And so it goes for all of history
only for the intellectually diverse
Now that’s a new interesting insult 😁
?
I mean, I haven’t been alive for all of history unless the self-centered universe is a thing.
I was thinking more along the lines of someone in 1810 thinking the same thing you think about the internet for, like the French Revolution
I have a bookmark made by the band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum that was sneakily tucked into my merch haul last time I saw them live, and it has a quote on it that I will need to wait until I get home to properly remember, and I also want to do more diligence to figure out if it is an actual quote. At the top it says “A WARNING ABOUT READING”, and the quote says something like:
Beware the written language, man was never destined to record their every thought. How will we continue to remember ourselves when we are now able to cast our essence into this new medium, to remove the memories from ourselves so that we are wrought into perpetual forgetfulness?
-Allegedly some ancient guy from the dawn of booksholy smokes it’s been a while since i heard someone mention sleepytime gorilla museum
Still doin’ their thing, they released a new album last year! They went on a small new-album tour and that’s when I was able to catch their show.
I found the source of the quote on the bookmark, and it was a quote by Plato out of Phaedrus so it definitely is real lol. It’s somewhat different on the bookmark, but depending on what translation you look at the quote will probably be slightly different anyway. It’s sections 274e to 275b
But when he came to writing, Theuth said, “This branch of learning, O King, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories, for I have discovered an elixir of both memory and wisdom.” The king replied, “Oh most ingenious Theuth, one man is able to invent these skills, but a different person is capable of judging their benefit or harm to those who will use them. And you, as the father of writing, on account of your positive attitude, are now saying that it does the opposite of what it is able to do. This subject will engender forgetfulness in the souls of those who learn it, for they will not make use of memory. Because of their faith in writing, they will be reminded externally by means of unfamiliar marks, and not from within themselves by means of themselves. So, you have discovered an elixir not of memory but of reminding. You will provide the students with a semblance of wisdom, not true wisdom. For having heard a great deal without any teaching they will seem to be extremely knowledgeable, when for the most part they are ignorant, and are difficult people to be with because they have attained a seeming wisdom without being wise.”
Exactly what is the “entire narrative of the Internet” and when did it start?
What is there to sort out?
I peg the start around 1994. By then it was a household term, computers and dial up were fast becoming ubiquitous, people were learning to navigate the web, etc.
A lot of people equate ‘the internet’ with the web, which would be 1989.
Others will point to when they got their first email address, some years before that.
Really though, you should be looking at the beginning of ARPANET, which goes back to 1969.
Yeah on all of the above.
Narrative…?
Believe it or not, there used to be a time when companies weren’t invading every part of your life with ads.
Ads were 6 minutes of garbage between TV, and between the pages of magazines and newspapers.
People would talk to each other on the phone. No ads. Mark their calanders to get together if they felt like it. No ads. Then actually meet up. Some ads.
Now, when you talk to anyone you know on Facebook? Ads. Any social media? Ads. Opening Google calander? Ads. Twitter? The person you’re talking to is an bot /ad. I don’t even have to be watching an actual TV show now to be served ads on my TV. Just turning it on gives me an ad.
These ads are from organizations trying to spin you a narrative urging you to give them money. The strategies they use for this are fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Things like: “Don’t miss out on that Lububu!” “Make sure to book your tickets for the movie opening next week!” “Make sure to buy this pillow before liberals take it from you.”
People now believe these narratives simply because they’ve been shoved into every aspect of our lives via social media.
These ads, collectively, are not something that ever existed in any society to the amount they do now. So it’s absolutley no surprise that the “narrative” these ads are telling us is completely warping people’s minds.
People still think Fox News is news. Simply because that’s how it’s advertised.
I’m not sure that’s what they meant, but OK
Well, you see kiddo, it all started with the Eternal September and it’s been downhill ever since. Also your music is too loud and stay off my lawn.
Wadidya say sonny? Yes I do like raisin bran! (First time visiting Amsterdam)
Legit take me back, modern front facing side of the net is fucking awful
We have ai now. It will explain.
Lol
“The internet was invented by Francis P. Mueller when an apple hit him straight in the dick…”
Are you sure?
Oh sorry about that, it was invented by Francis Bacon when a wheelbarrow hit him in the chin.
I’m pretty sure it was Al Gore who invented the Internet.
And if we say it enough, the AI will make it true.
No Al Gore invented Al, that’s why it’s called Al duh
After Kony 2024 anything is possible.
The internet is a testament to the power of applied interpretive dance; it wouldn’t be anything like it is today without those Al Gore Rhythms!
But what about Friedrich Gustav Carl Emil von Internet and his contributions in 1784?
“Wait, explain how Neopets was Scientology again?”
“What was the purpose of the hamster dance?"
Geocities?
I deal with Junior devs that don’t even actually understand how it works now. Much less how it worked in the 90s. Routing is sysops, HTML is designers, storage is for DBAs. All they learn in coding boot camp is how react works, and even then, they don’t actually understand what it’s doing.
In all industries the worker is eventually alienated from the process of production through specialization. They need not know the process of manufacture or how the machine functions. They must only know their part in it. In all cases the workers must be reduced to the significance of a cog so that they may be easily replaceable
So for an old fart like me, C/C++, netcode and multi threading senior, it’s all over?
So I’ve always felt this way about video games.
Can you imagine a kids first Mario game being Mario Wonder? That’s a twist on Mario games, it’s not the base Mario!? They won’t understand what makes it an interesting new game!
But the thing is, it’s fine. Everything new is old. Plus it’s the Internet, it’s impossible to actually sort out everything.
Like, what is Roblox? I know it’s some online game. Then I saw John Green play Roblox with his daughter. It was a dress up simulator. That’s Roblox?
Or how about the song Gangnam Style? I remember when that reached 1 billion views on YouTube. That was a moment. But then remember Despacito? When I first heard that song it was already at 1.2 billion views. How could I clearly remember the first billion views video, but completely miss it happening again?
Think about the entirety of history that happened before you. How did you sort that out?
Well, ideally that’s what parents are supposed to help with. But it seems a lot of parents would rather have legislation pushed that make it so they don’t have to actually parent their own fuckin kid.
The way things are going, physical media will be a thing of the past, from records to DVDs to Video game cartridges, our entire existence has revolved around physical media, but people went without for thousands of years before us, and people will go without after us. We are a very unique blip in history.
I was explaining to my kid what a cassette was, and then I realized that I had to explain what physical media was first. Like, no, movies and music didn’t always just materialize out of the magic light-box.
Also had to explain to a nephew what the save icon was. That was funny.
The mediaiferous epoch.
