"The Internet? Bah!"--Or, How 1995 Thought The Internet Would Turn Out

[The Jedi Master]

I discovered this article browsing the internet:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100603034828/http:/www.newsweek.com/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html

This is from 1995--this makes it ancient history by internet standards. It is written by a man who had been working with the internet since it began--and I mean really began, in the computer labs when it was meant for military communications. It's actually surprising when you read it, so I won't spoil too much of it. Very interesting read, and short too.

Online purchases? Electronic books? No more newspapers? It'll never happen!

[Superfluous J]

Actually a lot of his early points still stand. The Internet IS a cacophony of misinformation and echo chambers. We as people are better at finding the good stuff, and search engines that NOBODY back in the early 90s thought were possible have come a long way, but there's a lot of garbage out there.

I personally remember, back in 1993 or so, wondering why we needed HTML and the World Wide Web when Gopher did everything it could do and was easier to write code for. I also remember thinking that with all communication becoming written, we were in for a glorious era where proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation would demarcate the celebrities from the common folk. Needless to say, I R teh wrong about THAT one.

But most of his later points are pretty classic "It doesn't work now so it will never work" thinking that everybody falls into. "You'll never take a laptop to the beach!" is kind of right. I wouldn't bring my >$1000 laptop anywhere near all that sand and seawater. But a tablet? Sure. And I've always got my phone on me. And of course nobody's going to make a restaurant reservation over the internet when they first have to dial up to their local Freenet and then navigate the menus to the Pizza Hut page, but now that I've got a 5 Guys app on my phone, of COURSE I'm getting that sweet, sweet burger goodness that way.

And "There are no salespeople on the internet." made me laugh. Roughly one SECOND after someone made online selling possible, there were salespeople there.

[TheDataMiner]

"the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel themâ€â€one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connectios, try again later.""

Ah, the days before Google and Wikipedia

[vger]

The internet was infinitely cool in the 90's for two reasons.

#1. Big business didn't see any use for it.

#2. It was too hard for idiots to use.

Edited June 28, 2014 by vger

[bsalis]

I think that guy was the minority back in the 90s. Back then people were talking it up, saying how it would change everything, and in ways we could not predict. The "Information Superhighway"... I think that was a Microsoft catchphrase. Odd that they missed the onramp.

You know what? It happened just like that. E-commerce was the obvious thing, and advertising. What was unexpected was the rise of Social and Virtual Communities. That happened as regular non-nerdy people started communicating with each other online en-mass. That also meant so many Cat videos.

[Streetwind]

The "wasteland of unedited data" is absolutely true. That is the nature of the internet, summed up.

However, Clifford Stoll didn't account for what the passion of people can achieve. Where the internet provided its wasteland of unedited data, editors sprang up into action when they saw that it was needed. Today we have at least some structure in the wasteland due to search engines, indexes and catalogues and the invention of the wiki as a dedicated online knowledgebase. These were key technologies that directly resulted from the chaos of the early days, as a counter-movement.

That said, still a large part of the net remains unindexed today (and that probably won't change; look up "dark web" sometime). But the minimum level of order required for most people to find what they're looking for has been achieved. In fact, today the net faces a different kind of threat, one of too much order imposed by automated, uncontrolled algorithms. There is this great TED talk on the subject:

I really think that everyone should watch this and then pass it on to your friends. Awareness of the fact that you are at any given time only seeing a minor subsection of the net according to what a robot thinks is appropriate for you should be a part of everyone's "net education". It allows you to better judge the results you're getting, and find ways to search outside of your personal content filter bubble.

[Red Iron Crown]

When I first got on the Internet, CompuServe was my ISP. I lived through the September That Never Ended. I don't think anyone could have predicted how pervasive and easily accessible the Internet would become, or all the applications it would find.

[magnemoe]

The "wasteland of unedited data" is absolutely true. That is the nature of the internet, summed up.

However, Clifford Stoll didn't account for what the passion of people can achieve. Where the internet provided its wasteland of unedited data, editors sprang up into action when they saw that it was needed. Today we have at least some structure in the wasteland due to search engines, indexes and catalogues and the invention of the wiki as a dedicated online knowledgebase. These were key technologies that directly resulted from the chaos of the early days, as a counter-movement.

That said, still a large part of the net remains unindexed today (and that probably won't change; look up "dark web" sometime). But the minimum level of order required for most people to find what they're looking for has been achieved. In fact, today the net faces a different kind of threat, one of too much order imposed by automated, uncontrolled algorithms. There is this great TED talk on the subject:

I really think that everyone should watch this and then pass it on to your friends. Awareness of the fact that you are at any given time only seeing a minor subsection of the net according to what a robot thinks is appropriate for you should be a part of everyone's "net education". It allows you to better judge the results you're getting, and find ways to search outside of your personal content filter bubble.

Lots of stuff is indexed like all the files who are linked, excample an mod or craft on dropbox is just listed on this forum

[the_bT]

I really love how the article bashes computerized learning. Because it is right!

It's right in saying that it is cumbersome and expensive and would in the end not work very well. BUT only in the way the author envisions it.

The frustrating thing is: His vision is still actively chased.

It seems to me few have really understood how interactive multimedia applications can be utilized to teach. You can't just copy the texts and images from the books, make some animated character say a few silly lines and call it a day. Well... you can and some do. It won't teach though, at least not more or less than the books did.

The internet is irrelevant to basic education in my opinion. Such education requires nothing that could not be done offline. The only exception is education on the internet itself. Higher education on the other hand is almost unthinkable without access to internet nowadays.

And why is that?

One thing the article fails to predict is how the internet has sped up innovation. This high speed innovation has made a number of things possible that where unthinkable in '95. Google is an example of that, as are Facebook or Twitter. But the effect is not limited to things that would be useless offline.

Consider Kerbal Space Program for example: KSP itself does not rely on the internet to function, but it would not been possible to make without it.

And just by the way, it can be used to educate on the (in my opinion basic) principles behind planetary motions. In other words, the what moves around what question that so many adults get wrong so often...

It also does a remarkable job of motivating people to get educated on less basic matters. That's where the internet comes back into the picture. What would you have done (offline) to answer this: forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84342-Change-Inclination-before-or-after-I-make-my-orbit-smaller

I double dare you to try that

[magnemoe]

My first two real practical uses of internet was 1) getting the manual for pc mother boards, back in the 90s they still used lots of jumpers for clock speed and stuff, worked in a computer store and it was pretty much impossible to upgrade an pc without the mother board manual.

Second to get help and code examples while programming, this could be done with books but the internet had easy to copy code with working examples.

[WinkAllKerb'']

made me think of:

cold fire wall war'ez reboot/reborn/&etc.

this is the short and ultra compact, non business related, version xD

[xcorps]

I really love how the article bashes computerized learning. Because it is right!

It's right in saying that it is cumbersome and expensive and would in the end not work very well. BUT only in the way the author envisions it.

The frustrating thing is: His vision is still actively chased.

It seems to me few have really understood how interactive multimedia applications can be utilized to teach. You can't just copy the texts and images from the books, make some animated character say a few silly lines and call it a day. Well... you can and some do. It won't teach though, at least not more or less than the books did.

The internet is irrelevant to basic education in my opinion. Such education requires nothing that could not be done offline. The only exception is education on the internet itself. Higher education on the other hand is almost unthinkable without access to internet nowadays.

And why is that?

One thing the article fails to predict is how the internet has sped up innovation. This high speed innovation has made a number of things possible that where unthinkable in '95. Google is an example of that, as are Facebook or Twitter. But the effect is not limited to things that would be useless offline.

Consider Kerbal Space Program for example: KSP itself does not rely on the internet to function, but it would not been possible to make without it.

And just by the way, it can be used to educate on the (in my opinion basic) principles behind planetary motions. In other words, the what moves around what question that so many adults get wrong so often...

It also does a remarkable job of motivating people to get educated on less basic matters. That's where the internet comes back into the picture. What would you have done (offline) to answer this: forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84342-Change-Inclination-before-or-after-I-make-my-orbit-smaller

I double dare you to try that

I don't think he was "bashing computer learning". I think he was warning about the futility of trying to reduce the importance of interaction between/with other students and teachers, and he was right. Can you teach someone who is illiterate how to read using a computer? Absolutely. Can you teach them algebra? Absolutely.

Can you teach them how to interact with other children? With adults? Can you teach them things about themselves that require introspection that can be gained only from the observations of an older, mature, and experienced communicator/educator? No.

Computerized classrooms have value, and he wasn't suggesting they didn't. He was saying that replacing teachers with the Innerweb is impossible. One of the most important questions teachers answer is "Why?" (in the philosophical sense) and that question gets answered rarely enough in public education.

Edited June 30, 2014 by xcorps

[vger]

Gosh, I was just reading an awesome article the other day, that would've fit into this thread, but my own memory of the title, combined with my browser history, is failing me.

It was a really interesting read about the internet's role in polarizing society. Not just in politics, but in ANY discussion where opinions are involved.

It has often been believed that 'education' would ultimately liberate humanity from petty squabbling, but this has not happened. In fact, it appears that the opposite has. The belief is that although the internet has given us far more information than we could imagine (educating us), assimilation bias has overwhelmed reason in this regard. What was posted in that TED talk is part of it, but blaming news filter algorithms is too simple. We're doing it ourselves. Pretty sure there was a social experiment involved as well that tested people's reactions to different political articles.

For those of us who get passionate about any topic, we seek out like-minded groups and become locked into echo chambers that gradually push us towards zealotry for something that we once had lenience on. We've become a world of feudal tribes who are bound by ideas instead of geography, and we are ill-equipped to handle it.

Edited June 30, 2014 by vger

[Nibb31]

Ah, I have fond memories of the days of usenet.

[WinkAllKerb'']

Pretty sure there was a social experiment involved as well that tested people's reactions to different political articles.

Without going that far (i mean politics & experience & tralalala), groups and genders affiliations are known to be an essential process in early childhood's self identity emergence within said groups and genders. Notice that this tend to be also known as a hard to later relativise process due to early 'computing' and often generate futile conflict between groups and their individuals.

If you want some kind of why it's a what a mess from the roots this might be some kind of notices or explains.