Do you fear the Internet or love it, or any other thoughts?

[8bitagent]

I was a relatively early adopter (early-mid 90s). I can't see life without it now, but I long for the days when it was a novelty, and when almost everyone on it was smart. To be fair, it has always hosted disgusting right wing trolls. Just browse Usenet archives. But I miss Usenet.

I hate stuff like Facebook in the abstract, but I just don't yet feel personally threatened by it. Might the internet as we now know it have been a social experiment luring us to let it all hang out in (false) expectation of relative anonymity?

I agree! Back when it felt exciting. But yeah back then conspiracy forums/chat in 1996=UFOs and OMG ZOG JEWLUMINATI CHEMTRAILS!

Now its like EVERY person I know is on facebook/facebook messenger 24 freaking 7...even from their smart phones. All waiting for that 'like/comment' for validation and partaking in the self panopticon truman show.

[8bitagent]

Speaking of video stores, let's take a moment to remember the businesses that became redundant overnight as a result of the internet. I suspect you must need the video store very infrequently now, because I'm sure if you went looking for it, you'd find it gone. As recently as the late 90s, Tower Records was a reasonably happenin' suburban destination around these parts. Now it's vanished without a trace. Next, bookstores. I can't say I'm happy about this.

I have noticed I've needed to use video store less frequently, due to netflix streaming and other hobbies. But I still love places like 'Film is Truth' in Bellingham that carry indies, foreign films, etc.

1993-1996=endless hours at Tower books reading underground music/political/transgressive/art fanzines, odd publications, stuff like RE/Search books, beat poetry, existentialism. I read way more books before I was an internet addict. The big book stores like Borders killed off a lot of mom and pop stores...but now Borders is dead.

I will definitely miss the ritual of the night time video store run. 80's, 90's, 2000's...such a great exciting thing, yet so simple. Hell forget netflix. I can find virtually every film/tv/documentary ever
on torrents and download instantly/burn to dvdr in no time. Yet I dont even watch films too often like I used to.

Arcades, book stores, record stores, movie rental stores...all been dying. Even Best Buy they say will go away

FUNNY tho that vinyl records is now outpacing cd sales in a lot of markets. must be a hipster thing.

[Marie Laveau]

"Never trust anything if you can't tell where it keeps its brain."
Arthur Weasley ~ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I honestly doubt if it's a good thing....

[NeonLX]

It sure beats watching teevee.

[Marie Laveau]

Oh, absolutely.

Still....

[peartreed]

I think of the internet as a brief aberration in the annals of human history allowing us unabridged access to one another to exchange independent thought.

I doubt it will last long since both the natural and the noxious human environment will likely limit its lifespan as a universal open link.

We must not be allowed to speak up.

My pessimism is predicated on the probability of a control system being imposed by the corporatocracy that will bring about some form of containment, culling and conformity so that censorship of “free expression” is enabled. Various regimes are already ready to regulate its use.

If the bureaucrats don’t get to bind it first maybe some mad militarist might paralyze it permanently with a powerful, pulverizing pulse - if the political winds so warrant.

Or Mother Nature might take it out with a solar CME or three if it still offends her.

My dread is that this dire doom draws nigh.

I hope I’m wrong as I enjoy the connection, even with its endemic corruption as a reflection of its users and uses. But nothing in our history has allowed us unqualified freedom to communicate candidly across the continents for long, and only as long as it serves the vested interests of the Powers That Be to allow it to continue.

Right now its priority purpose is probably as a placebo pastime to test the pulse of the plebian populations for the political elite planning the next power grab.

But the clock is ticking on our electronic talking, and I suspect it’s already the eleventh hour.

[8bitagent]

It sure beats watching teevee.

Hand on a bible, I have not watched television since the middle of 2002(other than glancing over at the tv briefly at a restaurant or the now and a blue moon Im at the family and theres a rerun of seinfeld on) I like to say it was a response to all the 911 and Iraq buildup propaganda, but it was also because cable ran out and I just lost interest in it. Tv=strictly dvds, occasional video games.

[Burnt Hill]

peartreed said-

Or Mother Nature might take it out with a solar CME or three if it still offends her.
My dread is that this dire doom draws nigh.

Funny that this is my great hope.

[kool maudit]

the internet is the biggest city that the world has ever seen. babylon the great. jonah amongst the ninevites.

all that good stuff.

[Marie Laveau]

Oh, my god. You are so right. I never thought of it that way.

And, just as in a big city (the biggest!) one can find absolutely anything and everything.

From the worst to the best.

[DrEvil]

Some minor nitpicking: The "internet" is just the physical infrastructure. The fun stuff that we think of as the Internet is all the software running on top of it, like world wide web, peer to peer networks, Tor, email, etc.
And to answer the OP - I absolutely love it in all its depraved glory!

edit: stupid spelling

[Joe Hillshoist]

I think of the internet as a brief aberration in the annals of human history allowing us unabridged access to one another to exchange independent thought.

I doubt it will last long since both the natural and the noxious human environment will likely limit its lifespan as a universal open link.

We must not be allowed to speak up.

My pessimism is predicated on the probability of a control system being imposed by the corporatocracy that will bring about some form of containment, culling and conformity so that censorship of “free expression” is enabled. Various regimes are already ready to regulate its use.

This has already happened to a huge degree, and following the use of twitter and F/B in Egypt it'll happen even less.

However the idea is good and the technology is there to build uncontrolled distributed networks that are outside the www or normal web. Technology is more available and the tools and motivated people are around. But the convenience of the internet as we know it is what enables its oppressive use in the same way that convenience in modern consumer societies is what allows them to keep going generating more ways to control and regulate those consumers.

[Col. Quisp]

Heyyyy! This is pretty much the same thread I made the other day(about what would Bill Hicks think of our endless twitter/facebook/app addiction)

I actually hate it. Forget the conspiracy theorists thinking the government was going to use 9/11 to implant us with chips. We're doing it to ourselves, and willing.
Apple could announce the new iChip, and zillions of people would line up for blocks. Hell who needs a chip, we all have smart phones in our pocket. Go for a late night milk run at the store across the street but forgot your cell? Instant panic, like forgetting a kid in a car.

Most concerts I go to, half the people are on their smart phones texting how "awesome" the show is. Im so dulled to it all...the internet and computers were great in the 90's, it was still a newer thing. A luxury. Now its oxygen, and bad oxygen. Check out the PBS documentary "Digital Nation" to see how all this stuff is effecting our brains.

I was on the internet in 1995, and I can honestly say the feeling I get from being online isn't even 1/50th the magic I felt back then. It's imprisonment/chore-ish now.

YES! It is a chore and it is engulfing me to the point where I am not living. I wake up and get online. Stay on there all day unti I go to sleep, sometimes with the laptop still on my lap. WTF is wrong with me? I'm getting weaker and weaker physically. And mentally. I can barely think straight. I am socially isolated. I want to quit.

I don't fear the internet. I hate it. It was at one time, very exciting. Perhaps we're all just getting more numb and hopeless. There seems nothing worth doing. Internet just brings more bad news into my brain (or "brian" as some morans say). TV is getting scarier than the internet. Have you seen the latest HBO series? Game of Thrones is very dark - violent...I could not even sit through the latest True Blood. Even the so-called funny shows are filled with venom. Tried to watch some SNLs on demand last night - felt like I was being attacked. These kids today, they are so angry!

[Alf]

Hello, i have used the internet since 1994 and i still think it's great, but like a lot of neat things it can be addictive. I also think it is still early days for the internet and while some aspects of it can be annoying, in the end it will be a force for good. And i feel the same way about autotune.

[Burnt Hill]

Hello, i have used the internet since 1994 and i still think it's great, but like a lot of neat things it can be addictive. I also think it is still early days for the internet and while some aspects of it can be annoying, in the end it will be a force for good. And i feel the same way about autotune.

Yea, but how do you type with those fingers, Alf?