'The Internet' - it died!

[cumulus.james]

I remember when I was a kid we were told about this thing the Americans had called 'The Internet'. It made us promises. We were promised the following;

1) Easy access to porn
2) We could all work from home and be our own boss
3) Democracy would reign supreme because we could organize globally
4) We would never be lonely ever again

Only one of the above came to pass....

Who stole my utopia?

 

[TheRealCallie]

They could all be true.

1. Of course that one is true.
2. It's entirely possible. I work at home (not my own boss), but I know quite a few people who do work at home and are their own boss.
3. It's possible, but everyone would have to be open to the idea, which I suppose would make it not possible, since not everyone will be.
4. Loneliness is subjective, I suppose, but the internet does offer access to people all over the world. The rest is up to you.

 

[Sci-Fi]

Well, technically we're not "lonely". We're all here on this forum using the internet to chat and connect with each other. So in that way we're not "lonely" on the internet, just in real life. And I'm pretty sure if you ask the guy who claims to have created the internet, what's his name, having a brain fart at the moment (too much internet porn ) Anyway, if you ask him he'd probably tell you he never intended the internet for porn.

 

[Cavey]

Well, technically we're not "lonely". We're all here on this forum using the internet to chat and connect with each other. So in that way we're not "lonely" on the internet, just in real life. And I'm pretty sure if you ask the guy who claims to have created the internet, what's his name, having a brain fart at the moment (too much internet porn ) Anyway, if you ask him he'd probably tell you he never intended the internet for porn.

Tim Berners-Lee? If that's who you were thinking of, he doesn't claim to have created the Internet - that came much earlier. He did, however, lead the team that created the basis for the WWW and then gave it a public license so that his creation could be used by everyone.

The Internet didn't promise me anything. It also hasn't changed as much as everyone likes to think it has. I started using it in 1990 - mostly for the easy availability of porn... even if it did take minutes to download a single low resolution image. We still had trolls, we still had spam emails - although then we just called it UCE since spam was the term given to commercial messages that were simultaneously posted to several USENET newsgroups - we even had a place like ALL called alt.cuddle.

The Internet is just a tool - how you choose to make use of it is up to you.

 

[Danielle]

Well, technically we're not "lonely". We're all here on this forum using the internet to chat and connect with each other. So in that way we're not "lonely" on the internet, just in real life. And I'm pretty sure if you ask the guy who claims to have created the internet, what's his name, having a brain fart at the moment (too much internet porn ) Anyway, if you ask him he'd probably tell you he never intended the internet for porn.

Al Gore.. he "claimed" to have invented the internet (hehe)

 

[Sci-Fi]

Yes, that's it Al Gore. Thanks.

 

[Minus]

Despite the derisive references that continue even today, former Vice-President Al Gore never claimed that he "invented" the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The "Al Gore said he 'invented' the Internet" put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition" program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):


During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.


Although Vice-President Gore's phrasing might have been a bit clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he "invented" the Internet in the sense of having designed or implemented it, but rather that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet.

To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. Gore never used the word "invent," and the words "create" and "invent" have distinctly different meanings: the former is used in the sense of "to bring about" or "to bring into existence" while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone's thinking up or implementing an idea.

*

 

[loketron]

and to think with the power of the world at my finger tips all I really want to do is watch blooper vids on youtube and look at cat pictures. at least while my life is in shambles a place like this exist for me to vent a little steam off and get some human interaction. hopefully in the future I return to school ONLINE and i'll need to do research ONLINE and maybe even something worth while....ONLINE.

what would you do worth while online. what do we think eh? political? social? economical?

 

[Sci-Fi]

Sure sounds like he's taking credit for creating the internet, "I took the initiative in creating the internet", how can you misinterpret that as anything else but taking credit for it. Seems more like he and his PR people were backpedaling just like many people do after they take credit for something.

 

[Minus]

As explained he did help create it by fostering the technology, he did not invent it and never claimed to have invented it. That was political BS made up by his opponents for political purposes.

 

[9006]

The internet didn't start out as a personal thing. It was intended for universities/colleges and businesses to share information. But like most things they all evolve as technology evolves, it simply become more available to everyone. And of course where there's opportunities for businesses to make money via advertisements and webservers they pounce on it.

When I was younger the internet for me was just communication; chat rooms, MSN, ICQ, IRC etc... Ironic that I don't go near them now lol.

Who remembers the webserver called 50megs.com? Where you got a whole 50 megabytes for you website, for free!! Lol...

 

[cumulus.james]

I loved MSN. These were the days you could actually make a real life friend on the internet. We had local gay chat rooms with local gay guys, exchange MSN, and the loner was able to make a friend to go clubbing with. Now we have grindr - where no one talks to anyone unless they want to f*** them, and if they don't, you are blocked. Since no one wants to f*** me, no one wants to talk to me. Feminists think they've got it bad.

It was also easy to make friends across the globe based on interests. I don't know how you would do that now. I was young and into cool music. I am old and my music is not so cool. People who like cool music are young. It kind of no longer works.

 

[TheRealCallie]

It was also easy to make friends across the globe based on interests. I don't know how you would do that now. I was young and into cool music. I am old and my music is not so cool. People who like cool music are young. It kind of no longer works.

Yes and those that thought your music was cool back then, likely still think it's cool. So unless you are going after the younger crowd, I don't see why it would be any different. People still have similar interests that you do, no matter what your age.