

A Stoic Meditation on the Non-Existence of the Internet - KennethMyers
http://techno-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/05/stoic-meditation-on-non-existence-of.html

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code_duck
I love the basis of this article, and I adore the internet. I'm about 35 and
spent half of my life with no internet.

Guitar magazines taught me that Harmonic Minor scales sounded exotic and dark.

People I knew in person helped me get jobs, like teachers.

I met people in classes, parties and through other friends.

And, I published my work in my journal, zines and the school newspaper.

He's right, the internet is fantastic and improved all of these activities -
mostly. Life back then wasn't all bad, to be sure. I love the amazing ability
to connect to people on the internet, and the vast amount of information at
our fingertips. However, I do somewhat miss the slower pace of life 20 years
ago.

~~~
KennethMyers
I'm in agreement that life was life, and it wasn't so bad. You're right.

Some of the specifics, though, of my case, would be impossible without the
internet. I'm sure I'd have a job. But remotely writing textbooks for a Korean
company probably wouldn't have happened. (How could it have! How would we have
even found each other!) I would have never developed my friendship with my bff
Anissa. A lot of the most important things in my life would not have been
possible before the internet.

BUT - that's probably not true of everyone. I may be a weird case.

~~~
code_duck
I work at home and on vacation seamlessly, which is marvelous, and also have
made amazingly close friends across continents. I have no idea how I ever
would have met those people if not for the internet, and I surely couldn't be
spending hours a day on the phone with people in Russia and the UK with the
old phone system!

No doubt your example isn't isolated... this sort of global connection making
seems to be becoming more common. I think it's going to be a really amazing
force for cultural change in the next 20 years.

