Boy were we naïve in the late 90s/early 00s, thinking all this technology was going to "help humanity".
Hell we even thought by making computers cheap enough and distributing them widely enough we were going to make African societies functional. I have a good laugh about that every time I think about it.
None of us realized that the internet at the time was due to selection effect and pressures acting as gatekeeping.
True. In another thread I brought up the old Jargon File and had a good laugh at the (quaintly outdated) "Politics" section where it describes hackers as "vaguely liberal-moderate, with a strong libertarian contingent".
When in reality the fact that document existed at all and then was given to people coming online with a strong encouragement to follow those pre-existing conventions suggest their political leanings were in fact something far more deeply conservative. But since they didn't want to identify themselves as icky "conservatives" they had no defense against people choosing to ignore those conventions.
When you get down to it, would an actual "liberal" or non-Hoppean libertarian care about Eternal September at all? Given their views on immigration and border security, not really.
True and I've seen indications of GG2 going that way too. Leftists realizing they might have to ally with a "conservative" then instantly doing everything they can to hyper-limit the scope of their disagreement with the mainstream left in the hope they can start attending the "respectable" cocktail parties again.
You guys didn't even have dial-up in the Midwest until the mid-late 00s? Considering the ubiquity of the AOL floppies in the mid-90s I find that hard to believe (unless it was all long-distance numbers, which I remember could be a problem).
Boy were we naïve in the late 90s/early 00s, thinking all this technology was going to "help humanity".
Hell we even thought by making computers cheap enough and distributing them widely enough we were going to make African societies functional. I have a good laugh about that every time I think about it.
Once anything becomes easy enough for normies and women to use it, it's all downhill from there.
Typical-minded fallacy. None of us realized that the internet at the time was due to selection effect and pressures acting as gatekeeping.
Then the eternal september hit, and that was that.
True. In another thread I brought up the old Jargon File and had a good laugh at the (quaintly outdated) "Politics" section where it describes hackers as "vaguely liberal-moderate, with a strong libertarian contingent".
When in reality the fact that document existed at all and then was given to people coming online with a strong encouragement to follow those pre-existing conventions suggest their political leanings were in fact something far more deeply conservative. But since they didn't want to identify themselves as icky "conservatives" they had no defense against people choosing to ignore those conventions.
When you get down to it, would an actual "liberal" or non-Hoppean libertarian care about Eternal September at all? Given their views on immigration and border security, not really.
The part about the fear of the ick factor is true about OG GG and Half KIA, too.
True and I've seen indications of GG2 going that way too. Leftists realizing they might have to ally with a "conservative" then instantly doing everything they can to hyper-limit the scope of their disagreement with the mainstream left in the hope they can start attending the "respectable" cocktail parties again.
Not that it'll work, but they certainly will try.
The internet always needed to be something you go to a specific place to use, not something you have in your pocket 24 hours/day.
That IMO is the true dividing line between Gen X and Millennial: do you remember a time before the internet?
I'm on the older end of millennial (born before 1984), and I didn't get regular internet until about 1998.
Yes, I do remember. Playing baseball on the cul-de-sac I used to live on, for example.
You guys didn't even have dial-up in the Midwest until the mid-late 00s? Considering the ubiquity of the AOL floppies in the mid-90s I find that hard to believe (unless it was all long-distance numbers, which I remember could be a problem).
Technology is a force multiplier. Anything multiplied by zero is still zero.