Yea I got the general or vague impression that this was reminiscent of their initial maps roll out.

Are any heads gonna roll for this?

You’re not alone. It happens! I’m around the 10 mark I think.

Hear hear!

The whole thing about early internet nostalgia is definitely interesting and pertinent for the fediverse! While I think there’s something to the pre big-algorithmic-social internet, I think your point is very well made … there was plenty of trashiness too, and as you say, problematic homogeneity.

Meanwhile there’s a lot of “let’s just get back to the original Internet” energy on the fediverse … and yea … I’ve felt for a while this was a doomed mindset. Not just because there’s really no going back, but because it almost certainly is rose tinted glasses, which becomes apparent once you start assessing its libertarian premises, and how they failed, critically (again, as you say!)

Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.

I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.

Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).

I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.

For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.

I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.

Came to say the same. It’s probably a step in the right direction, but for me at the moment, as much as it might be a slap in the face to all the creators who’ve infested their time into it, I’m inclined to say “not good enough” and learn to organise better if you want proper independence.

AFAICT, just providing some actual share ownership and decision making mechanisms would have made the difference.

No worries at all!

Also, I didn’t know at all about the Barbary Wars (and was quite surprised to hear of such a far flung US military engagement so early)

Yes they seem like reasonable metrics to me. But like you I don’t really know how to answer the question. But relative economic strength and influence are likely factors. So the post civil war gilded age would also been a likely point, which was the origin of my 150 yrs estimate. For 100 years, I figured post WWI was a pretty clear moment of relative strength.

In recent times, boomers have had a notable hold on the presidency. Not just boomers, but those born in the summer of 1946. Clinton, Bush Jr and Trump were all born between June and August 1946, a window of 3 months, but spanning over 3 decades of the White House. And the same more or less holds for the losing candidates too, with Harris and Obama being the major exceptions IIRC. Indicates to me some real oligarchical forces beyond what’s normal in the rest of the west.

Ha yes, thanks … though, without knowing, I’d wonder how early you can push the global power part (thus the question mark). Post-war (your 70 years) is clearly a “the global power” status. But how early could you say the US was at least one of the major powers?

You’re the “Old World” now.

It’s basically been 350 250 (edit: correction) years now since US independence, and a decent while now at being a global power (~100-150 years?). These are timelines akin to that from the European Renaissance to the US Revolution (~1400-1800) and the UK emerging from the 1500s to being the “super power” in the war of independence.

Now, with the world’s oldest constitution, and probably, depending on who you talk to, an increasingly critical mass of antiquated ideals and systems, the Presidency is more like the Monarchs of past revolutions than what remains of those monarchies, and the US’s ideals and cultural influence something which most would rather move on and upgrade from.

Generally, I’d say it’s one of the weirder and subtler historical events happening right now: the dissolving of the old lines between the “old” and “new” worlds. For me personally, this was once made clear when visiting Hannover, Germany, and its tourist attraction, the “New Town Hall”, where someone who lives in British Columbia, Canada pointed out the similarities with their Parliament Building. The thing is though that the Canadian building is about 15 years older (both being just over 100 years old). Colonialism is long enough ago and Europe (and likely any other “old” culture, such as China) rebuilt enough and recently enough, that like X-genners and Millennials, the whole “young, hip, cool rebel” thing just doesn’t mean anything anymore.

There was an article by Google about the security of their code base, and one of their core findings was that old code is good, as it gets refined and more free of bugs over time. And of course conversely, new code is worse.

https://security.googleblog.com/2024/09/eliminating-memory-safety-vulnerabilities-Android.html

Generally it seems like capitalism’s obsession with growth is at odds with complex software. It’s basis in property also.

it’s the sort of tool that is really just fundamental now and should be ubiquitous and promoted and taught and talked about every where there is knowledge work. Even more so as there’s a great open source version of the tool.

Oops. lol. I’ll leave the typo now!

Some vague stories around my grandfather before they migrated that sound like a godfather film but which no one knitted anything about.

Ha. Oops! I got the vibe that the conversation had become more general. But also I’m genuinely tired and tired and not wearing my glasses. Sorry!

Electric guitar and the quality of digital amplification. Takes all the pain, inconvenience and expenses of the traditional amp as a PA system away while letting you sound good. Really awesome TBH.

How dumb it all is. Seriously. The highly regimented structure of curricula and examination is a shitty way to learn. It’s optimised for making teaching and grading easier. And also teaching young people to be obedient facile production line workers.

But intellectually and academically, it always seemed obviously bad and boring to me. And I’ve since gotten to understand a number of academic topics relatively well to know how true this is. Proper understanding, intellectually, and skill in application, are things that are far more organic and purpose driven than the shitty curricula that pencil pushing educators spit out as though the human mind were an excel spread sheet.

Just a friendly reminder that climate change was predicted well ahead of time, easily decades ago, with old predictive models turning out to have been decently accurate.