I want the internet to stop being real life
4 points by abnercoimbre
4 points by abnercoimbre
This is offtopic as it doesn't relate to programming but it rubbed me in a really wrong way:
a funny little novelty where you could talk to people but it would never be the same as a real friendship
I was growing up in a remote place that was isolated from essentially all communities I might have had any interest in. Internet access was life-changing since I could finally discuss those things and collaborate with people. There are many life-long friendships I found that way. I've never met some of those people in what we refer to as "the physical world". And that's fine.
I wish a sci-fi level cyberspace existed. For example, many people will never get a chance to play in a symphony orchestra because rehearsal space for those numbers of people is a scarce resource. Currently the only way to create music together over the Internet is to exchange tracks for multi-track recording and overdub. That's a valid way to create music but it's not the same as creating music in the moment where people can execute dynamic or tempo changes together. At the moment, an online orchestra isn't really possible due to latency. But it would be so great for many people if it was, for example.
tired of a world where one of the major forms of communication is sending 20 second video clips to one another
Drunk conversations in pubs that many tout as "real life" aren't any better, to be fair.
I think what I miss is the time when computers and networks were much lower stakes, optional tools that were nice to have but nothing terrible happened if they broke.
I described a past era to my kid yesterday as "before adults started using the Internet". That was of course never true in a strict sense, but it sure felt like it to us: a group of teens blabbing on IRC, mostly. It was very much the digital equivalent or playing in the forest.
No one tried to sell us anything, and there were no particular incentives to keep us hooked. We stayed up all night anyway, which probably worried some parents. If they could just have imagined what they would have worried about a generation later!