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Author Topic: Newsweek published this article almost twenty years ago  (Read 1119 times)

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Offline dpareja

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Newsweek published this article almost twenty years ago
« on: February 22, 2015, 09:20:45 pm »
http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306

About why the Internet isn't all it's cracked up to be.

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After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

It's pretty funny how he gets most things wrong, except...

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What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued.
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Offline Second Coming of Madman

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Re: Newsweek published this article almost twenty years ago
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2015, 09:33:45 pm »
My eyes glazed over instinctively at the words "Newsweek", as a protective measure.

All joking aside, this is the stupidest thing I've fucking read in a while beside Super Mario Bros 3: Brick by Brick (Thank god for Pirate Bay). Let's rip it a new one in one fell swoop, shall we now?

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After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit. I don't even have to pull out a example for this one. It's like saying the telephone won't aid social communication.



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Offline Ultimate Paragon

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Re: Newsweek published this article almost twenty years ago
« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2015, 10:20:52 pm »
It's hilarious to look back and see how wrong people could be.
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