[HN Gopher] The internet changed my life
___________________________________________________________________
The internet changed my life
Author : janvdberg
Score : 501 points
Date : 2022-01-19 18:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (pointersgonewild.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pointersgonewild.com)
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I have a cousin much older than me. Everyone thinks he is weird,
| and he is indeed. Absolutely no one understood the things he do,
| why he does a particular thing but I found him pretty
| fascinating. Once in a particular talk session with him, we
| discussed about the upcoming thing called Internet. This was 1993
| or 1995 -- about the time Internet was a buzzword and soon to be
| introduced in India.
|
| Besides all the talks, I will never forget what he told me.
| Something in the lines of -- anyone from anywhere can do anything
| they want for anyone anywhere. I would spend hours reading the
| magazines he bought, and tinkering with his computer.
|
| It wasn't until 1999 that I was introduced to the Internet and
| (maybe) another 5-7 years for him. Well, I felt right at home on
| day-zero, and I knew that changed everything for me.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| So what did you do with this knowledge? I was 11 in 1999 and
| couldn't do much.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Well, here is the brief https://brajeshwar.com/about/
| laputan_machine wrote:
| I was 11 in '99 too, we had the internet since 97/98. I spent
| my time making dumb websites and playing Half-Life mods
| online (tf/cs/sven coop). Great times. The one strange thing
| I often think about is that I don't remember any toxicity,
| nothing like it is today in online games.
| fy20 wrote:
| Same age, but I didn't really get into online communities
| until the early noughties. I got into programming working
| with a gaming community to build out their website
| (building phpBB themes and mods) and building a matching
| service, and then it went from there... There was
| definately a lot of toxicity in that community though (even
| though we had maybe 20 regular members), so I think you
| were lucky :)
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Old internet was better than new internet.
|
| What would I bring from 2022 back to 1999?
|
| Our robust Wikipedia. archive.org. Stackoverflow. YouTube.
| Github.
|
| Maybe just those?
| skinkestek wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd bring back the 2022 version of
| Stackoverflow, somewhere the last 5 years it went from
| just rampant deletionism to ugly.
|
| Can we take HN instead?
| 101008 wrote:
| I know you say it without any offense, but don't call them
| "dumb websites". They were the thing I miss mostly about
| the old internet, specific niche websites made by people
| with passion for every need.
|
| - Specific websites for Half-Life mods run by a group of
| people from different parts of the world with a creative
| name (now you have to go to a subreddit or discord with a
| generic name, because of SEO?) - Specific website to follow
| all the news about my favourite soccer team, visiting every
| hour or two hours to see if they updated something. Now
| Twitter (Instagram later) has stolen that urgent sense. -
| Am I waiting for a new movie? Let's update the forum that I
| regular visit to see if the studio released a new trailer
| in .mov format and different resolutions. When it's done,
| send the link to my friends over MSN. Now it's on YouTube
| and I get a notification.
|
| Those dumb websites were the best and I am glad people like
| us spent their teen years creating them. Not only because I
| learnt a lot (and now I am a professinal thanks to them),
| but also because I think we give enjoyment to a lot of
| people around the world just because of it.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Honestly I think there's still a lot of space for simple
| HTML niche interest websites today, based on my
| experiences with various hobbies and topics. It's
| surprising how many things out there don't have any "one
| stop" pages, requiring anybody who's just getting started
| to have to synthesize from several different places of
| varying accuracy, completeness, and relevance.
| kragen wrote:
| It's just hard to find them nowadays because they don't
| rank on Google.
| sylens wrote:
| Is it weird to have nostalgia for sitting in a download
| queue for patches to Half-Life and its mods on FilePlanet
| or FileShack?
| tremon wrote:
| _I don 't remember any toxicity_
|
| I'm sure there was plenty, judging from ancient IRC logs
| that drift by occasionally. But maybe those were saved
| because they were still the exception.
|
| The kids from back then were also raised in a directly-
| connected environment (the only non-direct communication
| was via snail mail, or "mail" as it was called), so they'd
| get corrected much sooner for violating the social contract
| in some way. Most children quickly learned to keep their
| unkind thoughts to themselves. The kids today are growing
| up with all manner of indirect connections, which both have
| fewer opportunities to correct behaviour and even if those
| corrections do happen, they're unlikely to have as much
| effect (if any) as real-life direct feedback.
|
| Also, the Internet wasn't "popular" back then so if people
| were bored, they'd hang out and troll somewhere else, like
| a mall or a parking lot. The Internet was mainly inhabited
| by serious people back then, I guess.
|
| That's my two cents, at least. In today's currency, not
| inflation-adjusted.
| nefitty wrote:
| Damn, that is actually pretty trippy to imagine. I can engage
| in transactions with basically anyone on the planet... That was
| part of what used to excite me about crypto.
| selestify wrote:
| Why doesn't that excite you anymore?
| krallja wrote:
| Excitement has a $52 gas fee.
| nefitty wrote:
| Yeah, it also feels grimey and risky, like buying crappy
| drugs in an alley.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| The Internet was an important stepping stone towards web3.0.
| qnsi wrote:
| web 3 is going great
|
| https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
| exikyut wrote:
| I honestly don't think the cynicism this site is basically
| powered by is unwarranted. One needs sharp needles to pop
| thick balloons, or something.
|
| It also has a pretty nice design too.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Great essay. I also got on IRC in the late 90s and ran into
| someone who was feeling down. They didn't say they were about to
| kill themselves, luckily, just that they were quite depressed.
| Somehow before the everyone got online I had a number of quite
| deep conversations with people.
|
| The internet now is a double edged sword. You can learn a lot
| from it, you can give or get help, you can do things that you
| couldn't just a few years ago. But you can also get helplessly
| addicted to things you find there, spending years looking for a
| dopamine hit that you perhaps thought was on the other side of
| the sword.
| marban wrote:
| Speaking of fads, it's always fun to revisit the naysayer
| comments on Slashdot when the iPod, iPhone, etc. were announced.
| chinathrow wrote:
| The famous reply to the introduction of Dropbox [1] here on HN
| in 2007 comes to mind:
|
| "1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system
| yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it
| locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the
| mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could
| be accessed through built-in software."
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
| phone8675309 wrote:
| No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
| bserge wrote:
| richardfey wrote:
| This story is so heart warming! Loved it
| exikyut wrote:
| > _The next day, I had the TV on in the background and the
| evening news program was just starting. At the start of the
| bulletin, they gave a quick outline of the stories they were
| going to cover. Among those stories, the news anchor read
| something to the lines of "an internet user saves the life of a
| young woman in distress". Then they cut for an ad break. I was
| very excited to hear the actual news story, but suddenly, my
| mother called out "dinner is ready!" and insisted that I come and
| sit down to eat. I got distracted, and I never did hear the full
| news story (ha!)._
|
| It would be really cool if it were somehow possible to pin down
| the time this was aired on TV and identify the full bulletin.
|
| I wonder if the author remembers the rough time period this
| happened within. Even a span of months to years doesn't produce
| an intractably-sized search space.
| mooreds wrote:
| I got the chills when I read this section. What an act of
| kindness!
| maxime_cb wrote:
| I honestly don't remember which exact year this happened. I can
| give you a super wide time bracket to make sure it's in this
| range, which is between 1998 and 2004. In actuality it was
| probably closer to 2000-2002. It was aired on one of the big
| French Montreal news channels (TVA, TQS). It was probably TVA
| because we watched the news there most of the time. The new
| bulletin aired ~6PM. They used the French term "internaute" to
| talk about an internet user. So you might try keywords like
| "internaute sauve jeune femme". I'd be curious to watch it if
| it's somehow possible to find it. I don't need to contact the
| person and I don't need a "thank you" though. I just hope that
| wherever she is, she's doing okay :)
| sylens wrote:
| I had a much more stable upbringing and family life than the
| author, but one area that I can relate to is being incredibly
| bored as a kid - most of my friends lived across major roads or
| outside of walking distance in suburbia. The internet and all it
| offered was an endless fountain of entertainment for me. I really
| don't know what I would have done without it.
| af8a90n2mr wrote:
| I hope his mother eventually received the help she needed.
|
| I know it can be difficult as a child to see through the flaws of
| a troubled parent, it's difficult to feel more than resent when
| you have to live through it night and day - an occasional glimmer
| of their vulnerability might open your eyes as child, that they
| are just another human struggling like you, but it can be
| fleeting.
|
| I've been in a similar but far less extreme situation. With time
| it's possible to appreciate what was essentially a dysfunctional
| yet supportive parent, she was clearly a well intentioned, good
| person trying to do the right thing. As much as her mental health
| troubled her, she clearly cared far more than many better
| positioned parents out there.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| > I hope his mother eventually received the help she needed.
|
| "His"?
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Thank you for making me go back and look. I was reading this
| from the perspective of a young boy too. For whatever reason
| I visualized myself when I was reading this.
| maxime_cb wrote:
| I specifically didn't mention gender in the story because I
| figured that it would make it easier for more people to
| relate. When you write a story, you get to choose which
| aspects to highlight on or not :)
| [deleted]
| 8addd76a wrote:
| [deleted]
| sha256sum wrote:
| One thing I have learned as a parent is that you grow with your
| child. I've also learned that some people simply should not
| raise children, let alone by themselves.
|
| I hold much more sympathy for the author. Hopefully all
| involved have gotten the help they need, but in perspective
| this person did little to change it sounds like and deprived
| the author of a loving household. Those who survived violent
| upbringings from parents understand.
| maxime_cb wrote:
| It was a strange mix. She was a very loving mother when I was
| a kid. She told me that I was a wanted child (not an
| accident), and that I was the most important person in her
| life. I have good memories from when I was 4 to 8 years old.
| Things took a turn for the worse when her mental illness
| surfaced, but it was always like, she really wanted to be a
| good parent and she really tried her best, but the mental
| illness made that difficult/impossible.
| toyg wrote:
| The internet to me was a blessing and a curse. In economic terms,
| it has granted me lots of opportunities I might have not
| otherwise had; in social terms, it has taken a big toll,
| significantly isolating me from the world, which I didn't admit
| until very recently. I remember a smart classmate at university
| who, one day, just stopped attending and sold his computers,
| saying something like "these little colored lights have turned me
| into something I don't like". Some days I wish I had done the
| same.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I've forgotten what the alternative is like. Most of my
| hobbies, notwithstanding the minimal social media use, rely on
| the computer. I use it to write, to manage and search recipes
| to cook with, to use music notation or tabs, to game. I've had
| to deliberately schedule some low-tech/low-fi activities for
| myself but they are few in number: there is a barrier of
| inconvenience in the form of travel, cost, and timing for
| social activities. Therefore they are relegated to the weekends
| if anything. I wonder if historically after working hours and
| time with family, were people primarily engaged in social
| activity owing to the dearth of ways to amuse ourselves alone?
| I say this not really wanting or missing more of a social life
| than I have, I have my needs met with just family and
| occasional friends. On the other hand I recognize a kind of
| saturation point with electronic use, that if I rely on them
| too long it is to the detriment of my well-being.
|
| All of which to say I have no idea how I ought to organize life
| around computers differently.
| basisword wrote:
| >> All of which to say I have no idea how I ought to organize
| life around computers differently.
|
| I'll give you an example of something I've done recently
| which has made a big difference. Although, I don't have ideas
| on how to apply this to other aspects of my computer use (but
| open to ideas).
|
| I listen to a lot of music. My teenage years/20's revolved
| completely around music. But I've gotten to a point where
| Apple Music/Spotify have become like Netflix to me - I have
| so much choice I don't know what to choose. I like to buy
| vinyl but it's expensive and not practical for most of my
| daily listening. I thought about it and realised that, for
| me, the time when music and technology merged for the best
| overall experience was the iPod (pre-Touch). I would mostly
| listen to albums I bought via iTunes (i.e. I cared enough
| about them to spend money and would listen to them a lot) and
| I checked out new music via Spotify (which was available in
| the UK in maybe 06/07) and then bought the stuff I liked on
| iTunes so I could take it with me on my iPod.
|
| So I bought an iPod Classic on eBay. I deleted all the music
| I'd 'added' to Apple Music over the years leaving only my
| pre-streaming purchases (I also signed up for iTunes Match to
| backup and sync all my Bandcamp purchases + vinyl download
| card tracks). I've went back to my system of Spotify for new
| stuff, purchasing new stuff on iTunes, and syncing it to my
| iPod. It weirdly feels like a burden has been lifted having
| so much unnecessary choice removed. It's giving me a chance
| to get obsessed with the stuff I like again instead of
| quickly moving on to the next thing the algorithm throws at
| me. I highly recommend it. Currently thinking of ways I can
| apply this elsewhere in my life (e.g. purchasing TV/movies on
| iTunes instead of using streaming services but this could get
| very expensive very quickly).
| slothtrop wrote:
| Personally I don't rely on Spotify for recs, or even
| regular listening. I like finding things through online
| communities (including old ones), college radio, and in
| lesser cases the youtube algorithm.
|
| My only purchases now are through bandcamp or at concerts.
| basisword wrote:
| Likewise. The Spotify listening I do is to check out
| albums I've discovered elsewhere before putting down some
| money for them. So typically new releases from artists I
| already know, recommendations from friends, or support
| acts at concerts I'm planning to attend. I should try to
| purchase through Bandcamp more as a first option before
| iTunes.
| Simon321 wrote:
| You've isolated yourself from the world man, if it wasn't
| Internet it would've been something else. If you really don't
| want to be isolated you can change that right now.
| mchaver wrote:
| > if it wasn't Internet it would've been something else
|
| I think that is a big assumption to make for someone we don't
| know well. I do believe some unique experiences can have a
| huge effect on individuals and other experiences might not
| replicate the same results.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I mean, the internet IS (was?) my social life; I hate going
| out (see: overstimulation / sensory processing disorder), I
| didn't understand existing social activities (see: autism
| spectrum disorder), and most 'nerdy' hobbies that are then
| advertised are dominated by (often toxic) men that I don't
| want to associate with.
|
| I mean I don't think I'm that far out there, these activities
| cost a lot of mental energy and leaving my comfort zone, and
| I like to think that thanks to the pandemic, a lot more
| people have become OK with being at home.
|
| Anyway yeah, the internet was my social life, it's where I
| met my live-in girlfriend, it's where I spend my spare time,
| it's fine for me.
| periphrasis wrote:
| Agreed on the latter point. But on the former, would it
| though? Prior to the internet, isolating yourself from the
| world involved making a very deliberate and drastic life
| choice that completely changed your environment, like joining
| a monastery. Now though, a compelling and addictive alternate
| world awaits us in our pocket at all times. Indeed, I doubt
| either of us really cares much about this "conversation" or
| each other yet here we are wasting part of our morning
| shouting into the void. On that note I think I'm done with
| unintentional internet use for the day.
| toyg wrote:
| _> I doubt either of us really cares much about this
| "conversation" or each other yet here we are_
|
| One of the big problems is that we _do_ care for the
| _conversation_ on these forums (see also the classic
| "somebody is WRONG on the internet" xkcd), but we _don 't
| really care for each other_. Relatively few of us end up
| actually meeting offline or ever establishing real
| relationships. So you get the illusion of socialization,
| but when the chips are down, nobody is going to care in
| your hour of need - which means you're indeed alone
| shouting into the void.
|
| This was maybe less pronounced in the '90s, when internet
| groups were smaller and tighter. It's like sitting at some
| cafe on a small square talking to strangers - where in the
| past you'd be talking to the small cast of regulars,
| because the square was a bit hidden away from the main flow
| of people, but it has been since discovered by tourists,
| and now you're just chatting with passersby you'll never
| meet again, about topics you'll never do anything about.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Spot on. Much, much easier to isolate yourself now.
|
| In fact, I'll concede it is even possible that you have to
| work _not_ to isolate yourself when, after dipping your toe
| into the internet, you trip into the rabbit hole.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| It cuts both ways though. Without the internet I know for
| one I would definitely be a lot more isolated and have
| fewer social connections.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| I don't understand these negative comments about what
| "computers/internet" has done to me etc.
|
| Yes, there are certainly aspects of computers, the internet and
| especially social networking and instant-texting that have a
| net negative impact on our lives.
|
| But this argument strikes me as a "I'm such a victim" argument.
| Surely if you allow some device to have such a massive negative
| impact on your life then this would be the case even pre-90s
| before computers and the internet became mainstream?
|
| - Maybe you might have spent too much time hanging out at your
| local bar? - Perhaps you'd have been addicted to television?
|
| The one area, where I wholeheartedly agree and recognize the
| serious dangerous of the internet and computer devices is in
| children. The threat of cyber-bullying and indeed, rather more
| subtle, the attention-seeking culture of always producing
| content at a young age is IMO, very scary when thought of in
| the context that these will be future adults who didn't know
| better. We need to guard against these enabled social pressures
| like we protect kids from smoking, drugs, alcohol and even to a
| lesser extend (i.e. it's not illegal) addictions to things like
| TV, video games and other behaviors that they might fall prey
| to.
|
| I guess, summed up what I am saying is: It appears that there
| the internet has developed a predatory nature on one's
| attention that extends to threaten one's social status and
| reputation.
|
| Where I disagree is that - as adults - we know better and can
| combat this with self-discipline and by choosing our
| friends/social circles wisely (I don't engage with friends who
| constantly text or post online. I'm happy to meet but they know
| not to expect my participation there).
|
| Where I agree is that, children are vulnerable to this and must
| be protected AND TAUGHT how to treat / interact with the
| internet.
|
| Unfortunately, since this is relatively a new thing in society.
| We have not yet developed a solid culture around what is
| acceptable and what is not. Just like it is inconceivable now
| to smoke inside a closed room, or someone's house, I do hope
| that in the future it would be inconceivable to upload
| compromising information/pictures to random servers in foreign
| countries. But alas, we are not there yet.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > The one area, where I wholeheartedly agree and recognize
| the serious dangerous of the internet and computer devices is
| in children. The threat of cyber-bullying and indeed, rather
| more subtle, the attention-seeking culture of always
| producing content at a young age is IMO, very scary when
| thought of in the context that these will be future adults
| who didn't know better. We need to guard against these
| enabled social pressures like we protect kids from smoking,
| drugs, alcohol and even to a lesser extent (i.e. it's not
| illegal) addictions to things like TV, video games and other
| behaviors that they might fall prey to.
|
| This is always an interesting discussion to me as one of the
| first kids to really grow up online. (It still weirds me out
| that my childhood is illegal now.)
|
| > Unfortunately, since this is relatively a new thing in
| society. We have not yet developed a solid culture around
| what is acceptable and what is not.
|
| Also unfortunately, I doubt we will until Gen Z and Gen Alpha
| grow up and start having their own kids. I didn't really
| start to reckon with the bad parts of growing up online and
| the ways that it may have shifted my development until I was
| in my 30s and starting to see the same behavior in current
| kids and realizing 'wow, that was f'ed up.' Right now, there
| just aren't many adults who can speak to spending a shit ton
| of time online as pre-teens, and kids can smell inexperienced
| bullshit a mile away.
|
| The other possible outcome is that the curriculum/culture for
| this will be written by people in power who have no idea what
| being a child on the internet is actually like + it will be
| written as a political football, so it will be completely
| ineffectual.
| bserge wrote:
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Surely if you allow some device to have such a massive
| negative impact on your life then this would be the case even
| pre-90s before computers and the internet became mainstream?
|
| Yes, but we are not living in the pre-90's. The internet is
| the TV/bar/etc. for us now. Some of us recognize that we not
| only gained but lost something as well.
|
| And we want what we lost back.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| In many ways I agree with you. I would like also to return
| to simpler times. Especially insta-texting (whatsapp) etc.
| SMS was fine for me to organise a meetup and then talk in
| person.
|
| I guess my stance is more kind of to protect my mental
| sanity, to try and make this a "self-discipline" problem
| that I can control, and hence reduce my exposure/time
| online. That suits me but I do agree that to some degree
| there needs to be a wider societal change and I do agree
| that it can't all be placed on the individual to be super
| strong mentally when the internet is now literally a life
| necessity for operating in society in any dimension.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Do we really want a return of drinking at the bar after
| work?
|
| I think a lot of social validation once came easy by mere
| virtue that we lived so closely to one another, and
| suburbia flipped that on it's head. Once it was the case
| that social activity required a) transport, b) money, c)
| time, it has become increasingly devoid from weeknights. We
| could remedy this by changing physical structures, but we
| won't.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| In the U.S. we never had a "local" (Public House, Pub).
| But from what I understand, it was a nice way to mingle
| with those not necessarily in your social class,
| "industry".
|
| The DMV feels to me like the only place now where I share
| a seat with people not like me.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Will highlight from your comments that alcohol consumption
| appeared to be more of a scourge before the internet. Before
| the world of personal leisure opened up, and after the
| creation of disconnected suburbia, I would guess drinking at
| the bar with workmates was a common extracurricular.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Surely if you allow some device to have such a massive
| negative impact on your life then this would be the case even
| pre-90s before computers and the internet became mainstream?_
|
| The mechanisms of addiction and socialization are definitely
| more complex than "it made me do it". I'm not saying that
| without the internet I would have become World President, but
| the technology definitely nudged me towards indulging some of
| the worst traits in my character. It also allowed me to
| tolerate situations that, probably, I should not have
| tolerated - which feels good in the immediate but can
| actually postpone a necessary reckoning. And it heavily
| influenced my career choices, with mixed results.
|
| _> Maybe you might have spent too much time hanging out at
| your local bar? - Perhaps you 'd have been addicted to
| television?_
|
| Maybe, but those are well-known behaviors, fairly easy to
| spot and compensate for. Bars are actually hypersocial and
| promote local connections and some degree of personal
| expression. TV is very passive and boring, whereas on the
| internet there is always something new to read or do.
|
| It wasn't until the '80s that we got a fairly solid (and
| popular) understanding of the mechanisms of broadcasting,
| some 60 years since it had become mainstream; as you said,
| there are a lot of things we don't know about the new world
| of 24h online access. Undoubtedly my life choices are
| ultimately my fault, but "no man is an island" cuts both ways
| - particularly because I see a lot of my (bad) experiences
| replicated in a lot of my friends.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| I see your point and think you have quite a valid argument
| there! Some of the things you said definitely echo with my
| experiences. For example, I do surf the net too much
| because I love new information. And perhaps without that
| access I'd be a lot happier focusing on actual physical
| things in front of me.
|
| I guess it's not as simple as boiling it down to the
| individual's own self-control. To some degree maybe my
| stance is also biased in that I want to empower myself to
| be the one to reduce my time online.
| mzg wrote:
| > It wasn't until the '80s that we got a fairly solid (and
| popular) understanding of the mechanisms of broadcasting
|
| Curious what you mean by "the mechanisms of broadcasting"
| here--what discovery/formalization/legislation/else do you
| mean?
| abyssin wrote:
| This reminds me of the saying in the psychedelic culture: "Once
| you've got the message, hang up the phone." In March 2021 I
| made a similar decision regarding my use of Reddit. I've lost
| years doom-scrolling, but it's also taught me useful things,
| especially regarding how to take care of my health. Now I feel
| like I'm getting more from books and I've transitioned to
| reading more of them. (Some of the reclaimed time also went
| towards caring for my first child.)
|
| It isn't too late to hang up the phone.
| JackFr wrote:
| Stopped going on Facebook and Reddit.
|
| YMMV but I honestly felt much better nearly immediately. My
| life didn't change in any macro sense - same job, same
| relationships etc, but baseline mood improved.
|
| Again YMMV, and I'm loathe to say Facebook or Reddit or
| Twitter or anything is bad or evil or even addictive. I'm not
| a crusader. But for me going on Facebook for an hour
| subjectively made me less happy than not going on Facebook.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Same boat on turning off reddit years ago. I hope
| significantly more people do the same.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I unsubbed from all default subs except "world news" (which
| I don't comment in) and basically only hang out on my niche
| hobby/professional subs now. If you curate it and cut out
| the really toxic, highly-attractive subs that really pull
| you in, it's a _way_ better experience. Took me almost 10
| years recognize the issue but I'm glad I did.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's all right these days, if you're into mindless
| entertainment; they got rid of a lot of the more toxic
| parts (the_donald and co) and pornography is de-emphasized,
| likely will be removed altogether in the future. My feeds
| are now mainly poorly Paint-edited memes, cat photos /
| videos, and sometimes a bit of drama from the relationships
| or "am I the asshole" subreddits.
|
| I don't actually do that much for mental stimulation
| anymore. HN doesn't do it for me anymore since three
| quarters are about technology or industries I'm far removed
| from, plus I never liked the SV culture of overhyping and
| grinding out startups to fish for early retirement. It's
| that culture that gave us the gig economy and that
| encourages the sigma male grindset bullshit where if you
| don't work 16 hours a day maintaining a healthy daily
| balance of soylent, melatonin, LSD and meditation you're
| not cool enough.
| grp000 wrote:
| 5 years later, browsing r/all is much worse in other
| ways. Porn has been de-emphasized, but every other post
| feels like an outrage post designed to evoke anger, often
| without any proof, and it's enough to get people
| completely riled up.
| Mezzie wrote:
| Same hat, though I've mostly moved on to TikTok for my
| mindless entertainment.
|
| HN is better because there are other internet olds here
| and more of the content is interesting, but as somebody
| with MS, the sigma male grindset thing gets under my skin
| because there's an undercurrent of 'If you do these
| things, you can ward off insecurity or poverty' and there
| are cases where that's just not true. Plus the ability to
| do those things often relies on external support, which
| for some reason just isn't mentioned when people talk
| about how they've worked to get where they are. (Which
| I'm not discounting; it's just that two people can put in
| the same effort and get drastically different results.)
|
| It's a mindset for people in their 20s or people who can
| outsource most life activities.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I'm with you on Silicon Valley being a grift, but be wary
| about mindless content consumption - even if it's not
| doomscrolling, you're essentially putting yourself in
| stasis and numbing yourself with a constant dopamine
| drip-feed, which can lead to not actually enjoying life.
| Basically, internet addiction is real.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Kiro wrote:
| How is HN any better than reddit?
| iratewizard wrote:
| I'm hopeful that the HN I enjoyed 10 years ago can be
| brought back when the reddit refugees who destroyed their
| own site lose interest.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| It was brought back, it is http://lobste.rs
| fragmede wrote:
| In many ways it is not. It's an endless source of
| procrastination and staying here too long without other
| influences will cause you to develop a most profound case
| of engineer's disease and blind you to the specific brand
| of groupthink here. Still, the level of discourse here is
| high compared to the worst of Reddit, and sometimes on
| topics I find highly engaging, which keeps me coming back
| for more (distraction). Just don't fall into the logical
| fallacy that any of us here are worth more than any other
| human being because (some of us) have more money, or that
| we're able to string English words together to form
| complete sentences.
| openknot wrote:
| I admit to meeting up with an old classmate in-person
| after spending weeks with HN as my main source of social
| interaction, and then regularly referencing anecdotes on
| old HN threads in the conversation and advocating for
| Linux/GNU for an OS; talking down big tech companies in
| favor of living frugally to contribute to open-source
| projects; and arguing in favor of working at startups
| versus big companies if given the chance.
|
| I've since matured to avoid citing HN when referencing
| anecdotes (instead saying "I read once that..."), being
| agnostic about where one works (as long as it fits your
| personal career goals), and trying to also develop my
| worldview through well-regarded classic books.
| abyssin wrote:
| I'm not sure it is much better, but moderation does have
| an impact on the tone of the conversation. New content
| pops up a bit slower, so it's a bit less exciting.
| There's a culture of sourcing information.
| psyc wrote:
| Moderation keeps most people 'civil' in a formal sense -
| avoiding dang action. I still quite honestly find the
| tone here mean and condescending a very significant part
| of the time. Every one of my subreddits is refreshingly
| wholesome by comparison. Of course, one can individually
| quit any subreddit they find irritating.
|
| However, after begging my therapist for help with my
| doomscrolling, I deleted the Reddit app. We'll see if I
| end up resorting to blocking HN somehow.
| abyssin wrote:
| I'm afraid I'm not going to be helpful here, but here's
| how I quit Reddit: I simply did it. I realized I was
| done. I stopped believing I was getting something from
| it. In 2014 I quit smoking in a similar fashion. Just
| realized it was bad, didn't smoke afterwards.
|
| HN is still a great place to understand the ideology of
| Silicon Valley and its industry. I've never left Europe
| and this forum seems to give me an edge about what's
| happening here.
| speed_spread wrote:
| The volume is limited and the density is higher. Once
| you're on top of everything you found interesting you
| just turn away and do something else.
| wnolens wrote:
| I view it like a single subreddit with a community of
| pretty decent folks.
|
| Reddit is a large wasteland, and comment interactions
| very often turn sour.
| huijzer wrote:
| Yes! I completely agree. I also notice more and more that I
| prefer a book more to the same old discussions online or the
| same old TV series and YouTube videos.
| qnsi wrote:
| Not sure if he is an originator, but I heard this phrase from
| Alan Watts recording [0]
|
| I recommend his lectures to all, especially if you don't want
| to take psychedelics. He mainly speaks about buddhism,
| altough he was connected to counter culture movements in the
| 60s and with LSD
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-A3C8FEscw
| brightball wrote:
| Reddit is one of the only sites I feel it's necessary to
| block on my home network. The rabbit hole is long, deep and
| dangerous for child/teen development IMO.
| Liquix wrote:
| Awesome. If the aim is to protect tweens/teens from strange
| corners of the internet that could mess with their
| development, make sure to block discord as well
| KerrAvon wrote:
| YouTube, google.com, the list is truly endless.
| Kye wrote:
| This is me with a carefully curated set of RSS feeds and
| podcasts. It's not all monocles and self-described thinkers,
| but it does trend toward more contemplation and less
| scrollbait. I found I got more out of people who read the
| books and thought about them than from reading the books
| myself.
| curl-up wrote:
| I wonder if there is a way to share your feed? Is there a
| platform for well-curated feeds, both on different topics,
| but even more so on different "mindsets"?
|
| I feel like it would be very interesting, and I would
| probably even be ready to pay for someone to carefully pick
| interesting content, as I often feel like scrolling for
| hours only to find one great article (like this one was for
| me) is a huge price to pay.
|
| This could even go for books. I try reading as much as
| possible, but it seems like 98% of books I find randomly
| recommended to me could easily fit into 10 pages, but
| instead they get drawn out into infinite repetitions
| because that's the only way nowdays to sell books. If
| someone was willing to charge me for a well-curated list of
| books with well written synopsis and a good indication of
| "Is it worth reading the whole thing even when you know the
| overall idea", I'd be a happy customer.
|
| Maybe there are people on Substack doing this?
| Kye wrote:
| That sounds like Blinkist. They pitch it as a way to
| avoid having to read books, but it seems like you could
| use it to get the gist and decide if you want to read the
| whole thing.
| curl-up wrote:
| Sounds like it, yes. However, re. my first question about
| sharing feeds and building a sort of community around it,
| I cannot really find anything interesting. But maybe
| twitter/reddit/HN are fulfilling this gap already,
| although not neraly to the extent I'm imagining here.
| sneak wrote:
| > _in social terms, it has taken a big toll, significantly
| isolating me from the world, which I didn 't admit until very
| recently._
|
| counterpoint: my entire social scene, and all of my best
| friends, came from a subculture that I found on an internet
| mailing list, on a listserv run by the guy who made the Apache
| webserver. A bunch of my other friends came from IRC.
|
| If it weren't for the 'net, I'm not sure I'd have any good
| people in my life at all.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| this domain name is a relic of when people on the internet were
| actually clever.
| leshow wrote:
| > Thanks to Canada's low tuition costs
|
| I went to school in canada and I'm not sure I'd call it "low"
| (especially when you're a broke student) but I don't have any
| number to compare it to. I went to uni in the 2010's and I
| remember it being like 8-10K/year or so for engineering.
|
| What's the average price elsewhere? I think in the UK it's mostly
| paid for through taxes?
| tomhoward wrote:
| I often wonder how I would have made a living and a good life
| without the internet. I finished high school in 1994 with little
| career inspiration, landed in a generic business degree that held
| little interest for me, but it was at that uni campus I
| discovered the internet in early 95.
|
| I immediately found it exciting and grasped how transformative it
| would be, and quickly got to work learning web development and
| finding material and communities related to my interests (mostly
| obscure Australian rock bands). It's been the platform for my
| career ever since, and has also enabled me to go deep learning
| about some unusual health and emotional challenges that had
| afflicted me since early life, and enabled me to make profound
| changes to my health and wellbeing, leading to the place I'm at
| now, with a solid career, great relationship and a wonderful
| young son.
|
| When I think about the person I was and the path I was on when I
| finished high school, it's hard to imagine how it would have
| turned out well had I come of age in a different era.
|
| Which is not to say life has been easy or simple; quite the
| opposite, and the internet has no doubt made life more
| complicated and challenging in many ways, My life has had several
| major ups and downs that probably wouldn't have been as
| pronounced without the internet. But I still have no doubt at all
| I'm in a much better place than I'd have been without it.
| iamsanteri wrote:
| It's nice to hear about the positive side of internet and all
| these stories people share here. Usually it's much more about
| the negative aspects like one of my own personal posts I wrote
| from the middle of lockdowns about a year ago, touching upon
| the distractions of the internet and how it's been slowly re-
| wiring my brain: https://www.lostbookofsales.com/age-of-
| distractions/
|
| Since I moved to a smaller town here in northern Finland from
| the heart of Germany, thanks to the internet I feel no less
| connected to communities, teachers (MIT, Harvard, etc. as I'm
| doing my masters degree) and friends than before.
|
| You have to balance the negative and positive sides and control
| yourself. I think it's a huge net positive though as becomes
| obvious from this thread.
| ditegashi wrote:
| What a beautiful, well written article. Good for you OP!
| Markoff wrote:
| from someone whose life was changed by internet I'd expect they
| would use at least readable font for their website, not that HN
| comments would use better size...
| byteface wrote:
| I remember the world before the internet. Full of rumour and
| supersition and gossip and people you go to for certian knowledge
| about things. Lots of people outside, all over the place.
| climbing trees, riding bikes. Filling the spaces. Now you come
| home from being on it all day working. your family are all on it.
| don't talk to you, bark if you interupt them. You can access all
| the facts and know everything. I kinda hate it. Here I am on it.
| sneak wrote:
| > _I kinda hate it. Here I am on it._
|
| I don't think you hate it, otherwise you'd do something else.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Oh come on dude.
| pragmatic wrote:
| "Full of rumour and supersition and gossip and people you go to
| for certian knowledge about things."
|
| The more things change...
|
| We've recreated that online. There was a brief golden age when
| only the early adopters were online with visions of a digital
| utopia and now it's just like real life but crazier.
|
| The same thing will happen if we go to mars. It will just be
| the same stuff just on another planet.
|
| Wherever you go, there you are.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The people of Mars would likely be somewhat different from
| the people of Earth, since they'd be so heavily influenced by
| whatever idiosyncrasies they inherited from the first
| colonists.
|
| If there are genetic propensities to whatever would make
| someone healthy enough to travel to Mars, intelligent enough
| to run the machines, yet disconnect enough from Earthbound
| society that they wouldn't mind leaving the planet, that is
| what Martians would generally be like.
| byteface wrote:
| funny you say this. i was reading about peri wigs the other
| day. and apparently washington didn't wear one. he
| fashioned his hair that way. I guess he didn't have
| syphilis and wanted to fit in.
| supperburg wrote:
| It's true but you're skipping over the early golden age that
| mars will also have. Life is surfing and early golden ages
| are the waves.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Without the internet I wouldn't haven't met some of my best
| friends or discovered my passion for filmmaking. I'd also
| probably be still using a lot of questionable language and
| espousing some pretty whacky ideas like I did in high school.
| Honestly the internet improved my life. I get what you're
| saying but it's sort of an old take and lacks nuance IMO.
| sneak wrote:
| > _I'd also probably be still using a lot of questionable
| language_
|
| All sorts of cultures, online and off, involve members
| policing the ingroup for transgressions against the internal
| culture.
|
| Language isn't "questionable", its usage is. There's no such
| thing as a bad word.
|
| The culture of the internet (and, as a subset, that of 2022
| mass social media in the english-speaking world, which is
| itself a subset of internet mass social media) is mostly not
| because of the internet, but because of the participants and
| the state of the wider world. The internet isn't responsible
| for wokeness, it's just the medium through which this
| particular human culture phenomenon travels.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Ok I'll be more direct: I was routinely using racial and
| homophobic slurs because I lived in an insular,
| conservative community that didn't teach me to be better.
| "There are no bad words" is a flimsy excuse to hand wave
| away the issue of discrimination, which language can and
| does absolutely facilitate.
| Liquix wrote:
| We can acknowledge that the internet has done great things
| for people while simultaneously acknowledging that it is
| deeply altering the fabric of society.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I'd never disagree it's altering the fabric of society. But
| I'm not sure I'm prepared to say it's a net negative, which
| the comment above me definitely implied.
| byteface wrote:
| I could totally relate. who couldn't? Didn't that lack
| nuance? I'm only just past 40, and I don't take the
| current for granted either btw. I guess it depends what
| your counting in your net. Maybe we lost something.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Growing up, I had a friend with a desktop PC in his room and I
| was dumbstruck and intrigued by the idea of being able to stay
| all day on a computer, gaming and IMing and surfing. Now we are
| all like him, sitting at a desk the entire day. Sometimes the
| desk follows us.
| bityard wrote:
| My story pales in comparison to the author's but having access to
| the Internet in my teen years probably saved me from a life of
| full-on mediocrity or worse.
|
| I grew up in an extremely rural area of the Midwest. Town so
| small it didn't even have a stoplight. One school served three
| villages, grades K-12. You were considered rich if you didn't buy
| your groceries with food stamps. As a teen, if you didn't have a
| job (which was impossible to get if your parents didn't give you
| a car), the only things to do with your free time were watch TV
| or hope one of your friends was willing to pick you up and hang
| out. Nobody from there went to college. The brightest ones went
| to trade school.
|
| The best thing my mother ever did for us was buy a computer we
| could barely afford, and then eventually subscribe us to dial-up
| Internet once it came to our town. I always liked computers and
| electronics but reading about things in books and magazines only
| takes you so far. It was until I could actually _look things up_
| and see what others were doing that I became halfway proficient
| at computer hardware, operating systems, and programming. My
| crowning achievement while I was still living at home was
| downloading two dozen floppies worth of Slackware Linux and
| managing to make it dual-boot with Windows 98.
|
| Today I live in a decent-sized city, have two decades of tech
| career under my belt, a very solid financial situation, and a
| great family. My parents did their best but the mid-90's Internet
| (and beyond) is what got me here and I'm forever thankful for
| that.
| carapace wrote:
| I'm getting all _verklempt_ reading this!
|
| - - - -
|
| I just want to add that Maxime is the genius who wrote Turing
| Drawings, one of my personal all-time favorite uses of the
| computer ever.
|
| https://maximecb.github.io/Turing-Drawings/
|
| https://pointersgonewild.com/2012/12/31/turing-drawings/
|
| It's worth looking at the code too, IMO. It made me realize that
| JS could be beautiful.
|
| https://github.com/maximecb/Turing-Drawings
|
| - - - -
|
| You rock Maxime!
| [deleted]
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The thing about the Internet is that the ratio of high-quality
| educational and informational content to complete garbage is
| fairly low. I couldn't say whether its falling or not, but it
| seems to have been rather higher in the Internet's early days,
| before the rush to commercialize everything in the late 1990s and
| early 2000s. In particular, social media engagement algorithms
| have gotten out of hand, it's kind of a problem. They're designed
| to be addictive and you have to actively resist that kind of
| thing.
|
| Currently I'm leaning towards adopting a much more rigorous
| attitude towards time spent online. My short list is : (1) have
| specific goals for each online session, (2) don't get sucked down
| distracting rabbit holes, (3) spend at least as much time reading
| books as reading online content, (4) try to spend as much time on
| physical activity as on mental activity, (5) don't just be a
| passive absorber of information, try to create things as well.
|
| As far as online social interaction as a substitute for offline
| human interaction, I don't think it's that great of an idea,
| particularly for children and young adults, but some people do
| appear to benefit greatly from it in some circumstances, so I
| remain neutral on the topic.
| jonas21 wrote:
| I think there's just a lot _more_ of the Internet these days.
| Much more garbage, but much more high-quality content too. And
| the same engagement algorithms that can drive you down into
| rabbit holes can also lead you to deep wells of high-quality
| educational content on whatever topic you choose.
|
| Today's Internet is whatever you want make of it. And to me at
| least, that's what makes it so exciting.
| peter303 wrote:
| For people growing up in the 1900s, the local library served a
| similar function of releasing one from suffocating local life
| into the wonders of the wide world.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I cried when I read this blog post. Thank you for taking the time
| to share such a personal story!
| sitkack wrote:
| Very personal, well written story. Thanks for sharing it. The
| author frequents hn. I wonder what their take is on this making
| to hn?
|
| At the risk of oversharing this has so many similarities to my
| own story, only time shifted a little earlier, pre-web. Most
| things were telnet,ftp,uucp,netnews.
|
| I had read an article in Byte Magazine about the Transputer, so
| wrote an email, I think this was literally the Unix mail command,
| I wrote this email to the author and we chatted a bit about the
| Transputer. I'd stay up late at night, calling into a long
| distance Unix machine on the internet. It only lasted a couple
| months until I was busted for the phone charges.
|
| You can still basically email/chat with anyone in the world.
| maxime_cb wrote:
| I was surprised because when I posted it yesterday, I got a few
| comments on twitter, but today my inbox was full of comments on
| the blog post. I was afraid to post a story with many personal
| details like this, but I figured, I've been self-censoring too
| much recently. I have a story to tell, and I'm sure many people
| will be able to relate.
|
| I had a similar experience. I watched a YouTube talk about
| using stacked k-means to do deep learning without artificial
| neurons (deep learning without neural networks). I found that
| super fascinating and I had a bunch of questions, so I managed
| to find the author's email (public because he was an academic)
| and we chatted about his research for a while. It was amazing
| being able to talk directly to the researcher.
| sitkack wrote:
| I was also a single child of a single mother who wasn't doing
| well. I didn't consciously make them same calculation, but
| did.
|
| Continue to make the world a better place by just being you.
|
| *edit, We really should foster a better culture of making
| these kinds of contacts. Even if occasionally we get snubbed
| I have found most people to be delighted that someone is
| interestin their work.
| [deleted]
| amatecha wrote:
| Neat, I love this. The internet hugely changed my life too, and
| was utterly fundamental to my development as a person. I wonder
| if I'd ever take the time to write a story like this, but I think
| I wouldn't be able to resist going into way deeper detail haha
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Then I'm guessing you probably would go into way deeper detail.
| But I suspect if you let it sit on your computer for a few days
| after writing it, coming back to it you will see the parts you
| needed to hew out and could then post something more succinct
| to your liking.
| maxime_cb wrote:
| I can tell you that I've been thinking about writing up this
| story for a couple of years, but I kept self-censoring
| because my blog is mostly about tech, and because I was still
| afraid of the judgment that comes with having a schizophrenic
| parent.
|
| In the end, I decided that I do have a story to tell, and I
| don't care about the judgment. These things shouldn't be
| stigmatized, the stigma is what prevents people from getting
| help, and the only way to remove the stigma is to talk. So I
| wrote the story up one evening two weeks ago. Then I had a
| few friends proofread it by sharing with them on Google Doc.
| Then I finally decided to post it.
|
| Because my blog is focused on tech, I focused more on the
| tech angle when telling the story. I knew that would appeal
| to my audience more, but I think it's only fair, because tech
| has been a huge part of my life. It's a huge part of what
| makes me get up in the morning.
| CyberRabbi wrote:
| Heartwarming story, I would only say to be careful about
| diagnosing close friends or family with mental illness based on
| internet research. Even non mental illnesses.
| booboofixer wrote:
| Good advice, much needed for a lot of people. I'd say I'm a
| victim of this. Once people think you need some sort of help,
| they never let you live life as a normal person again, they're
| never just "cool" to hang around and talk to ever again. It
| takes a lot of effort to find new people who dont look at you
| the same way or to weed out the smarter friends (who get over
| their obsession to help you) you have from the rest so you can
| feel comfortable socializing with them.
| nickkell wrote:
| The rest of my family have armchair-diagnosed my father as
| being on the autism spectrum. I'm fairly sure his lack of
| responsiveness is due to his hearing loss and the plain fact he
| doesn't like his family as much as the friends he plays cards
| with every Friday!
| Barrin92 wrote:
| as a working class kid growing up in a German village of 800
| people I credit the internet for a lot of the stuff I learned.
| From coding, to learning English, to talking to people from other
| walks of life, and so on. That together with the fact that I
| could go to a good school with a healthy mix of people from other
| backgrounds I'd credit with 90% of what got me to university.
|
| Today there's a lot of negative discourse about the internet and
| the post-truth world it creates, but people have to keep in mind
| on the other hand it had and has an incredibly liberating effect
| for a lot of people.
| mclbdn wrote:
| Also the same here - I'm from a little village (~2000 people)
| in the Czech Republic.
|
| I remember how (thanks to the internet) in the late 90's, I
| started listening to English music and playing video games
| without knowing any English.
|
| A few years forward I had much better English than all of my
| classmates, but without putting any work in.
|
| Then, I learned Spanish also online and moved to the Central
| America.
|
| Anyway, I still wonder if my old classmates aren't better off
| in that small village since they don't really know about the
| huge and complicated world that's outside of their country.
| Having a few friends that live a few hundred meters from your
| house and working as a plumber seems liberating in a way.
|
| Maybe ignorance is bliss?
| LoveMortuus wrote:
| Same here, but from Slovenia, equally a small village.
|
| I think people forget the incredibly huge role internet has in
| terms of openly available knowledge.
|
| In my opinion the majority of negativity around internet is
| from the general public and about the websites that the general
| public uses aka. facebook, twitter, instagram, ...
|
| This has became even more apparent when I started teaching
| computer science to students and adults. The most noticeable
| was their inability to use Google, actually being able to find
| information online.
|
| Techy people quite often forget that, since we're so used to
| solving problems.
|
| Imagine programming without internet... <insert stackoverflow
| joke here>
| adamddev1 wrote:
| The fact that both of you could grow up in small, non
| English-speaking villages and write such beautiful English is
| a testament to the power of learning English through the
| internet. It's amazing how natural and clear non-native-
| speakers' English feels when they've learned it as they're
| interacting with the wealth of discourse on the internet.
| People who haven't learned foreign languages (looking at you,
| fellow North Americans) won't quite appreciate what a huge
| achievement this is. (To be able to write and communicate
| freely in a way that feels native.)
| remorses wrote:
| Being born with the internet i cannot even imagine what would be
| my life without it.
| byteface wrote:
| It was like world of warcraft but in reality. say for example
| there was a rumour that someone called 'smokey' could catch an
| eel. and you wanted to catch an eel. someone would say. Smokey
| can catch eels. So you and 5 pals would walk 6 miles to find
| Smokey. You'd sit in the sun and he'd share his stories of how
| to carry out the task. Then you'd go to the said location at
| night and fulfill the task. etc. It was fun.
| gnramires wrote:
| That's interesting: It's like we've introduced "spoilers"
| into almost everything we do. I mean, if you have some
| discipline you can still do things "spoiler-free", I guess
| (specially if it's not a job or particularly dangerous),
| which I agree sometimes presents a great learning opportunity
| and completely different experience.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Nah, just a passing fad
| tamaharbor wrote:
| I used to think digital was just a fad.
| specialist wrote:
| Terrific story. Personal, authentic, and very relatable. Interest
| in and an aptitude for computers also saved me. (I even had a job
| in a computer store.)
|
| > _I made the cold calculation that as painful as my life was, it
| was probably better than rolling the dice with the child
| protection services._
|
| Yup. I too decided at age 11, choosing to live with the less bad
| parent.
|
| And shortly thereafter, those decisions were made for me,
| resulting in the state putting me into foster care. Somehow I
| avoided the worst; while the 1st family was pretty much what
| you'd expect, I later lucked into a good family.
|
| --
|
| I wonder how many of us there are. I've known so many runaways,
| beaten kids, sexually abused kids, kids with broken parents. And
| that's just in my wealthy, prosperous city. I can't imagine how
| much worse it is every where else.
|
| I also marvel that somehow some of us find a way out, while
| seemingly most others get sucked into the abyss. So much human
| potential lost due to poor circumstances and stupid luck. It
| fills me with deep sadness.
|
| And I wonder what the difference is. How are some able to escape
| their fate? If we can identify those success factors, maybe we
| can maximize chances for success. Could even be small measures,
| like how we now have suicide prevention hotlines, and resources
| for victims of human trafficking.
|
| --
|
| I had many, many people help me over the years. People who had no
| reason to help, but did nonetheless. I call them my angels.
| People like a little league coach (who'd drive me to practice), a
| youth pastor (who mentored me), the foster family that raised me,
| etc, etc.
|
| As society becomes harsher, more coarse, more dog-eat-dog, I
| worry that other lost kids won't have their own angels.
| devwastaken wrote:
| A friend whom has since passed at their choice was in the
| system since birth. Computers and online friends was all he had
| even as an adult at 21. Most of it through FPS PC games with
| large battlegrounds and player communities. His high school
| kicked him out after enough times reformatting the school
| laptop so he could do what he wanted. No one to advocate for
| him. No chance any uni would accept him, and too far away from
| a community college. Plus this is when everything was mostly
| still pencil paper. He was a good man in the wrong place with
| the wrong support, and I miss him.
| Mezzie wrote:
| > I too decided at age 11, choosing to live with the less bad
| parent.
|
| I chose this at 13, but due to his new spouse and her opinions
| about proper gendered behavior, it meant I had to move and lost
| all the adults who were supporting my programming. I was
| supposed to like clothes, make-up, and have feminine hobbies,
| so no more electronics gifts and no more access to the classes
| and meetings that the larger community had. (I moved from a
| metro area of 500k to a town of 2k).
|
| I still worry if it would have been better for my career to
| stay and accept the greater abuse, which is fucked up. Am I
| deflecting responsibility and blaming others for my own
| failures? Etc.
|
| > As society becomes harsher, more coarse, more dog-eat-dog, I
| worry that other lost kids won't have their own angels.
|
| I'm hoping I can be one. I'm trying to be a good adult, and I
| want to work with foster teens eventually.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| > I still worry if it would have been better for my career to
| stay and accept the greater abuse, which is fucked up. Am I
| deflecting responsibility and blaming others for my own
| failures? Etc.
|
| Wondering if growing up in a more supportive environment
| would have helped you advance more quickly is a perfectly
| reasonable question, that's not "blaming others for your
| failures".
|
| Don't be so hard on yourself, it sounds like you were placed
| into a very difficult set of circumstances.
| specialist wrote:
| That's amazing. I'm so glad you survived.
|
| > _Am I deflecting responsibility and blaming others for my
| own failures?_
|
| No. You were forced to make a decision. You did the best you
| could.
|
| You did not fail. You survived. You're still here. Fighting.
| Trying to become the person you were always meant to be.
|
| Doubt, rumination, self-examination can all be helpful. Those
| of us without good role models have to work harder to figure
| out which way is up.
|
| I only encourage you to not dwell too long on the past. Like
| I've done. There's only such much juice to squeeze from those
| turnips. After a time, you'll be better served by looking
| forward.
| indigochill wrote:
| > If we can identify those success factors
|
| I don't have complete answers, but my capstone project in
| college involved interviewing a handful of people who
| volunteered in their communities to see if we could come up
| with some hypotheses about hooks to get more people to engage
| with their local communities.
|
| My takeaway from the interviews was that people's reasons for
| volunteering were essentially intrinsic, not extrinsic. One guy
| had benefited from books donated to his prison so felt he
| should pay it forward after he was out. A mom volunteered in
| activities her kids were engaging in. Someone else volunteered
| as a way of staying socially active. There _were_ clear
| motivations, but not something you'd likely have much luck
| leveraging en masse without knowing someone's history and what
| they personally cared about.
|
| However, you can maybe approach the problem preemptively by
| creating an environment that creates the sorts of people who
| will give back to their community (maybe being a good foster
| parent to a kid who decides it's important to be a good faster
| parent to someone else). It's not fool proof - even good
| parents can see their kids go bad - but it's a start.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I don't believe communities will bond together as long as the
| state provides a fake feeling of social security (lower
| case). The state came in and declared itself the entity you
| turn to when times are tough: you lost your job, became
| disabled/sick, need daycare/schooling for your kids, etc.
| Now, instead of having relationships with your community, you
| have a relationship with the state.
|
| With the modern design of communities with powerful
| governments, you will only find small pockets where people
| have chosen to come together for some higher purpose like
| religious communities. And yes of course small/random
| exceptions to these rules will exist, but this is how it
| works at scale.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Does this track actually track with places where the
| government has largely ignored, such as lgbtqia and
| immigrant communities? Would anyone reasonably describe
| undocumented immigrants as having a community that is more
| robust, bonding together, and having less folks slip
| through the cracks than a well-funded government with a
| strong safety net could provide? How is the lgbtqia
| community going to fund trans people's surgeries and
| medications, and are they doing it better than what a well-
| funded healthcare system with minimal bigotry towards trans
| medical needs would do?
|
| In turn, does this mean we can extrapolate and figure out
| whether or not more social safety net containing countries,
| like say the nordic countries, do they have a lesser sense
| of community than somalia?
| specialist wrote:
| > _...does this mean we can extrapolate and figure out
| whether or not more social safety net containing
| countries..._
|
| I've long assumed that financial insecurity leads to all
| sorts of bad outcomes. Alcoholism, abuse, suicide, etc.
| The damage spanning generations and very hard to heal.
|
| So I support any and all efforts to improve that
| security. Universal healthcare, universal childcare,
| affordable housing, living wages, parental leave, small
| business loans. Name it, I probably support it. In other
| words, Nordic style social democracy, or whatever it's
| called.
|
| But in truth, I don't actually know that kids in Denmark
| and Norway do better than in my home state. Overall.
|
| I feel like this is something I should know. I have
| friends who work on progressive policy issues. So I know
| tidbits. For instance, that generously investing in
| preschool greatly improves the lifetime outcomes of those
| kids.
|
| But I don't even know where to look for population level
| comparisons. And my quick foraging online was fruitless.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I really feel like you would benefit from learning more
| about what life was like before the advent of social safety
| nets. What charity there was was _woefully_ insufficient
| for the need, and one often only qualified if they were of
| a particular religious group. Mostly, people were at the
| mercy of their family. I know that sounds like a 'good
| thing' but go read biographies of the time. People were
| forced to endure horrific abuse by their close or extended
| families simply because they had no where else to go.
|
| The state providing it's citizens a basic foundational
| safety net is a _good thing_. There are tons of things that
| have broken down social cohesion, but safety nets are not
| one of them. Have a look at the scandi countries.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| We're not talking about breaking down social cohesion in
| the sense of total chaos in the streets. We're talking
| about neighbors knowing each other and taking care of
| each other. Loneliness and depression are at all time
| highs despite the largest social safety nets in history.
|
| Cherry picking a few of the wealthiest countries in the
| world that are racially and culturally homogeneous is not
| very helpful. One of those scandi countries just
| announced suicide pods where you can go kill yourself
| because so many people want to.
|
| It's fine to say the social programs are worth the cost,
| but don't deny the cost.
| EricE wrote:
| Exactly. Centralizing resources at the state level -
| whether it's financial, social or whatever - removes the
| biggest success factor: what's in it for me? A lot of
| people tend to look at that phrase cynically. I tend to be
| more pragmatic - no one is going to care about my needs
| more than I am. And if I go the 100% selfish path then no
| one else is going to want to interact with me, so it's in
| my self interest to NOT be a jerk - self governing.
|
| Start to break down those personal interdependencies (and
| remove some of those self governing mechanisms at the same
| time too) by inserting shortcuts around them - like
| substituting resources from government - and you start to
| see things break down.
|
| Just look at the effects of welfare on minority
| communities. Disincentives for young women from getting
| married and you have generations of kids, especially young
| males, without the influence of a father - and the results
| of that are pretty apparent. As others point out, even
| crappy parents are often way better than the alternatives.
|
| The middle class of the black community in particular was
| rapidly expanding post WWII - until the "great society"
| welfare programs kicked in, with pretty devastating results
| - to them, anyway. It was a boon for politicians who now
| had power over an ever growing and dependent base.
| erosenbe0 wrote:
| Your romanticization of post WWII conditions is highly
| inaccurate. Black middle class expanded because of
| migration insofar as segregation and maltreatment
| allowed.
|
| Take Silicon Valley. Segregation was legal and often
| preferred there until 1964 so the growing Black middle
| class was systematically denied entry in the 1950s to the
| growing job potential there. How many Blacks worked at HP
| in 1960s, or Intel in 1970s? How many Blacks worked at a
| mechanic shop or a cleaning service or a coffee place or
| any auxiliary business in Silicon Valley in the post WWII
| era, so their children could gain a foothold in the
| schools and the massive wealth creation engine? How many
| Black dental hygienists were there in Santa Clara county?
| Secretaries? Schoolteachers? Firefighters?
|
| How many Black friends did Steve Jobs have in grade
| school in the 1960s?
| specialist wrote:
| What policies do you advocate for reducing child abuse?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I don't have a good solution to child abuse and have
| never seen a good solution in practice anywhere in the
| world.
|
| Are you aware of any organizations or collections of
| individuals that are responsible for more child abuse and
| death than the governments of the world?
| specialist wrote:
| The _whole_ world? Perhaps start by comparing child abuse
| per capita, see if there 's any correlations?
| kewp wrote:
| I agree completely. The internet was such a blessing. Thanks for
| posting this
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| General Purpose Computing changed my life.
|
| The Network is the Computer.
|
| For some like me it's the Memex, for many it's the Panopticon.
| ospzfmbbzr wrote:
| Both things in varying degrees actually
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I am happy the Internet is here. I feel that it was inevitable,
| and I also believe that we are just starting to emerge from the
| "rough teenage years" of teh Internets Tubes.
|
| Maturity can be a real bitch. We'll be seeing a lot more
| guardrails and walled gardens. People that have become accustomed
| to (and thrived in) the "Wild West" nature of early Internet,
| will throw tantrums, but it will be for naught.
|
| I definitely couldn't do my work, without the Internet, a
| persistent, high-speed connection, and a whole lot of folks that
| contribute to various sites out there. I often have to google
| even the most basic stuff. Because of the Internet, these
| sidebars seldom take more than about five minutes. I do it
| several times a day.
|
| I have a Facebook account that I barely use. The place is a
| cesspool. I just keep it, because I need to help support a
| technical initiative that has a fairly prominent Facebook
| presence.
|
| What struck me most about her story, is how little help her
| mother got. Sadly, I am familiar with exactly that type of mental
| disease, and know how destructive it can be, and how treatable it
| is, nowadays.
| Underphil wrote:
| I'm interested to dig deeper into this. What is your job and
| would it even exist without the internet?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I am "semi-retired," but spend 60 hours (or more) per week,
| writing software (mostly Apple stuff, in Swift).
|
| It would probably not be here, without the Internet. It would
| certainly not be as lucrative, or as easy.
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