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[Magmacube_tr]

>go to /x/ to hopefully find some high quality schizoposts
>scroll through /x/
>ohgoddammit.png
>still tulpas amd skinwalkers
>some stray /pol/ack is trying to prove homosexuality is caused by intestinal worms or some shit
>never seen someone fail at logic so fucking badly. even the other basement dwellers are making fun of him
>lmao.jpg
>think about entering the leaking septic tank that is /pol/ out of morbid curiosity
>nope.mp3
>decide against it; nothing of value is in there. besides, i can picture exactly whats in there without even entering it
>look around /x/ some more
>matrix pill bullshit, jewish space laser cabal stuff, crystals or whatever. anons bitching about the abyssmal quality of the posts as usual
>get bored
>leave /x/

Dang, each time I go in there, the worse it all is. I wonder why?

[McTraveller]

Dang, each time I go in there, the worse it all is. I wonder why?

Just remember: before the Internet, at least a few people had to think an idea had merit before it would be published.  Now that we have the Internet, unvetted ideas get published worldwide.

[Frumple]

That... that is not even a little accurate? There's little the internet produces in terms of meritless nonsense that hadn't seen print prior to the net being a meaningful thing. There's just more of it now, and easier to access.

[TD1]

Yea, the controversy surrounding easily publishable material has existed since at LEAST the printing press. Notably with the pamphlets etc.

But there's an argument to be made that letters (single sheets of paper/parchment, easily copied and composed) filled a similar role even before then.

[Egan_BW]

And before that, going to your nearest market square and shouting your ideas at the top of your lungs for all to hear.

[Schmaven]

The isolated nature of pre-industrial communication helped to contain bad, yet convincing ideas, keeping them from spreading to the whole world.  Today, 1 person can say something that can impact just about everyone in a matter of minutes.  The same is true for good, yet unconvincing ideas too.  But sadly, there doesn't seem to exist many ideas that are both good and widely compelling.  I'm mildly upset about this.

[Kagus]

"Helped to contain bad yet convincing ideas" is a ginormous can of worms to try and open up

[TD1]

The isolated nature of pre-industrial communication helped to contain bad, yet convincing ideas, keeping them from spreading to the whole world.  Today, 1 person can say something that can impact just about everyone in a matter of minutes.  The same is true for good, yet unconvincing ideas too.  But sadly, there doesn't seem to exist many ideas that are both good and widely compelling.  I'm mildly upset about this.

I think you're grossly underestimating just how viral ideas were in pre-industrial times.

Heresy was typically the product of one individual, and its implications were felt much further afield than its place of origin.

Our sources for commoner 'viral' ideas are more sporadic, but there is evidence that commoners (see: Wat Tyler) could shape the zeitgeist of their nation.

Also there's the obvious issue with your statement - - - what constitutes 'good' and what 'bad,' and why should you get to decide?



Edit: Feel free to correct me, but I'm assuming you haven't had an introduction to pre-industrial history? No worries if you haven't, of course. It's just that your argument sounds like it proceeds from a common misconception concerning that era - in that it was a time of 'not having' and 'lacking' what we have or take for granted today.

In some cases this is correct. They didn't have smartphones. But they were not without sophisticated means for communication - whether parody, satire, comedy, politics, peasant ideology.

When Adam delved and Eve span, who then was gentleman?

[Schmaven]

I think you're grossly underestimating just how viral ideas were in pre-industrial times.

Heresy was typically the product of one individual, and its implications were felt much further afield than its place of origin.

Our sources for commoner 'viral' ideas are more sporadic, but there is evidence that commoners (see: Wat Tyler) could shape the zeitgeist of their nation.

Considering how nearly all of Europe didn't know that North America even existed for most of the last 2000 years, I find it hard to imagine how any idea would be able to be conveyed around the globe.  Today, that can happen in minutes.  While you are correct in assuming that I am no historical scholar, this still seems like a significant difference to me. 

It seems like your position is more relevant to regional ideas spreading, in which case, I agree with you.  It's the global impact that is different now.

Also there's the obvious issue with your statement - - - what constitutes 'good' and what 'bad,' and why should you get to decide?

With regard to good and bad, I specifically refrained from making any moral judgements about anything.  I was merely implying that good and bad exist;  And that ideas with each of those connotations spread faster in the digital internet age than they did in the bronze age; And that the world is much more easily perturbed because of such powers held in the hands of anyone with a smartphone.

[TD1]

Considering how nearly all of Europe didn't know that North America even existed for most of the last 2000 years, I find it hard to imagine how any idea would be able to be conveyed around the globe.  Today, that can happen in minutes.  While you are correct in assuming that I am no historical scholar, this still seems like a significant difference to me.

Let's imagine your bad idea was posted online in English. In China, it would only be accessible by "fewer than 10 million Chinese, or less than 1% of the population, [who speak conversational] English."^[1] Before Europeans dabbled in America, there were only between 50-100 million Native Americans.^[2]

This means that today there would be roughly 1.4 billion people in China alone who would likely not be able to access the original English. Now imagine if the bad idea was a tweet in Irish...

So yes, an idea could be spread across the globe in minutes (assuming everyone had access to the internet/smartphones, which is itself a problematic assumption). But there are certain natural barriers to comprehension and understanding, whether linguistic or even cultural. A tweet saying 'relax, dude' from a Californian would be interpreted in a vastly different way from its intent by, say, a Tibetan monk.

Arguably, from ancient times until even the 1800s it may have been easier to convey ideas. The educated elite who wrote letters, treatises, pamphlets, books etc. almost exclusively wrote in or understood either Latin/Greek throughout Europe and the Middle East. Granted, it wouldn't take minutes to get from Ireland to Istanbul. But once it did, it would be fully understood, copied, talked about, (and possibly declared heretical, hah).

To conclude: ye olde communication might have more steps than it does today. But it still allowed one person to shake the world.<sup>[3]


[1]</sup>https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/english-levels-in-china.htm
^[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#:~:text=Population%20figures%20for%20the%20Indigenous,of%20100%20million%20or%20more.
^[3] Or, at least, the subsection of the world capable of receiving, understanding, and caring about the message.

[hector13]

I’ve got a muscle in my back that gets really rather tight at times, particularly after I do some physical activity (in this instance, shoveling snow) and it’s super difficult to actually do anything to make it not tight. Like, I have to sort of balance on one foot to avoid it contracting so pushing on it with the index knuckle of my hand actually massages it properly, and even then the sheer joy of actually massaging it also makes it slowly tense up, it’s really rather silly and very annoying.

[Schmaven]

Getting called in to work in the middle of the night, chugging an energy drink, and then getting a call saying, "Oops, meant to call in the other crew, don't bother coming in."

[nenjin]

Getting called in to work in the middle of the night, chugging an energy drink, and then getting a call saying, "Oops, meant to call in the other crew, don't bother coming in."

Man that's some BS.

I've worked since Friday on migrating a business between servers. Hours on, hours off but all spent at my computer. I was sending emails at like 11pm last night. Didn't get to bed until 1. Woke up at 5am to support their east cost workers and spent the next 4 hours sleeping an hour, checking emails. Sleeping an hour, checking emails.

I'm so fucking fried. I need to take some time off this week but there's already more BS coming down the pipe.

At least I'm hourly still. I feel bad for my coworker who is salary and probably put in 20+ hours of overtime this weekend he won't recognize as additional pay.

[StrawBarrel]

^[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#:~:text=Population%20figures%20for%20the%20Indigenous,of%20100%20million%20or%20more.

Wow the 1st paragraph of the wikipedia article says:

Population figures for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas prior to European colonization have been difficult to establish. By the end of the 20th century, most scholars gravitated toward an estimate of around 50 million, with some historians arguing for an estimate of 100 million or more.

It's pretty sad that so many people were genocided on the American Continent.

[Frumple]

It's sorta' come up at work occasionally, one of my co-workers mentions they wish there was more focus on the positive stuff in US history every once in a while, and it's, just.

Just about every thing I try to think of is tainted, at best. Nothing colonial or western expansion counts, 'cause it was built on the back of a genocide campaign, nevermind everything else going on. Slavery and everything supporting it was a fucking abomination. Very few military actions would count, despite there being something or another ongoing for basically the entire existence of european colonization and subsequent succession and statehood since. Reconstruction was defined by what amounts to a successful terrorism campaign, substantively failing as a project. Civil rights is conflicted as hell 'cause for all its successes, it was defined by the massive opposition to treating your fellow citizen with basic goddamn respect and it's continued to be fought and undermined to this very day. Basically friggin' everything we've done south of the border is some variety of atrocity.

New Deal was probably closer than most? Maybe? It had major problems of its own, though. The list just kind of... keeps going. American history's kind of shit (and it's largely not even particularly unique in that, blech). What the blazes is actually there, that doesn't have to be whitewashed to hell and back to look good?

There's days it feels like every history lesson we teach in primary school really should just be "Holy fuck kids, do not be like your ancestors, for the love of whatever god you care to invoke." Just repeat that over and over and over again until it sticks, because good goddamn is our track record just kinda' terrible.

Whole damn species needs to have a metaphorical come to jesus moment and internalize that sometimes your great-grand whatever or whoever was actually just kind of a terrible person and you don't friggin' have to make excuses for them being an asshole. They were just an asshole. You don't have to be like them, you don't have to venerate them, you can be okay even if whatever spawned you was more or less a sack of ambulatory crap. History being shit just means you know what not to do.