Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

hahaha

Do you think people will browse the internet and, well, "compute" in much the same ways in 2110? It's quite surprising, for instance, to me that cars remain essentially unchanged from a century ago. How has radio/TV/Internet affected your life? I know that my parents didn't even HAVE a DVD player/Internet access when I was in high school, and my brother, who is closer to current Board readers' age at 16, has to submit online assignments all the time. Interestingly, though, he uses the same exact American History textbook, so I don't buy this theory that the Internet somehow makes people stupid. People were dumb before, they just now do it louder and at 4 in the morning.



Edit by admin to actually show image...have a nice day.

First of all, great comic. I think I had high hopes for the internet right after Mr. Gore* invented it, but in a lot of ways it just annoys me. There is so much misinformation and just plain crap and I think it's changing the way we communicate in some ways that are bad. It makes people want stuff instantly. I could rant on and on about it, but I do like that it makes forums like this possible and it makes it easier to talk to people that are far away. And it does save me a lot of trips to the library. And I don't really think it's made anyone stupider. People were always stupid - how else would there be stupid stuff on the internet if people weren't stupid to begin with.


*This will never not be hilarious to me.

Thanks to the internet, I now waste gargantuan amounts of time.

Portia wrote: It's quite surprising, for instance, to me that cars remain essentially unchanged from a century ago.

There's a lot here I want to comment on, but let me take this one to start out with. First off, you're comparing different types of media to one type of transportation. Let's talk about airplanes, boats, trains, etc. And also, cars are essentially unchanged? How is pretty much no one owning one to just about everyone owning one the same? And even at the start when they were becoming more ubiquitous, they used intense amounts of fuel, and travelled under 20 MPH. Now the average car travels at least 75-80 MPH (or at least, is capable of doing so) and we have some that can do over 200. Not to mention becoming computerized, having all sorts of amenities added, etc. etc. I think if you put someone from a century ago into a car today they would have no idea what to do.

Marduk wrote:

Portia wrote: It's quite surprising, for instance, to me that cars remain essentially unchanged from a century ago.

There's a lot here I want to comment on, but let me take this one to start out with. First off, you're comparing different types of media to one type of transportation. Let's talk about airplanes, boats, trains, etc. And also, cars are essentially unchanged? How is pretty much no one owning one to just about everyone owning one the same? And even at the start when they were becoming more ubiquitous, they used intense amounts of fuel, and travelled under 20 MPH. Now the average car travels at least 75-80 MPH (or at least, is capable of doing so) and we have some that can do over 200. Not to mention becoming computerized, having all sorts of amenities added, etc. etc. I think if you put someone from a century ago into a car today they would have no idea what to do.

Yeah, I'd say the changes in cars are roughly equivalent in scale to the changes in laptop computers, for example.

I read this article: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Rev ... e-Shallows awhile back about a book called The Shallows. The argument of the book (to summarize a summary, perhaps proving the author's point) is that the internet actually has changed the way our minds process information. We multitask in quick, shallow bursts, rather than focusing our minds for a longer period of time, so we limit our ability to think deeply.

Since I'm writing this while carrying on two IM conversations and consulting with my housemate about dinner, I think the guy might be onto something.