Time Travel Question: Downtimers on the Internet?

[Zyobot]

Dec 22, 2018 15:59:34 GMT stevep said:

Dec 22, 2018 13:56:59 GMT Zyobot said:

Oh, those conservative elements would flip out if they got a glimpse of what's available on today's WWW. But in practice, what could they really do about it? WUSA won't let downtimer authorities take control of its technology, and I'm not sure how EUSA would approach regulating it without potentially violating the uptimers' civil liberties. And, as I've said before, pre-21st Century lawmakers are unqualified to pass such legislation anyway, which I bet WUSA would quickly point out as well.

However, I also imagine that there'd be hearings in which those same lawmakers question uptimer tech executives and professionals about what the technologies are and how they work.

Moreover, how would those conservative elements respond to WUSA's defiance of Washington's orders? They'd fume about it in private, no doubt.

  That would be the big issue on this and other matters.  EUSA would be angry, with some calling it treason whereas WUSA would be angry with some [many?] saying you have no right to dictator to us.

Many in EUSA will undoubtedly cry and scream no matter what the two Americas ultimately agree to, but it's not like Washington can just dictate orders to WUSA like they can to everyone else.

Accusations of "TREASON!!!" or "TRAITOR!!!" don't change the fact that the downtimers have their hands tied and need to accommodate uptimer wants in order to not only get access to 21st Century technology and professional skill, but also recover from the economic plunge of, well, having half of your country vanish without a trace. In short, EUSA will have to suck it up, be pragmatic and make an exception (or mountains of them) this time around.

Unfortunately, the teaming downtimer masses...won't be as privy to geopolitical realities as they ought to be, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.

[Zyobot]

Out of curiosity, what would pre-21st Century policymakers think of the internet once they're introduced to it?

Surely, the concept of a globalized computer network where users access/contribute nearly whatever content 24/7 would prompt some rigorous thought and deliberation on their part. Even without having the sort of regulatory power that the real-life FCC has, one ought to wonder how downtimer authorities would approach such a transformative, unforeseen advancement upon finding out about it.

[Zyobot]

Dec 24, 2018 14:19:03 GMT Zyobot said:

Out of curiosity, what would pre-21st Century policymakers think of the internet once they're introduced to it?

Surely, the concept of a globalized computer network where users access/contribute nearly whatever content 24/7 would prompt some rigorous thought and deliberation on their part. Even without having the sort of regulatory power that the real-life FCC has, one ought to wonder how downtimer authorities would approach such a transformative, unforeseen advancement upon finding out about it.

On top of this question to consider, what would the downtimers make of e-commerce? As far as I'm aware, 20th Century "futurists" predicted something similar to online shopping (which was doing that through one's TV, if I'm not mistaken).

[lordroel]

Dec 29, 2018 16:24:10 GMT Zyobot said:

Dec 24, 2018 14:19:03 GMT Zyobot said:

Out of curiosity, what would pre-21st Century policymakers think of the internet once they're introduced to it?

Surely, the concept of a globalized computer network where users access/contribute nearly whatever content 24/7 would prompt some rigorous thought and deliberation on their part. Even without having the sort of regulatory power that the real-life FCC has, one ought to wonder how downtimer authorities would approach such a transformative, unforeseen advancement upon finding out about it.

On top of this question to consider, what would the downtimers make of e-commerce? As far as I'm aware, 20th Century "futurists" predicted something similar to online shopping (which was doing that through one's TV, if I'm not mistaken).

Wonder that as well, also i would think they would consider uptimers to be crazy when they hear about Bitcoins.

[Zyobot]

Dec 29, 2018 16:28:58 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 29, 2018 16:24:10 GMT Zyobot said:

On top of this question to consider, what would the downtimers make of e-commerce? As far as I'm aware, 20th Century "futurists" predicted something similar to online shopping (which was doing that through one's TV, if I'm not mistaken).

Wonder that as well, also i would think they would consider uptimers to be crazy when they hear about Bitcoins.

I think the fact that we have cryptocurrency at all would be...unexpected, to say the least. Just the very concept of a digitally-existent form of money that's issued and transferred using decentralized online systems without the need for a middleman (i.e. a bank) would strike pre-Information Age people as utterly bizarre, difficult to comprehend and yes, futuristic.

Many of them will no doubt wonder how crypto is even legal, while business/economics specialists and the technically-inclined will fervently work to learn more about it. They'll also come across blockchain in their searches, which will be a similarly-baffling innovation sure to leave the Average Joe scratching their heads in incomprehension.

Furthermore, how would pre-21st Century authorities approach crypto its sister technologies? From their perspective, these decentralized systems would present a potential security threat. And Gus Hall & Friends would certainly rail against such "capitalism-enabling gizmos and gadgetry".

[Zyobot]

No one's replied to this thread in a while; I should start it back up. For starters, I wonder how we'd best go about explaining what the internet basically is to the downtimer masses who--as far as I'm aware--wouldn't have had a concept of search engines or social media, at least as we modern people understand them. As much as I'd like to pull up a video that might be fit for this purpose, they tend to require, well, uniquely 21st Century sensibilities to grasp even the gist of. This GCFGlobal page will probably have to do.

Moving up by a few tiers of expertise, I also wonder what the mid/late 20th Century STEM community would make of a global computer network on which billions of users access and contribute pretty much whatever content on a 24/7/365 basis. Certainly, it's presented decisive opportunities for data-gathering and performing as well as exchanging research between professionals, though a major downside is that much of the web contains false information and that its proprietors often employ...unethical means of making this all happen.

For those who are able to comprehend what the internet is and what it does, it might also be worth asking what they'd make of a for-now hypothetical decentralized web. That is, one that doesn't operate on centralized infrastructure, keeps personal data in the hands of owners, and is effectively uncontrollable--no matter what the tech giants, government, IP supporters, moral guardians or liberal watchdogs think.
Blockchain, cryptocurrency, "dApps" and the open-source movement would also go along with this to some extent. Though most of these are only being seriously discussed in certain, more techie circles at the moment, I think the prospect of something even less tameable than the WWW of 2019 would give pre-21st Century authorities a real headache.

[Zyobot]

As I mentioned in the Frivolous ASB thread, there's also the prospect of downtimer "reaction videos" popping up onto the web as well. I'd like to see pre-1989 people, for example, react to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire music video:


Or, Original Trilogy-era audiences react to all of the Star Wars stuff that has since been released since their times; I'd pay to witness their reactions to the additional movies, TV series, books, games, merchandise, the (now-defunct) EU, and so on. They might particularly enjoy those films that are closer in time to the Episodes IV through VI that they presumably know and love, i.e. Rogue One:

[lordroel]

Mar 4, 2019 22:24:59 GMT Zyobot said:

As I mentioned in the Frivolous ASB thread, there's also the prospect of downtimer "reaction videos" popping up onto the web as well. I'd like to see pre-1989 people, for example, react to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire music video:


Or, Original Trilogy-era audiences react to all of the Star Wars stuff that has since been released since their times; I'd pay to witness their reactions to the additional movies, TV series, books, games, merchandise, the (now-defunct) EU, and so on. They might particularly enjoy those films that are closer in time to the Episodes IV through VI that they presumably know and love, i.e. Rogue One:

I think you have posted some stuff that compared to what is out there on the internet will be horrifying to downtimers and who mostly cannot believe that such stuff is so easy to find.

[Zyobot]

Mar 4, 2019 22:31:35 GMT lordroel said:

Mar 4, 2019 22:24:59 GMT Zyobot said:

As I mentioned in the Frivolous ASB thread, there's also the prospect of downtimer "reaction videos" popping up onto the web as well. I'd like to see pre-1989 people, for example, react to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire music video:


Or, Original Trilogy-era audiences react to all of the Star Wars stuff that has since been released since their times; I'd pay to witness their reactions to the additional movies, TV series, books, games, merchandise, the (now-defunct) EU, and so on. They might particularly enjoy those films that are closer in time to the Episodes IV through VI that they presumably know and love, i.e. Rogue One:

I think you have posted some stuff that compared to what is out there on the internet will be horrifying to downtimers and who mostly cannot believe that such stuff is so easy to find.

I'm sorry? What have I posted so far that they would find horrifying?

There's plenty of crap on the web that'd trigger firestorms within 20th Century (i.e. Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life); that, I can't dispute. But I don't know what I did that would incite so much backlash from 1970s+ audiences, though that sort of reaction should be no surprise from people who lived before then.

[lordroel]

Mar 4, 2019 22:35:24 GMT Zyobot said:

I'm sorry? What have I posted so far that they would find horrifying?

No, but there would some stuff out there that even i would find horrifying.

[Zyobot]

Mar 4, 2019 22:48:34 GMT lordroel said:

Mar 4, 2019 22:35:24 GMT Zyobot said:

I'm sorry? What have I posted so far that they would find horrifying?

No, but there would some stuff out there that even i would find horrifying.

True. The Blue Whale challenge comes to mind when I think of what web-based media that sane people from any time period would recoil in horror at.

As said before, I wonder how pre-21st Century authorities would govern their citizens' portion of the internet (which assumes that they'd allow such a thing whatsoever). The demagogues and moral guardians would likely fall for way more restrictions on online content and usage. This would all, however, be decisively harder to achieve if, say, a modern state such as California or Texas--or a collection of them like the West Coast or Deep South--were sent back to 20th Century America. I can't imagine that millions of uptimers would willingly hand their communications over to downtimer DC for newfound regulation, at least without a fight.

[mullauna]

Would the way many female stars dress in 2019 be considered little better than naked in some previous periods? Even today in many fundamentalist countries it can get a girl or woman killed (e.g. Pakistan or the ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia)

[Zyobot]

Mar 6, 2019 5:36:34 GMT mullauna said:

Would the way many female stars dress in 2019 be considered little better than naked in some previous periods? Even today in many fundamentalist countries it can get a girl or woman killed (e.g. Pakistan or the ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia)

Yeah, that'd be sure to rile up pre-late 20th Century populations (some more than others, of course). In America at least, it'd likely be considered obscenity up to the '60s--which there were laws against at the time--and the anticommunist demagogues and moral guardians would rail against those "self-objectifying uptimers" with a passion, while social conservatives in general exhibit similar sentiments even without the means to speak out like people with a computer and internet connection can today.

That, of course, would come as another surprise to downtimer audiences as they're introduced to the modern WWW for the first time. Of course, much of the online media nowadays is not just catered to, but in large driven by the youth of today. That sort of pop culture influence would displease and perturb a great many pre-internet adults, I'm sure. Especially the "respect your elders" types who had not yet become accustomed to the emergence of the "permissive society" just yet.

...Alright, now I'm wondering how Alternate Timelines would be with recently-joined downtimer members, especially how they'd reply to this particular thread. What they contribute to other ASB and history-oriented discussions is another matter that we might speculate about as well. Though this is also worth talking about in regards to the Media Hub, Pre-1900, etcetera.

[mullauna]

People from 1967 for example would be both more negative about Herbert Hoover and more praising of Douglas MacArthur than we are today.