I don’t miss dial-up internet, I just don’t. I don’t even like the sound because it’s just digital screeches and it’s a sound that makes me cringe a little upon hearing it. Because I remember the times when I’d be listening to music with headphones with volume high and then that fucking digital screech just blares into my ears.
I don’t miss waiting 30 minutes to load a page. I don’t miss a bit of it.
I do not feel nostalgia for the information isolation and bottleneck prior to the late 90’s, like needing the newspaper classified ads to find a job, music discovery was primarily limited to local FM radio (although I’m totally disenfranchised from streaming ads with a little bit of music added into the gaps), and cable TV as the only form of home entertainment. I am nostalgic for the age of ownership and citizenship. I hate neo feudalism and the corruption of the tech bro oligarchy, but I digress.
The fact that I can have New Pipe content filled with people holding masters and doctorate degrees while communicating in a layperson format is awesome. I can’t imagine how terrible physical disability would have been if I couldn’t take a break from a project, like right now, and feel like I’m in a casual conversation with a real group of people despite being in bed hurting. It lacks the same psychological depth as in person interchange, and people often fail to understand the depth or specificity of what am talking about here, but it is better than nothing by a long shot. The negativity of the average anon seems to get better with time in the present age. We are still not at a point where we can be wrong in a truly civil way and see value in people. We do not seem to process that we are all evolving and a growing mess of change at various levels, but we are getting there slowly and we are a long way away from the negativity of the early internet. So yeah, if this is the information age, I do not feel nostalgic about the previous information bottleneck.
Access to infinite knowledge from the internet, sitting right in everyones pocket. Sometimes, I will find myself talking to someone a few generations older than me. And they will say something along the lines of “I wonder how many…” and then just let the idea rest. Because they still act like they would have to go to a library to look up the fact. It amazes me! We don’t have to wonder. I can look it up right now! It’ll take me a few seconds.
Alternatively, I cannot stand when I am talking to someone and make a statement to which they respond: “I don’t know…” or “I’m not sure if that’s true”. This is often a tactic I see older men use (often talking politics) to cast doubt on a younger or female person. And unfortunately, back in the day that was good enough to derail a conversation. Nowadays though… Don’t believe me? Let’s look it up. We don’t have to take your word for it. People forget they can be fact checked in real time.
I often find looking up facts defeats the point of the conversation, specifically in the context of your first para