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

[82_28]

Just a question. Do you fear it in a ratio more than It does for you/life/lifestyle and vice versa?

Personally, I love it and always have. However, I have personally modified all behaviors insofar as being probably the age I am and the interests of my youth when I was fucking stoked on it. It's probably that I really looked at it as a serious curiosity research engine. Now I stay in the "backwaters". Yeah, I use gmail. Yeah, I'm well aware of all of it. However facebook and the lot I steer well clear of.

However, I just use it and don't wanna be used. I'm still excited by just the fact I am writing this to a number of people I don't even know and still fewer that I do know.

I used to be scared that OMFG, someone evil and powerful is reading what I am saying, because I stand against all evil at all times. I used the Internet and still do to pontificate on what I think is wrong and the evils of .gov. In the day, that was the name of the game. The right had their AM radio ass shit and the left was embracing the Internet -- at least that's the way I took it. We were communicating while the right was following orders.

I remember when Focus on the Family's site started. I began an argument with one the writers there easily 12-13 years ago by now. He actually engaged me and we had quite a back and forth. And in my book, I schooled the fucker in what was right and wrong from a liberal idealist's perspective. Newsgroups were another one. That shit went to shit. I would just run a search for Seattle/Vancouver area boaters to go on a cruise with. Then I would become involved with people saying they were about to go on a cruise of the Inside Passage and meet here and such and such -- anybody from America that wants to come bring cheese, because cheese is really expensive in Canada right now. Shit like that, right? Like '97-98.

Well, everybody and their brother said, "YOU CAN'T TRUST SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW!!!!" and on the Internet? I was an early adopter and also early discarder of shit like FB.

Now there's Christian Mingle. Case closed. Back then it was so new and not at all understood. Now it's not as new and equally, if not more so, not understood.

It's like the sucker wheel in Vegas, I guess. . .

[Joe Hillshoist]

Its nothing like it was.

Its heaps harder to access info and so much more controlled and regulated in that there is too much pr and astroturfed bullshit. The way its become not just mainstream, but ubiquitous is quite interesting but also very irritating.



Youtube is good for old music tho.

[Burnt Hill]

No fear- personally. I fear for others, particularly children.
Great for reading. Fun for writing.
Has replaced newspapers for me, now that I have access to local news- almost completely.
Has nearly replaced the library.
There seems to be an addiction factor,yet I always feel better after a few days away, no withdrawal.
That may be due to this site primarily- the addiction factor.

[Burnt Hill]

Don't Fear The Reaper

Blue Oyster Cult

All our times have come
Here, but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
(We can be like they are)

http://www.metrolyrics.com/dont-fear-the-reaper-lyrics-blue-oyster-cult.html#ixzz1xaorrHwF

[Simulist]

Do you fear the Internet or love it...

Yes.

...or any other thoughts?

None come to mind at the moment, but if something does occur to me, you'll probably still be able to find out what it was 50 years from now.

[yathrib]

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?

[yathrib]

[Burnt Hill]

The Facebook thing.
My wife and younger kids went on vacation and left our 20 year old daughter in charge of the house, pets animals etc.
That very night we checked her FB page where she announced to the universe-"Parents are gone! I have the house to myself! Party!".
We felt incredibly violated. Luckily my brother lives nearby, and kept a watch for us.
But the kids dont get it.
Of course this is the same daughter that posted a pic of herself drinking a beer- during BasketBall season.
When she got back on the court even one of the refs called to her-"hey, its Keystone Light'.!
The kids dont get it.

[2012 Countdown]

Well, of course as more people got online the collective IQ and such reverts to 'norm'. Cat photos and FB aside, and I am a bit paranoid (as we all should be) but I wonder, w/o the inet, would I have found out what I know now? I think, no. Would I know 9/11 was an inside job? Would I know all the cool stuff I learn about? Probably not.

On the other hand, we have a 'situation' where I live. Our daily paper, the Times Picayune, has just said it will only publish 3 days a week!
(Outrage and dismay has ensued.)

[Twyla LaSarc]

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of computers around '96-97. A devoted slave to the written word, I was sucked right in with the promise of being a nearly limitless research tool. I love it and it scares me but I generally feel the dissemination of knowledge to be a good thing.

I find physical libraries a necessary adjunct because I need a place to borrow rare materials that I couldn't afford to buy.

I'm not on FB. I have a few friends who are who've urged me to join, but from what I've experienced the signal-to-noise ratio is so skewed that I simply don't have the patience with the form. The data mining thing makes it even less desirable.

I have noticed I've needed to use video store less frequently, due to netflix streaming and other sites. But I still love places like 'Film is Truth' in Bellingham that carry indies, foreign films, etc. I don't think I'm close to one right now. Sigh.

[yathrib]

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.

[ninakat]

I'm gradually moving away from it.... I'll be a Luddite eventually, hopefully. Only half kidding. It's definitely a love/hate mix. <end of line>

[82_28]

I was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of computers around '96-97. A devoted slave to the written word, I was sucked right in with the promise of being a nearly limitless research tool. I love it and it scares me but I generally feel the dissemination of knowledge to be a good thing.

I find physical libraries a necessary adjunct because I need a place to borrow rare materials that I couldn't afford to buy.

I'm not on FB. I have a few friends who are who've urged me to join, but from what I've experienced the signal-to-noise ratio is so skewed that I simply don't have the patience with the form. The data mining thing makes it even less desirable.

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. I don't think I'm close to one right now. Sigh.

I dragged my parents kicking and screaming into buying me a laptop around '96-'97. It HAD to be a laptop though. What was it a 160MhZ Compaq with like a 20GB HD and like 16MB of RAM that was close to $2000? Can't remember. My parents didn't understand how badly I wanted to "get online". Then they started offering laptops with DVD players and then I had to get one of those. I went back to my dad's place a couple years ago and fired my first two laptops up and couldn't believe what was impressive back then. No USB, just serial, the display just sucked. Weird seeing Windows 95 again. Obviously 56k modem and that was all.

And just a random sampling of what the web was for the hell of it:

http://web.archive.org/web/199707221612 ... land/7255/

I wish the wayback machine was totally comprehensive.

[Wombaticus Rex]

"Now, I want you to talk freely and really think of how you feel about your toaster..."

[8bitagent]

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.