>do you typically feel better or worse after browsing the internet?
I know it's common to say the "internet sucks" but I'll go against the grain and honestly say it's the best resource in my life. I like learning new things and the internet has been #1 tool for that for many decades. I'm speaking as someone who grew up with public libraries with paper card catalogs and looking at archives of microfiche for old newspapers.
Learning anything like coding, how to repair cars and random things around the house. Learning about places to travel to. Basically learning about any topic. The vastness of the internet is superior to the physical books I used to buy from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
I think one of the reasons I don't have a negative opinion overall about the internet is that I've never sought friendships or "connection" on the web. Therefore, it's not an aspect that let me down. Maybe an analogy would be the perspective traders would have about the Bloomberg Terminal. It's just an information tool. They don't seek any "social connection" on the Bloomberg Terminal so there's no disappointment that makes the users conclude "Bloomberg Terminals suck". That's what The Internet is to me -- a general all-purpose "Bloomberg Terminal".
It may surprise some to hear that the biggest source of negativity I'm exposed to on the internet is actually here on HN. I'm not joking. I don't read news websites so my daily dose of internet negativity comes from HN comments.
a. Amen to the internet being a great tool for learning
b. I acknowledge this is a tangent, but I would say the same about LLMs. They can have plenty of negative effects on society as a whole and individuals using them, but I found that when I use them as a tool for learning they are usually great and a net positive, both at the time of learning and later on when using that knowledge on my own.
If the most negative place on the internet you regularly are exposed to is HN, you have some excellent memetic hygiene, congratulations.
I try to only use the parts of the internet that enrich me but the dopamine from places like Reddit, Bluesky, youtube (for hours) etc is pretty tough loop to break. It's obvious these places are not particularly helpful to me in the way I use them, but I find my fingers typing the URL without thinking and once you hit that first link it's so easy to just fall into it for way longer than you should.
"how to repair cars and random things around the house."
Not so sure about this one... you learn more from hands on work than following a youtube video. Like following a GPS route to a destination and not really understanding the path that lead you there.
> some may argue it’s worth bifurcating the internet into “digitized content” and “bad ideas by people full of sh*t.” but these days they overlap so much i wonder if that’s a distinction without a difference. and labels aside: do you typically feel better or worse after browsing the internet?
This is the key realization: "do I need to feel this bad right now?" Over the last say...5-10 years, the negativity has grown to a point where interacting with anyone via the internet has become a net negative ROI.
That's really sad because I remember the "before" internet. It was much better, far more supportive/encouraging, and the majority of the people were genuinely interested in the topic your circles focused on. That led to real relationships forming both on and off the internet and having some form of support system that actually gives a shit.
Now? It's a lot of antagonistic, empty, directionless noise. The only way to survive psychologically is to avoid it, more or less, and only engage on occasion.
Ah, this is what i come to Hacker News for: out-of-touch rich people figuring out how to escape the influence created by out-of-touch rich people.
I agree in general tho. There are billions of us subject to this private facade of public platforms. This is by design, the Internets possibilities are engineered into place.
The problem is, even as you ignore the internet, it goes on without you, and yet your ignoring it doesn't make you immune to it. I suppose you can ignore the Ohio River, but it keeps on flowing and every once in a while it'll rise and get your socks wet or your ceiling wet or just fucking kill you because you ignored the river levels.
It's border on science denial.
"I don't believe in science!"
Well, I don't believe in Tuesday, but it's pretty likely it'll show up tomorrow.
> The problem is, even as you ignore the internet, it goes on without you, and yet your ignoring it doesn't make you immune to it.
I recently moved and had a lot on my list in real life generally for about six to nine months. I stopped using the internet as I did before because I simply didn't have time. I primarily used it to order stuff for the new house and to do my professional work. No podcasts, no YT videos, no news articles, no social media. I even stopped watching the news completely.
Guess what? Nothing happened other than me feeling a lot better. I didn't miss out on anything as far as I know. Instead, I forgot about all the bullsh*t that's not even real. Let's be honest. Most of the stuff on social media is completely made up or has a core of truth but is completely blown out of proportion to get attention.
A couple of times a coworker told me about how scary the news were and that they are afraid something bad will happen soon. I just said: "Ah, it's probably not going to be that bad." And guess what? It wasn't that bad. I never heard of it again afterwards.
The internet will move on without you and you don't have to be immune to it. You can just move on without it. Use it for what you need and try to make it as hard as possible for it to use you.
I don't really get what you're getting at. You can live a full and healthy life without making yourself anxious about the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun[0].
My neighbour Mike is almost completely offline. He most certainly doesn't have an X account. He doesn't post on or read Facebook. He doesn't spend his mornings reading Hacker News posts. He's a builder who spends his spare time working on side projects, talking with friends and camping / road tripping. He lives a full mortgage-free life thanks to some fortunate investments building homes in new suburbs in the 90s.
What do you think he's missing out on? What's happening online that supposedly has such an impact on his life, and when will this impact be realised?
By the way I've never given a single thought to the Ohio river and it still hasn't impacted me.
>my first child is due in a couple months and it’s difficult to imagine tweeting as a parent. why would i argue with a childless blue haired atheist about Islam’s (in)compatibility with Western values? why would i tolerate The Algorithm showing me prostitutes on my social media feed? have we lost our mind? [...] i’m bringing back the 90s.
Bringing up this example of all cases made me a bit curious so I found this piece from a month ago[1] and it gives some context. Ryan, you will never guess who hung out with prostitutes!
There's certainly a lot of malicious stuff on the internet but the desire for an internet full of like-minded people out of a gated community strikes me a bit odd. If you hate weird argumentative people the 90s internet wouldn't have been for you. One of my more curious memories from the earlier internet is being involved in the Unreal Tournament modding scene and finding out that one person I was talking to was Asia Carrera, who was a pornstar, Mensa member and apparently self taught programmer and modder.
If all you want is be around people who think the same thoughts, with an oddly elitist and judgemental touch to boot, I think leaving the internet is the only option.
I don't understand the author's use of being childless, or having blue hair, as a pejorative. Also, do they mean having blue hair in the sense that you're old, or that you're young and dye your hair unnatural colors on purpose? Either way it smacks of elitism.
It's a stereotype of his political opponents as adrift in selfishness, hedonism, and "gender stuff".
When you find your thought patterns flowing through tropes this way it is a good sign to consider logging off for a long while, as the author is doing. I wish him peace and perspective.
But it implies that progressives believe that any change is good, not that just some subset of change is good. I might be progressive but I don't think putting diesel in my petrol car will improve anything.
No, it does not. To repeat myself, they believe the changes they propose are good. Conservatives want to undo the perceived damage done by progressives.
"change==good" can be read as "change is good" or "change equals good". It doesn't say anything about "change I propose == good"
Anyways, your definition is a bit silly - do you think conservatives, when they propose change(even if just to revert to an earlier system), don't think it's good?
Conservatives want to conserve the good order they believe they had. It is backward looking. They want things to be great again the way they were progressives ruined it.
The conservative proposal to roll back the progressive change? OF course conservatives view that as good. It goes without saying. Conservatives speak the language of "preservation" and "restoration"; e.g.,
Unironically referencing a four year old "female delusion calculator" (https://igotstandardsbro.com/) is also quite a choice. I've learned more about this individual from these two blog posts than I ever wanted to.
>do you typically feel better or worse after browsing the internet?
I know it's common to say the "internet sucks" but I'll go against the grain and honestly say it's the best resource in my life. I like learning new things and the internet has been #1 tool for that for many decades. I'm speaking as someone who grew up with public libraries with paper card catalogs and looking at archives of microfiche for old newspapers.
Learning anything like coding, how to repair cars and random things around the house. Learning about places to travel to. Basically learning about any topic. The vastness of the internet is superior to the physical books I used to buy from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
I think one of the reasons I don't have a negative opinion overall about the internet is that I've never sought friendships or "connection" on the web. Therefore, it's not an aspect that let me down. Maybe an analogy would be the perspective traders would have about the Bloomberg Terminal. It's just an information tool. They don't seek any "social connection" on the Bloomberg Terminal so there's no disappointment that makes the users conclude "Bloomberg Terminals suck". That's what The Internet is to me -- a general all-purpose "Bloomberg Terminal".
It may surprise some to hear that the biggest source of negativity I'm exposed to on the internet is actually here on HN. I'm not joking. I don't read news websites so my daily dose of internet negativity comes from HN comments.
a. Amen to the internet being a great tool for learning
b. I acknowledge this is a tangent, but I would say the same about LLMs. They can have plenty of negative effects on society as a whole and individuals using them, but I found that when I use them as a tool for learning they are usually great and a net positive, both at the time of learning and later on when using that knowledge on my own.
If the most negative place on the internet you regularly are exposed to is HN, you have some excellent memetic hygiene, congratulations.
I try to only use the parts of the internet that enrich me but the dopamine from places like Reddit, Bluesky, youtube (for hours) etc is pretty tough loop to break. It's obvious these places are not particularly helpful to me in the way I use them, but I find my fingers typing the URL without thinking and once you hit that first link it's so easy to just fall into it for way longer than you should.
[dead]
"how to repair cars and random things around the house."
Not so sure about this one... you learn more from hands on work than following a youtube video. Like following a GPS route to a destination and not really understanding the path that lead you there.
> some may argue it’s worth bifurcating the internet into “digitized content” and “bad ideas by people full of sh*t.” but these days they overlap so much i wonder if that’s a distinction without a difference. and labels aside: do you typically feel better or worse after browsing the internet?
This is the key realization: "do I need to feel this bad right now?" Over the last say...5-10 years, the negativity has grown to a point where interacting with anyone via the internet has become a net negative ROI.
That's really sad because I remember the "before" internet. It was much better, far more supportive/encouraging, and the majority of the people were genuinely interested in the topic your circles focused on. That led to real relationships forming both on and off the internet and having some form of support system that actually gives a shit.
Now? It's a lot of antagonistic, empty, directionless noise. The only way to survive psychologically is to avoid it, more or less, and only engage on occasion.
Ah, this is what i come to Hacker News for: out-of-touch rich people figuring out how to escape the influence created by out-of-touch rich people.
I agree in general tho. There are billions of us subject to this private facade of public platforms. This is by design, the Internets possibilities are engineered into place.
Ironically (or not) the author seems like the worst kind of smug permanently online asshole.
The “I don’t feel FOMO” thing is especially funny because I clicked on their twitter and they were literally shilling NFTs like 2 years ago.
Even a broken clock, I guess.
In the authors plan the internet is still intricately tied to media consumption.
> use Amazon to buy books (vs Google to query words) when i get curious
Go to the library?
Typographically related only: What is it with this trend of not putting an uppercase letter at the start of sentences? Why?? It’s ugly.
My guess is because some people (including myself) are turning off auto correct.
The problem is, even as you ignore the internet, it goes on without you, and yet your ignoring it doesn't make you immune to it. I suppose you can ignore the Ohio River, but it keeps on flowing and every once in a while it'll rise and get your socks wet or your ceiling wet or just fucking kill you because you ignored the river levels.
It's border on science denial.
"I don't believe in science!"
Well, I don't believe in Tuesday, but it's pretty likely it'll show up tomorrow.
> The problem is, even as you ignore the internet, it goes on without you, and yet your ignoring it doesn't make you immune to it.
I recently moved and had a lot on my list in real life generally for about six to nine months. I stopped using the internet as I did before because I simply didn't have time. I primarily used it to order stuff for the new house and to do my professional work. No podcasts, no YT videos, no news articles, no social media. I even stopped watching the news completely.
Guess what? Nothing happened other than me feeling a lot better. I didn't miss out on anything as far as I know. Instead, I forgot about all the bullsh*t that's not even real. Let's be honest. Most of the stuff on social media is completely made up or has a core of truth but is completely blown out of proportion to get attention.
A couple of times a coworker told me about how scary the news were and that they are afraid something bad will happen soon. I just said: "Ah, it's probably not going to be that bad." And guess what? It wasn't that bad. I never heard of it again afterwards.
The internet will move on without you and you don't have to be immune to it. You can just move on without it. Use it for what you need and try to make it as hard as possible for it to use you.
This is incredibly encouraging, thank you.
I don't really get what you're getting at. You can live a full and healthy life without making yourself anxious about the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun[0].
My neighbour Mike is almost completely offline. He most certainly doesn't have an X account. He doesn't post on or read Facebook. He doesn't spend his mornings reading Hacker News posts. He's a builder who spends his spare time working on side projects, talking with friends and camping / road tripping. He lives a full mortgage-free life thanks to some fortunate investments building homes in new suburbs in the 90s.
What do you think he's missing out on? What's happening online that supposedly has such an impact on his life, and when will this impact be realised?
By the way I've never given a single thought to the Ohio river and it still hasn't impacted me.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObOqq1knVxs&ab_channel=bobur...
>my first child is due in a couple months and it’s difficult to imagine tweeting as a parent. why would i argue with a childless blue haired atheist about Islam’s (in)compatibility with Western values? why would i tolerate The Algorithm showing me prostitutes on my social media feed? have we lost our mind? [...] i’m bringing back the 90s.
Bringing up this example of all cases made me a bit curious so I found this piece from a month ago[1] and it gives some context. Ryan, you will never guess who hung out with prostitutes!
There's certainly a lot of malicious stuff on the internet but the desire for an internet full of like-minded people out of a gated community strikes me a bit odd. If you hate weird argumentative people the 90s internet wouldn't have been for you. One of my more curious memories from the earlier internet is being involved in the Unreal Tournament modding scene and finding out that one person I was talking to was Asia Carrera, who was a pornstar, Mensa member and apparently self taught programmer and modder.
If all you want is be around people who think the same thoughts, with an oddly elitist and judgemental touch to boot, I think leaving the internet is the only option.
[1] https://www.ryanckulp.com/are-you-my-people/
I don't understand the author's use of being childless, or having blue hair, as a pejorative. Also, do they mean having blue hair in the sense that you're old, or that you're young and dye your hair unnatural colors on purpose? Either way it smacks of elitism.
It's a stereotype of his political opponents as adrift in selfishness, hedonism, and "gender stuff".
When you find your thought patterns flowing through tropes this way it is a good sign to consider logging off for a long while, as the author is doing. I wish him peace and perspective.
The author is referencing a very tired strawman stereotype usually used when attacking liberals / “SJWs.”
Another head-scratcher from the link you shared:
> ...the progressive default that change==good, never honoring tradition or asking why it often prevails.
As a progressive this "default" is certainly news to me...
It's not a default so much as a credo; you can't progress by not changing anything. Progressives believe that they change things for the better.
But it implies that progressives believe that any change is good, not that just some subset of change is good. I might be progressive but I don't think putting diesel in my petrol car will improve anything.
No, it does not. To repeat myself, they believe the changes they propose are good. Conservatives want to undo the perceived damage done by progressives.
"change==good" can be read as "change is good" or "change equals good". It doesn't say anything about "change I propose == good"
Anyways, your definition is a bit silly - do you think conservatives, when they propose change(even if just to revert to an earlier system), don't think it's good?
Conservatives want to conserve the good order they believe they had. It is backward looking. They want things to be great again the way they were progressives ruined it.
Good or bad is relative to your beliefs.
Do you think, when a conservative proposes rolling back a change a progressive made, the conservative views their proposal as "good"?
The conservative proposal to roll back the progressive change? OF course conservatives view that as good. It goes without saying. Conservatives speak the language of "preservation" and "restoration"; e.g.,
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/rest...
Wow that article makes such a horrible impression of them
Unironically referencing a four year old "female delusion calculator" (https://igotstandardsbro.com/) is also quite a choice. I've learned more about this individual from these two blog posts than I ever wanted to.