All time since September 1993. One of the seasonal rhythms of the Usenet used to be the annual September influx of clueless newbies who, lacking any sense of netiquette, made a general nuisance of themselves. This coincided with people starting college, getting their first internet accounts, and plunging in without bothering to learn what was acceptable. These relatively small drafts of newbies could be assimilated within a few months. But in September 1993, AOL users became able to post to Usenet, nearly overwhelming the old-timers' capacity to acculturate them; to those who nostalgically recall the period before, this triggered an inexorable decline in the quality of discussions on newsgroups.
Funny how large numbers of immigrants overwhelming the host culture's ability to assimilate them is a problem that keeps cropping up. Also funny how we're allowed to talk about that in all aspects of life except one.
Oh my goodness this takes my old ass back. Same shit happened in IRC when so many AOL noobs found out about warez and flooded scene group channels begging to join. Thankfully many set channel passes, put a wall up against the virtual caravans.
I miss when it actually meant the opposite.
One of the things that bothers me the most about how far left silicon valley is today is that I remember the early 2000's when it was ultra libertarian.
I miss when being a gamer meant you just played games and didn't have to deal with a bunch of SJW cretins who constantly tried to vandalise your hobby and make out you were some kind of fusion of Hitler and Skeletor whose very piss is pure liquid evil.
Sometimes I wonder if smartphones and mass computerization were a mistake. On one hand, it allows idiots and malefactors to spread their message and do their evil on a massive scale not imagined years before.
On the other hand, it allows the truth to spread even factor than before and to break through the MSM grip on information. Without the Internet and computers (and maybe my smartphone), I am willing to bet many of us won't be red-pilled in the first place.
I'm starting to think Kaczynski was wrong. The internet has enabled memes to evolve faster than ever. By linking the commies together in a shared space, the could evolve rapidly enough to make the matrix salient. It's not the truth that is freeing us. It is being bombarded with increasingly insane propaganda in real time while witnessing the truth with your own eyes.
I think if I could send one piece of tech back it would be phones. Just make cell phones not a common thing and put pay phones up everywhere. I say this as someone who works in the telecom industry even. I would have still found a career.
This. In the end, smartphones (at least in combo with social media) were a mistake.
Think about it - this is an addictive item which frequently causes anger, depression and envy, and leads to to frequent distraction to the users. 13 years ago it barely existed, and now it is so common that if you don't have one people think you're some type of weirdo and even sometimes mock you for it (at least, in my experience).
Yes, it does give us access to the sum total of human knowledge in the palm of our hands, but many people just use it to look at headlines and then ignore the actual story so they can go look pictures of what people ate for lunch and what their favorite sportsball player or movie star is doing today. (yeah, I know I'm exaggerating some).
If the cell networks were to just shut down tomorrow, I'm certain the world would be a better place.
For the most part, I agree with you, but here's the funny thing... nobody picks on me at work (at a telecom for that matter) for not bothering with facebook or twitter. I do have a rarely-used twitter account, but I think all I've ever done on it was post like 2-3 splatoon pictures. Yeah, that's it.
In a weird way, I think it's more that there's some kind of fear among the populace that they will be left out.
That said, I do run into a fair number of customers who could care less about facebook and twitter so long as facetime and SMS/iMessage work.
Phones are fine. Social media is cancer, but Twitter specifically is a terminal case. The character limits encourage and amplify simplistic thinking and a mob mentality.
If you were going to design a digital lynch mob I don't know if you'd do anything different.
I was more thinking how nice it would be if everyone was forced to disconnect when they got away from home. I know way too many people that wouldn't be able to handle being away from their phone an hour and think it would be good for them.
But yeah, social media is waaay worse than phones. You're spot on it's a digital lynch mob.
As someone who works in telecom I don't think it's changed that much. I just think a lot of the idiocy has moved from desktop machines to handheld devices.
As an example,10 years ago, it seemed like smartphones were rare, but every customer seemingly had a computer. Granted, many of those computers were aging and falling apart and clearly badly maintained.
Nowadays they just have badly maintained smartphones that they treat as badly as the desktop machines they threw away when they thought they didn't need them anymore. (Now excuse me before I get tempted to rant about people with iPhones who don't keep a computer around for hard resets when the dang thing crashes....)
Take me back to January 2, 2000. Society was full of optimism over the new millennium, and at that point we knew the computers weren't going to fail and bring down civilization. And Napster hadn't been sued by Metallica yet.
Put the entire computer world back in the late 90s and never move it forward please. Right after when I got DSL but before the Internet got taken over by BS.
Remember when gaming wasn't overrun by feminists and their cuck SJW enablers? Remember when "gamer girl" meant a booth babe in a bikini and heels promoting a game at an expo? Oh yeah, remember when expos were actually good, and companies brought new and interesting content? When an expo was an expo, not a smattering of unfinished regurgitated games from last year a crowd of streamers and their hangers-on? And panels covered stuff worth listening to rather than "how our company plans to include 100% more women and trannies in our management and design staff in the coming year"?
Fuck me.
Remember when games were made with shitty tech, yet managed to tell 1000% better stories? Remember when companies didn't go into spasms thinking that they don't have enough strong whamen characters in their latest offerings? And female characters that were actually fun and easy on the eye? Yeah, remember when Lara Croft had tits and wasn't a whiny millennial?
10+ years ago, the boys vs. girls thing for games? Was FUN! As in like two rival teams duking it out. Like I'd get some absolutely insane kill playing Quake and have guys just cheering me on. I always felt like they liked seeing girls who genuinely enjoyed this stuff.
Now it just kinda feels like you're ruining their playground just by the virtue of showing up. Because that girl might be some feminist troll....
Eternal September:
Funny how large numbers of immigrants overwhelming the host culture's ability to assimilate them is a problem that keeps cropping up. Also funny how we're allowed to talk about that in all aspects of life except one.
Oh my goodness this takes my old ass back. Same shit happened in IRC when so many AOL noobs found out about warez and flooded scene group channels begging to join. Thankfully many set channel passes, put a wall up against the virtual caravans.
Back in my days, the BBS dungeon master would've kicked you all@!!!!
Goddamn hippie faggots.
Oh man, the BBS days were glorious.
"There is another organism on this planet that behaves in the same way. Do you know what it is? A virus."
Agent Smith
I feel old.
I miss when being in technology meant you were an engineer.
I miss when being a software dev didn't mean that you were an SJW.
I miss when coding didn't refer to codes of conduct.
I miss when it actually meant the opposite.
One of the things that bothers me the most about how far left silicon valley is today is that I remember the early 2000's when it was ultra libertarian.
That flip was not organic.
I miss when being a gamer meant you just played games and didn't have to deal with a bunch of SJW cretins who constantly tried to vandalise your hobby and make out you were some kind of fusion of Hitler and Skeletor whose very piss is pure liquid evil.
Sometimes I wonder if smartphones and mass computerization were a mistake. On one hand, it allows idiots and malefactors to spread their message and do their evil on a massive scale not imagined years before.
On the other hand, it allows the truth to spread even factor than before and to break through the MSM grip on information. Without the Internet and computers (and maybe my smartphone), I am willing to bet many of us won't be red-pilled in the first place.
I'm starting to think Kaczynski was wrong. The internet has enabled memes to evolve faster than ever. By linking the commies together in a shared space, the could evolve rapidly enough to make the matrix salient. It's not the truth that is freeing us. It is being bombarded with increasingly insane propaganda in real time while witnessing the truth with your own eyes.
ACCELARATE?
I think if I could send one piece of tech back it would be phones. Just make cell phones not a common thing and put pay phones up everywhere. I say this as someone who works in the telecom industry even. I would have still found a career.
This. In the end, smartphones (at least in combo with social media) were a mistake.
Think about it - this is an addictive item which frequently causes anger, depression and envy, and leads to to frequent distraction to the users. 13 years ago it barely existed, and now it is so common that if you don't have one people think you're some type of weirdo and even sometimes mock you for it (at least, in my experience).
Yes, it does give us access to the sum total of human knowledge in the palm of our hands, but many people just use it to look at headlines and then ignore the actual story so they can go look pictures of what people ate for lunch and what their favorite sportsball player or movie star is doing today. (yeah, I know I'm exaggerating some).
If the cell networks were to just shut down tomorrow, I'm certain the world would be a better place.
For the most part, I agree with you, but here's the funny thing... nobody picks on me at work (at a telecom for that matter) for not bothering with facebook or twitter. I do have a rarely-used twitter account, but I think all I've ever done on it was post like 2-3 splatoon pictures. Yeah, that's it.
In a weird way, I think it's more that there's some kind of fear among the populace that they will be left out.
That said, I do run into a fair number of customers who could care less about facebook and twitter so long as facetime and SMS/iMessage work.
Phones are fine. Social media is cancer, but Twitter specifically is a terminal case. The character limits encourage and amplify simplistic thinking and a mob mentality.
If you were going to design a digital lynch mob I don't know if you'd do anything different.
I was more thinking how nice it would be if everyone was forced to disconnect when they got away from home. I know way too many people that wouldn't be able to handle being away from their phone an hour and think it would be good for them.
But yeah, social media is waaay worse than phones. You're spot on it's a digital lynch mob.
As someone who works in telecom I don't think it's changed that much. I just think a lot of the idiocy has moved from desktop machines to handheld devices.
As an example,10 years ago, it seemed like smartphones were rare, but every customer seemingly had a computer. Granted, many of those computers were aging and falling apart and clearly badly maintained.
Nowadays they just have badly maintained smartphones that they treat as badly as the desktop machines they threw away when they thought they didn't need them anymore. (Now excuse me before I get tempted to rant about people with iPhones who don't keep a computer around for hard resets when the dang thing crashes....)
Can we just remove 2007? The whole year. Delete it.
I want the color blindness back, when Kimmel did black face. I hate seeing race.
I miss when riots were a one-off weird event, not a repeating cycle of manufactured outrage every couple of years.
The dirty secret is that those riots are manufactured. It's just how the cathedral does buisness.
Hand out money to people with nothing. Now you own them. They need you to live.
Tell them they aren't dependant on you. It's that those other people are keeping them down.
Watch your political enemies cower in fear, and grovel for it to end.
Placate the mob by implementing whatever policy you handed out on the signs. Probably something that will make the mob easier to unleash next time.
Repeat
Take me back to January 2, 2000. Society was full of optimism over the new millennium, and at that point we knew the computers weren't going to fail and bring down civilization. And Napster hadn't been sued by Metallica yet.
2007 was a mistake.
Put the entire computer world back in the late 90s and never move it forward please. Right after when I got DSL but before the Internet got taken over by BS.
Fuck I miss the 90's internet, especially usenet back then. Internet's sterilized like TV channels these days.
Holyshit. How did I never make this connection. Christ.
Well since we are being nostalgic.
Remember when gaming wasn't overrun by feminists and their cuck SJW enablers? Remember when "gamer girl" meant a booth babe in a bikini and heels promoting a game at an expo? Oh yeah, remember when expos were actually good, and companies brought new and interesting content? When an expo was an expo, not a smattering of unfinished regurgitated games from last year a crowd of streamers and their hangers-on? And panels covered stuff worth listening to rather than "how our company plans to include 100% more women and trannies in our management and design staff in the coming year"?
Fuck me.
Remember when games were made with shitty tech, yet managed to tell 1000% better stories? Remember when companies didn't go into spasms thinking that they don't have enough strong whamen characters in their latest offerings? And female characters that were actually fun and easy on the eye? Yeah, remember when Lara Croft had tits and wasn't a whiny millennial?
Remember? PEPEridge farm sure as fuck does.
And you know something funny?
10+ years ago, the boys vs. girls thing for games? Was FUN! As in like two rival teams duking it out. Like I'd get some absolutely insane kill playing Quake and have guys just cheering me on. I always felt like they liked seeing girls who genuinely enjoyed this stuff.
Now it just kinda feels like you're ruining their playground just by the virtue of showing up. Because that girl might be some feminist troll....
The internet was way better when it was being gatekeeped by a bunch of nerds.