So to go a bit sideways, I'd say that a lot of people want to feel heard, and be around someone that is a good listener.
Fewer people care to be a good listener. And not without good reason. It's hard. It's hard to be the listener, because it can drain you. Other people like it, and they like being able to talk to (or at?) you.
And "most" people on the internet want to firehose their lives to the world, and then take a break and whip through glimpses of the internet at a million short clips a minute. How much are we absorbing along the way? Who is feeling "seen" and "heard" on the internet?
Now when someone sits down and writes an earnest blog post, and someone else takes the time to read it, and then writes a comment which proves they engaged, overall the interaction feels meaningful, and someone maybe gets a little reassurance they have a voice, and others in the world have a moment to listen.
But both of those things take time and effort, and most people simply don't see enough value in that. Maybe they are too distracted. Too drained from how life is lived, and then too low energy to do anything but consume distractions.
A downward cycle instead of a virtuous cycle. But how many of us are good at putting consistency into doing the healthy things for our body and mind that keep us feeling energized and motivated to slow down and engage?
Totally understand that the article is romanticizing the old web, which I do miss. But I do want to mention my two favorite trees, one is gone now.
My first favorite tree was an American Chestnut that I used to walk past on the way home from elementary school. For a time there was a slate sidewalk underneath the tree and the chestnuts themselves were a constant annoyance, but the tree was big, beautiful and shady, it made my neighbor's yard look really nice. I was shocked to learn later how fortunate I was to experience a real American Chestnut that had survived the blight (reddit even has a sub dedicated to finding survivors: https://www.reddit.com/r/americanchestnut/). I went back to try to find pictures of the tree and its since been razed. Presumably it died of blight, and the owners replaced it.
My second favorite tree is a somewhat famous Giant Sequoia I found after moving out west. I'm not doing disclose the location or the tree's name because its too easy to figure out where I am. The tree is the largest in town but not by much... it does stand out though. Without knowing its species the tree got me curious. I found out that it was actually a Sequoia! this surprised me because I thought they were relegated to small areas inside of national parks - NOT TRUE! Finding this tree led me to be intensely curious about all the other trees in town- what else was I missing? so I spent 6 months going on morning walks with a tree identification book. I met all sorts of people, and learned a ton about the trees. Tree identification is super hard by the way... I'm still getting my feet underneath me even after all that time. I was able to identify ~30 native species though, which was really cool!
I'd love to hear about other people's favorite trees.
My thoughts lately have been bouncing between "they've finally killed the internet" and "there's no way to create an island for humans online anymore, is there?" and I figured this is a good place as any to see if anybody else has been exploring this question.
In an ever-larger Internet with ever-growing bullshit and regurgitated, useless data, social-media-driven madness, commercial interests, the odds of finding islands of naive and purely human interaction shrink by the day. Given the advances of AI, the hope of having a network of "unadulterated" users, however small, are practically nil. Add the fact that most of human affairs are now online - work, leisure, communication, paying taxes, shopping, etc. - there is not even a realistic hope of living without the net.
What are we to do? Do we only have the choice to assimilate the AI-driven, algorithmic future or to become complete Luddites living on subsistence farming? Are (open) islands of humans communicating over the internet possible? Can we connect three computers with the full guarantee they are all being operated by homo sapiens? Will "real-life, face-to-face interaction" become the new frontier for outcasts, weirdos and idealists, just like the internet was 30 years ago?
This is a serious question and request for comments. I do not particularly care to start a discussion on whether AI is good, the internet is fine and I'm being dramatic; there are plenty of other places to discuss AI optimism.
[My favourite tree is the birch. Majestic with its white bark, reminds me of cooler climates. Also pines, with the peculiar smell and the reddish, thick carpet of needles they leave on the forest floor.]
I'd have to say some sort of B-tree. Though many bugs live in mine, I still like it. The amount of leaves it has throughout the seasons may very wildly, but I like it even if it has no leaves at all. I don't think I have ever framed a leaf from it myself, but I have definitely serialized it into binary and sent it off over the network, so it's possible that somewhere along the route it got stuck into an ethernet frame.
All in all an A-tier tree and I would definitely get a new one if I lost this version.
Most of the time that people share on the internet via social media, it’s a one-to-hugelymany broadcast. As a reader, I don’t feel the need to be a good listener. I’m one of a huge crowd listening, this message wasn’t meant to specifically engage with me. In fact, it would be weird if I replied because this is meant to be a big message going out to lots of people and I shouldn’t elbow my way into the middle of it. Better to just click +1.
If you sent a DM or group chat, I’d know for certain that I’m meant to engage and wouldn’t just superficially skim as a bystander. Just replying with a +1 would feel dismissive. You’re expected to engage and reciprocate.
This ability to have broadcasted vs targeted communications is relatively new for folks, and I’ve noticed that not everyone has learned to distinguish these communication styles.
Younger generations seem to grok it because they grew up with it, but everyone else needs to learn as they go. If you were blogging back on the old internet and had lots of meaningful targeted communication with your audience, it’s going to be a shock when people start treating your content as broadcasts and stop interacting the way you are used to.
The thing I think we’re missing is long-form targeted messaging like an old-school blog. You could send emails, but that is 100% private so there’s no way for a new reader to join in.
I resonate with this nostalgia for the early internet, I really do. But lately I've been wondering if the tools available to us now are the key to bringing back what we miss about the old internet.
For example, let's look at "for you page" style algorithms. When I open Reels, I see incredible musicians, mind-blowing visual art and really thoughtful insights from people all over the world. That's exactly what I wanted out of the early internet, and here it is, an ever-evolving system that connects me with all the weird and amazing things that exist out in the world.
And those people in the world who make this content now have an agent actively connecting them with their audience. Yes, I realize this is an extremely charitable interpretation of what's happening behind the scenes. But often, the content I see feels very close to what the author is describing: Someone taking the time to describe their favorite tree.
If there was ever a "good ol' internet", it's still in there. It's just had tons of freeways and high-rise buildings built up around it. The older I get, the more it seems like you just need to let your eyes adjust a bit to see it.
Edited to add: My favorite tree, right now anyway, is a pair of birch trees in a park near my home. When they leaf out and the wind blows, I sit in the grass between them and it sounds almost like I'm at a beach, which is really nice because I'm about as far from an ocean as you can be on this planet.
I never really noticed it until one day, while I was walking, I suddenly noticed how much denser the leaves on the old tree at the street corner had become. That’s when I realized that the beauty of life often lies in these small details. People tend to rush after big goals and forget to appreciate what’s right in front of them. Just like the article mentions, slow networks are a way to return to the essence of life, allowing us to slow down and truly sense everything around us.
If they make decisions based in data, you should be in the data stream.
Going blind to the big data is like not voting in my opinion. I also cherish those Islands but I see it as a place in which you put data which shouldn't be in the bug data pool or at least in a different category and not traceable back to you...
My favourite tree is the Neem tree. It’s scientific name Azadirachta Indica means the “free spirited tree of India” and it comes from the Farsi word “Azaad Dirakht-e-hind”. A gem among trees.
I love the slow web and once in a while I try to write something non-technical about things that catch my eye. Each of us has got a unique perspective and it’s refreshing to read about them.
My attempt and shameless plug: https://samkhawase.com/blog/an-ode-to-the-tiger/
the weeping willow is my favourite tree, first because it literally weeps, the leaves drip honeydew, and also because i associate it with my late grandfather
This is my favorite tree - a phylogenetic tree of 4k Pango lineages of SARS-CoV-2: https://nextstrain.org/staging/nextclade/sars-cov-2
I do something here - https://personal-logs.vercel.app/
There are still parts of the web which are not capitalistically rotted. Bittorrent, Usenet, Bitcoin, Tor, I2P, etc. You can join them or better yet, support them by running nodes
#1 The Larch
the slow internet didn't go away, it's just not the primary internet anymore so it's a lot harder to find through all the crabs in the bucket trying to claw their way to your eyeballs
> I want you to call me
Provides no phone number. Smh.
Blog posts are hit or miss but a good one is so much more rewarding than anything else on the internet.
a romantic idea. I've managed to achieve a kind of Walden / Wonko the Sane way of life in tech, where I work by a picture window looking out on a large field on a farm, and I in fact chop wood and get my water from a well, actually.
the way I use tech now is mainly trying to get LLM agents to work to shorten the daydreaming process by giving me the answers I need. the thing is, tech is just for building more tech. it only builds upwards on the stack, and doesn't yield discovery or growth outside it. it doesn't make me a better musician, horseman, hiker, motorcyclist, lifter of heavy things, or friend, etc. these things are only the effect of practice.
maybe the response is not so much a kind asceticism where choices of taste in tech or opinion become a proxy for purity, but to ask, what have you physically practiced vs. merely consumed?
Whenever you pine for the old internet stop and think: Do I just miss the freedom of childhood?
For me the answer invariably comes out as Yes. Mom filled the fridge, homework wasn’t that hard, and I could spend hours upon hours just existing on the internet. Find a new friend? GReat! Chat for hours. Find a new idea? Awesome! Deep dive into a wikipedia rabbit hole for hours. Get an idea? Superb! Spend the next week coding every day after school to make it happen.
Now I have, like, obligations and stuff. The list of fun new ideas and friends and websites to explore is … very long. Not to mention all the existing fun ideas friends and websites I’ve already accumulated that I also enjoy spending time with. Realistically there is very little room for anything new.
So ask yourself: Do you miss the old internet or do you miss being a kid staring at a new-to-you frontier?
edit: Whenever I talk about this with people IRL. “the old internet” is always whatever was available when they were in middle/high school. Funny how that works :)