueness to the communication tool.
W3 no longer sail the net like a sea. We merely exist in it like a shark cage.
This question is very quickly approaching the point where one might as well ask "what would it take for you to stop using electricity?" Yes you can do it, yes some people do it, yes most of humanity lived without it, but to go without it one must abandon modern life.
To answer your question, I would need to become like the Amish: not only willing to forgo the internet but also be around a lot of people similarly willing to forgo it. Otherwise you're just externalizing your dependency on the internet: pretending it doesn't exist but in reality depending on people who still use it. Which even the Amish do to an extent with electricity.
Edit: also consider the very real possibility that we're part of the very last generation that would even be able let alone willing to live life without the internet, since we spent a significant portion of our lives without access to it. The generations after us cannot say that.
I do not what the Internet did to the world but not sure if I would want it gone.
As for your question, I do not think I can give it up, I'm strangely reminded by Kreia in KOTOR2 when asked why does she use the force if she hates it so much. Her answer was something along the lines of, she uses it as one would use a poison or maybe this are just the justifications of an old woman. I feel kind of the same.
Speaking of Kotor2 I was thinking it would be nice to put Kathleen Kennedy instead of Kreia and tell Rey instead of the protagonist, how she sees in her the death of the force and how she hates the force. But then I realized that I admire the Kreia character, evil as she may be but I do not admire Kathleen Kennedy.
A complete societal and cultural revamp that affords outlets that are now comatose or missing entirely. Go back to anywhere around 1970-1998 socially. All the academics and professionals who crunch numbers and have to keep up to date with Real Work can keep the long range digital comms but transcendental gender theorists belong in the now-missing mental health care facilities and not in the class room teaching your kids how to suck a dick on onlyfans
Probably being too busy with things that actually matter. Been posting less in general and when I have it's been very short shitposts because of that actually.
(edit: mostly referring to social media but this also includes generally time waster websites and also news).
Lol, more polite words than I'd use. It's just mental masturbation.
Why not just walk away from the shitty parts? I walked away from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc because they are all shit. But I come here and enjoy it.
Internet 2
Curious, what was your favorite Internet era? I connected during the rise of flash and miss that era dearly.
95 for me. I think the big change (for me at least) was when the internet went from a thing you connected to for a short period of time (check email, catch up on slashdot, do research for some school paper, etc...) to a thing that simply was.
If politics was sane, it would be much easier
I would argue that the internet is a substantial part of the reason for the level of insanity in modern politics. We might have ended up here anyway, but the ability to curate your social environment until you're surrounded by people who agree with you or provide you with nothing but positive reinforcement has definitely accelerated and exacerbated the problem.
It's made it easier for the dictators to push through their dictatorship too. People wouldn't have stayed home as long. You wouldn't have digital vaccine passports, digital ID, and face recognition.
Ironically the internet was known as the bringing information to the masses and a brighter tomorrow. It has been used for the opposite.
I would argue that it's always been pretty insane- maybe not to this degree, but it's much easier to find out about goings on outside of your immediate influence. The elites no longer have total control over information from the outside and shareable content is amplified over true or important, but boring events.
Interesting one. Since I presume all of this is based around continuing to live in the current world as we know it I'd have to throw in a few caveats like required use for work, etc.
Otherwise, better availability of physical media mainly outside of the internet. Books, video, music, software, games, etc. A lot of this has gone to either non-existent or hard to procure locally at times.
Also, a legit old school newspaper. Not the New York toilet times. Something more local with at least some journalistic integrity and like it used to be with physical delivery to my house.
Otherwise, not the Internet but related. I'm not giving up regular old SMS texting, it works too well to keep up with family and friends as it is. Also, keeping a cell phone but a dumb phone is fine. Not that either of these would I mind giving up, but the world has moved on. Phone for example, sometimes you really do need communication when out somewhere and payphones are a thing of the past.
Short answer, if we could roll the methods and availability of product back about 30 years, I could give up the internet right now.
I haven't tried many garage sales, but thrift stores can be good too or there's this "antique mall" that's more of a junk shop that I've bought at. I tend to overdo it a bit when it comes to books/games/movie collecting. So a couple years ago I set a pretty tight budget on that now just as a personal goal to force myself. I was buying stuff I would watch/read/play just once and be totally disinterested in ever wanting it again, but letting it take up space. It's been good to try to understand my tastes and be more selective.
Cell phone wise, if I could get my first BlackBerry before everything went smartphone and touchscreen, I'd be happy forever. I think technically it did internet, but very poorly. It was very good at texting, e-mail, and calls and that's all I really want from a phone.
I've tried several times, but electronic communication + politics has infected and destroyed everything social I use to do.
I've lived on my own for 20 years so son't think that I'm actually this young, but the rick and morry clip basically captures what it's like to do anything with my parents, it's like me speaking causes them pain and discomfort if I say anything that's not a rehash of when I was a kid. They'll invite me over endlessly (it's not like they don't actually want me around) then act like if we don't rehash the same conversation we've had 100 times I'm a bad person.
https://youtu.be/bRBPrcBfimI
My friend from high school got into politics + a manager position and he's intolerable.
I could go on, but it's been several cycles of hyping myself into getting together with someone, taking a social beating that often didn't use to be there, going "what was I thinking going to extra effort to get together with people like this" and I end up back on the internet. I mean, at least it wakes my brain up.
3d waifu that also had the same knowledge as Cortana/Trinity in their respective lore.
Which parts? Social media I could leave now for nothing because I don't really do social media anyway. I could also do without the steady stream of the propaganda that masquerades itself as news. Pirate stuff for media that's decent and gaming would be far harder. There's still some decent content on sites like YouTube depending on what you're interested in and how good you are at evading an algorithm determined to flood your recommendations with shit if you watch unapproved content.
The internet is absolutely dead, trash, compromised, largely worthless, compared to what it was and could have been. That doesn't mean I see much need to 'leave' it. I've already left most of the communities I valued long ago because they changed or simply ceased to exist. But now I'm left behind in enemy territory and getting glimpses into modern information warfare tactics every day. It's not fun any more, but it's still informative if you proceed inductively from what you're initially shown, assuming you have the patience for counterspying.
Also they never did manage to stop piracy. Any media that's ever been digitised is still hanging around here somewhere, waiting for us to do whatever we want with it (which, if we're smart, should be to stick it back onto physical media and local backups wherever possible).
Nothing keeping me online except my business. Give me enough money/resources to independently live offline, and I'm outta here.
But I'm assuming you mostly mean social media. It would be nice to know what's going on in the world. Word of mouth only goes so far. I watch YouTube for entertainment but that's easy to quit.
Kids and a sexy wife.
I'm still trying to make it work. Cultivating RSS feeds from sources with something interesting to say. Even most explicit rightwing sources are written by complete nobodies with empty life experiences. News at this point is pretty much Zero Hedge, Legal Insurrection, Memology, and Victor Davis Hanson's podcast. There are, surprisingly, a few /pol/ threads of value still.
The internet is invaluable for hobbyists. Nothing can replace it. I own a zillion woodworking books and I still find randos on the internet with better information. Maybe they just know their audience better and aren't filtered through an editor that insists upon generalizing content. For very, very niche subjects in technical fields, books are king though. For instance, there are zero insightful websites on nuclear energy. None. It's all second hand propaganda from industry shills who've never spent a day around a reactor. You've gotta really dive into published or declassified papers to get meaningful insights on the subject.
Streaming services are a wasteland now. Good riddance.
Hard to find good communities. I guess this is my go-to community, even though I didn't even know about Gamergate until it had passed.
Hacker News is kind of interesting. Tech bois with lefty views but still thoughtful comments.
Only if I get isekaied against my will into another world that doesn't have technology.
That's about the extent of my internet use anymore. A few select small communities and an information resource. Also, I guess things that would otherwise be done by mail in the same fashion like bills and finances.
I gave up almost all of what I had left of the big sites during the BLM Saint Floyd Summer Tour. It was the last straw really, and at the time I think the only posts allowed had to be about wearing a mask or kneeling for the riots. I've not missed. All those places did is serve to agitate me. Occasionally someone will ask me, "did you see ___ say ___ on Twitter?" I just answer with "No I don't really go on there anymore" and that's the end of it.
I use the net for streaming media, communications and the odd fact finding curiosity these days. But I do remember a time when the net was more beautiful and informative vibrant.
I think that things like Web 2.0 intermingling with Smartphones being status objects and the "kleenex-ing" of social media, which would later nurture dependency and FoMO culture has greatly hindered any type of uniqueness to the communication tool.
W3 no longer sail the net like a sea. We merely exist in it like a shark cage.
This question is very quickly approaching the point where one might as well ask "what would it take for you to stop using electricity?" Yes you can do it, yes some people do it, yes most of humanity lived without it, but to go without it one must abandon modern life.
To answer your question, I would need to become like the Amish: not only willing to forgo the internet but also be around a lot of people similarly willing to forgo it. Otherwise you're just externalizing your dependency on the internet: pretending it doesn't exist but in reality depending on people who still use it. Which even the Amish do to an extent with electricity.
Edit: also consider the very real possibility that we're part of the very last generation that would even be able let alone willing to live life without the internet, since we spent a significant portion of our lives without access to it. The generations after us cannot say that.
I do not what the Internet did to the world but not sure if I would want it gone.
As for your question, I do not think I can give it up, I'm strangely reminded by Kreia in KOTOR2 when asked why does she use the force if she hates it so much. Her answer was something along the lines of, she uses it as one would use a poison or maybe this are just the justifications of an old woman. I feel kind of the same.
Speaking of Kotor2 I was thinking it would be nice to put Kathleen Kennedy instead of Kreia and tell Rey instead of the protagonist, how she sees in her the death of the force and how she hates the force. But then I realized that I admire the Kreia character, evil as she may be but I do not admire Kathleen Kennedy.
If every website was required to be entirely leftist by law. There wouldn't be anything interesting left to see.
If the government started hunting down dissidents by tracking them via internet/location/etc.
I wouldn't even have a choice then.
I'm just wondering if One Piece will finish by the time that happens.
The internet is just a communications network for humanity.
A complete societal and cultural revamp that affords outlets that are now comatose or missing entirely. Go back to anywhere around 1970-1998 socially. All the academics and professionals who crunch numbers and have to keep up to date with Real Work can keep the long range digital comms but transcendental gender theorists belong in the now-missing mental health care facilities and not in the class room teaching your kids how to suck a dick on onlyfans
Probably being too busy with things that actually matter. Been posting less in general and when I have it's been very short shitposts because of that actually.
Lol, more polite words than I'd use. It's just mental masturbation.
I don't use social media, so I guess I left society behind already.
Why not just walk away from the shitty parts? I walked away from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc because they are all shit. But I come here and enjoy it.
Problem is that it is impossible. Or do you mean social media?