8 ms·

Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Then the ideologues and political commissa

Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up, giving zero shit about tech or logical reasoning, this pulled the discourse down to the lowest common denominator and the rest is history. Why should I take the moral high ground and listen to an argument I dislike if I'm not offered the same courtesy.

Sprotch 3mo ago
I’d say everyone got on the internet, and it turned into the equivalent of your local bar for discussions
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- moffkalast 3mo ago
  Then LLM bots got on and it turned into an email spam folder.
  - Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
    That predates LLMs, but I get your point. But besides bots, there's also "low value" comments, the "who's listening in 2026" type comments. Undiscernable from a bot, adds no value, can be omitted and you wouldn't miss anything. And the worst part is that LLMs can generate more interesting comments than a large chunk of online people can.
dolia 3mo ago
I feel that too many people are confusing arguments they agree with with logical arguments. Most of people, when they claim that something is rational or logical, actually mean that it's a position that they agree with. I have no reason to believe that back in the day when internet was only for nerds the situation was different.
- simonh 3mo ago
  It wasn't different.
  - whstl 3mo ago
    Indeed. I remember Usenet in the 90s being 50% interesting conversations mostly about niche topics and 50% randomly devolving into flame wars in larger communities. Even "Eternal September" as a concept was something from around 1993/1994 right? Same for the 2000s era online-bulletin-board. I often go to thegearpage.net and am appalled at the amount of shilling, dismissals and disrespect, but then I remember that in the 2000s the main guitar forum was Harmony Central, which was mostly kids calling other kids moms names. EDIT: But coldtea makes a good point about some (IMO) more recent changes: tone-policing, excessive marketing. There's IMO also a different attitude towards curiosity today.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
    - cedilla 3mo ago
      Discussion quality is, in my experience, mostly a function of group size. Online discussions scale better than in person, but there's a limit.
      - _n_b_ 3mo ago
        One thing I do miss from the early internet was less anonymity being the norm on Usenet/forums/etc. Discussions tend to stay more civil when both parties know there's a "real" person on the other end. Otherwise, my memory of early 90s internet supports exactly your conclusion. There may have been better opportunities for small discussions, but big ones devolved the same way they do today.
        a96 3mo ago
        For a counterpoint, you only need to look at the cancer that is Facebook comments from people on their own name and face and a lot of bio attached. It's not the anonymity. At least not by itself.
tarkin2 3mo ago
Because it means you let those with unsavory behaviour define your behaviour
letsbereel 3mo ago
[flagged]
jonnybgood 3mo ago
I have found those who I would consider nerds to be far from logical or rational. They are some of the most fervent people about the things they care about, which can make them very illogical and irrational.
- spaqin 3mo ago
  True, but that's not really a bad thing. It feels like the passion has been watered down, with less and less space for being yourself, with the need to self-censor for the sake of advertisers', with hopes of monetization of every interaction ruining everything.
avadodin 3mo ago
Too many words to say: Nerds don't voice their opinions on the Internet because Eternal September IRL.
paganel 3mo ago
Some of nerds earned a lot, a lot of money, some of the other nerds they employed also earned a lot of money, and they all decided to screw up the world we all live in. Fuck the nerds! The jocks back in the '70s and the '80s were right, these nerds should have been bullied to hell and back, maybe that way we wouldn't have had today's Musks and Thiels, shitheads that are bringing this world over the edge.
- Nasrudith 3mo ago
  A society that creates bullies and thinks they are right is the same one that big surprise, doesn't give a shit about you. But you're stupid enough to be a cheerleader to bullies out of envy so you deserve whatever you get from it.
  - paganel 3mo ago
    You look like the one of the nerds that got bought by the likes of Thiel and Musk, congrats on that. Interesting how you people still have the guts to bring up the “society” you supposedly care so much about, the same society your lot is so happy to fuck over for some extra financial juice. When will you people stop? What it will mage you people stop? Genuine questions, both of them.
woolion 3mo ago
Isn't it the reddit model that absorbed them? Nerds were often seen as poorly social since "logic and reasoning" would go against socially accepted norms. This where the fedora tipping meme comes from: "everybody understands that religion is not literal, but we have to all accept the lie for social cohesion". But "nerds" would be the ones willing to take the ridicule and ostracism because truth would be more important than conformity. Reddit was the place to be for nerds and spread like a pandemic. However, karma points turned this on its head since you have a mechanism to enforce conformity in non-conformity that was the basis for "nerd communities". Nerds hobbies that would be the gateway are gated behind such platforms that enforce a social credit system in a totalitarian way. The would have been nerds are thus mostly integrated into the redittor archetype that is so fundamentally opposed to the nerd archetype; a contorted version of itself trying to fit through distorting mirrors. I'm not disagreeing with you; but why did the nerds not destroy the ideologues with logic and reasoning if not for the horizontal pressure of other "nerds" subverting the concept?
- bayindirh 3mo ago
  > I'm not disagreeing with you; but why did the nerds not destroy the ideologues with logic and reasoning if not for the horizontal pressure of other "nerds" subverting the concept? Why should I spend my energy to discuss with someone who doesn't want to listen, and not rather build something I like or learn something I wonder about, or converse with the people I care about? Life is too short to talk with walls disguised as humans. Talking with a wall, the ocean or oneself is more productive than doing unproductive self-torture.
  - gambiting 3mo ago
    >>Why should I spend my energy to discuss with someone who doesn't want to listen One of the reasons why I stopped going on Facebook, even though a lot of communities I care about have moved there. I wrote a long comment about someone's suggestion about car maintenance, only to get a reply "I didn't come here to discuss this, if you don't like what I said then go somewhere else". Like, WHY EVEN BE IN A PUBLIC FORUM THEN. But I feel like that's just me and my early internet sensibilities. Nowadays people want to post something, get some likes, and not be challenged. Even a mild disagreement is met with immediate aggression a lot of the time, because people are just not used to talking on the internet at all(imho).
vanderZwan 3mo ago
> Why should I take the moral high ground and listen to an argument I dislike if I'm not offered the same courtesy. I mean not using the Dutch translation of the n-word as part of your username and thinking you're clever for hiding it in a plausibly deniable way would certainly help with me believing you're arguing in good faith.
ramon156 3mo ago
I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but interesting username. This would fly in my language, haha! I'm sure it has a different meaning, though
crote 3mo ago
Ah yes, the internet where we had polite conversations on the merits of Vim vs Emacs, and women wanting to participate were warmly welcomed with a friendly "tits or gtfo"... Shitposting, trolling, and harassment has been around since the very beginning of the public internet. If you didn't see it, it has to have been because you were (unconsciously or not) looking away. The "ideologues and political commissars" didn't ruin your "friendly technical discussions", they merely pointed out how toxic a lot of those communities had always truly been. If anything, if you really want to focus on the technical details, you should welcome their attempts to make it a friendlier and more professional space!
- hollerith 3mo ago
  I didn't see any shitposting on the internet in the 1990s or the decade after that, nor anything remotely like "tits or gtfo" before I saw it on 4chan (which started in 2003). I did see a lot of trolling and a little harassment (not of women or other disadvantaged groups).
locknitpicker 3mo ago
> Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up I think you're seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. In some FLOSS circles the discussions were dominated by ideologues, to the point some discussions seemed like Monty Python skits. I mean, your choice of window manager, let alone Linux distro, was something you'd be judged by.
- Ekaros 3mo ago
  At least those were on technical merits. However imaginary or arbitrary those merits were... Which I think was more healthy place.
  - locknitpicker 3mo ago
    [dead]
- sire-vc 3mo ago
  'Were'? There are still people claiming that fronted isn't real coding. It is deeply embedded in human nature to define an us v them, and if skin colour is off the table substitutes must be found.
rando77 3mo ago
Why didn't they build a nerd oasis somewhere? And HN isn't it...
- globular-toast 3mo ago
  Most of them had quarter/midlife crises and got partners/children/mortgages etc. and no longer care. The next generation know nothing else other than the current internet.
  - a34729t 3mo ago
    Yeah sadly that's it. The great forums all died off when it was no longer doing ridiculous stuff to entertain internet friends, and instead having super lame adult responsibilities. Speaking for myself, kids even with a hands off parenting approach are a ridiculous amount of work.
- a96 3mo ago
  The first rule of nerd oases is you don't talk about nerd oases. If you belong, you'll find them and know how to get past the gates.
  - dooglius 3mo ago
    I'm skeptical of your second claim; being able to find such places ex nihilo would seem to require precisely the skills nerds lack
  - rando77 3mo ago
    if there were nerd oases I would expect more second order impacts. More nerd organisations springing up as if from nowhere.
- aranelsurion 3mo ago
  HN is one of the closest to it IMO. I sometimes think the very Web1.0-ness of its interface and its hostility to mobile browsers are purposefully made speed bumps before becoming fully mainstream. Also time passes and people change. Many of the people on HN today were once dialup users. They are the same people but also different.
kstenerud 3mo ago
> Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. I don't remember this internet. Ever since I got my first modem, I remember the kinds of vitriolic posts that led to the publication of IEN 137 (On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace). Whether it was endianness or RISC vs CISC or ZModem vs Kermit or Microsoft or Kirk vs Picard or Kimagure Orange Road, flame wars erupted everywhere. The smaller the stakes, the bigger the war.
KaiserPro 3mo ago
> you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Old man here, No this was never the case. Nerds were always hysterical and used the ban hammer frequently. the difference between then and now is that there were more distinct islands of nerdary you could escape to, and they wouldn't blend together. also they generally had a "no outside opinions" rule that meant that forums were single subject. This allowed you to socialise with degenerates like emacs users in different contexts without descending into flame wars (mostly...)
- nyeah 3mo ago
  Exactly. I'm glad someone else remembers the pre-eternal-September internet. (For me mid to late 1980s.)
- Mezzie 3mo ago
  God, I miss off-topic rules and their enforcement...
  - KaiserPro 3mo ago
    Off topic rule discussion are banned, you will be shadowbanned for 1 week.
- bad_username 3mo ago
  Old man here, it has never been perfect, but it used to be vastly better than today.
- supertroop 3mo ago
  Even early BBS message boards and usenet were foul. Where does OP think the original internet archetypes came from, Mr Beast?

Sprotch 3mo ago

I’d say everyone got on the internet, and it turned into the equivalent of your local bar for discussions

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
moffkalast 3mo ago
Then LLM bots got on and it turned into an email spam folder.
- Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
  That predates LLMs, but I get your point. But besides bots, there's also "low value" comments, the "who's listening in 2026" type comments. Undiscernable from a bot, adds no value, can be omitted and you wouldn't miss anything. And the worst part is that LLMs can generate more interesting comments than a large chunk of online people can.

dolia 3mo ago

I feel that too many people are confusing arguments they agree with with logical arguments. Most of people, when they claim that something is rational or logical, actually mean that it's a position that they agree with. I have no reason to believe that back in the day when internet was only for nerds the situation was different.

simonh 3mo ago
It wasn't different.
- whstl 3mo ago
  Indeed. I remember Usenet in the 90s being 50% interesting conversations mostly about niche topics and 50% randomly devolving into flame wars in larger communities. Even "Eternal September" as a concept was something from around 1993/1994 right? Same for the 2000s era online-bulletin-board. I often go to thegearpage.net and am appalled at the amount of shilling, dismissals and disrespect, but then I remember that in the 2000s the main guitar forum was Harmony Central, which was mostly kids calling other kids moms names. EDIT: But coldtea makes a good point about some (IMO) more recent changes: tone-policing, excessive marketing. There's IMO also a different attitude towards curiosity today.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - cedilla 3mo ago
    Discussion quality is, in my experience, mostly a function of group size. Online discussions scale better than in person, but there's a limit.
    - _n_b_ 3mo ago
      One thing I do miss from the early internet was less anonymity being the norm on Usenet/forums/etc. Discussions tend to stay more civil when both parties know there's a "real" person on the other end. Otherwise, my memory of early 90s internet supports exactly your conclusion. There may have been better opportunities for small discussions, but big ones devolved the same way they do today.
      - a96 3mo ago
        For a counterpoint, you only need to look at the cancer that is Facebook comments from people on their own name and face and a lot of bio attached. It's not the anonymity. At least not by itself.

tarkin2 3mo ago

Because it means you let those with unsavory behaviour define your behaviour

letsbereel 3mo ago

[flagged]

jonnybgood 3mo ago

I have found those who I would consider nerds to be far from logical or rational. They are some of the most fervent people about the things they care about, which can make them very illogical and irrational.

spaqin 3mo ago
True, but that's not really a bad thing. It feels like the passion has been watered down, with less and less space for being yourself, with the need to self-censor for the sake of advertisers', with hopes of monetization of every interaction ruining everything.

avadodin 3mo ago

Too many words to say: Nerds don't voice their opinions on the Internet because Eternal September IRL.

paganel 3mo ago

Some of nerds earned a lot, a lot of money, some of the other nerds they employed also earned a lot of money, and they all decided to screw up the world we all live in. Fuck the nerds! The jocks back in the '70s and the '80s were right, these nerds should have been bullied to hell and back, maybe that way we wouldn't have had today's Musks and Thiels, shitheads that are bringing this world over the edge.

Nasrudith 3mo ago
A society that creates bullies and thinks they are right is the same one that big surprise, doesn't give a shit about you. But you're stupid enough to be a cheerleader to bullies out of envy so you deserve whatever you get from it.
- paganel 3mo ago
  You look like the one of the nerds that got bought by the likes of Thiel and Musk, congrats on that. Interesting how you people still have the guts to bring up the “society” you supposedly care so much about, the same society your lot is so happy to fuck over for some extra financial juice. When will you people stop? What it will mage you people stop? Genuine questions, both of them.

woolion 3mo ago

Isn't it the reddit model that absorbed them? Nerds were often seen as poorly social since "logic and reasoning" would go against socially accepted norms. This where the fedora tipping meme comes from: "everybody understands that religion is not literal, but we have to all accept the lie for social cohesion". But "nerds" would be the ones willing to take the ridicule and ostracism because truth would be more important than conformity. Reddit was the place to be for nerds and spread like a pandemic. However, karma points turned this on its head since you have a mechanism to enforce conformity in non-conformity that was the basis for "nerd communities". Nerds hobbies that would be the gateway are gated behind such platforms that enforce a social credit system in a totalitarian way. The would have been nerds are thus mostly integrated into the redittor archetype that is so fundamentally opposed to the nerd archetype; a contorted version of itself trying to fit through distorting mirrors. I'm not disagreeing with you; but why did the nerds not destroy the ideologues with logic and reasoning if not for the horizontal pressure of other "nerds" subverting the concept?

bayindirh 3mo ago
> I'm not disagreeing with you; but why did the nerds not destroy the ideologues with logic and reasoning if not for the horizontal pressure of other "nerds" subverting the concept? Why should I spend my energy to discuss with someone who doesn't want to listen, and not rather build something I like or learn something I wonder about, or converse with the people I care about? Life is too short to talk with walls disguised as humans. Talking with a wall, the ocean or oneself is more productive than doing unproductive self-torture.
- gambiting 3mo ago
  >>Why should I spend my energy to discuss with someone who doesn't want to listen One of the reasons why I stopped going on Facebook, even though a lot of communities I care about have moved there. I wrote a long comment about someone's suggestion about car maintenance, only to get a reply "I didn't come here to discuss this, if you don't like what I said then go somewhere else". Like, WHY EVEN BE IN A PUBLIC FORUM THEN. But I feel like that's just me and my early internet sensibilities. Nowadays people want to post something, get some likes, and not be challenged. Even a mild disagreement is met with immediate aggression a lot of the time, because people are just not used to talking on the internet at all(imho).

vanderZwan 3mo ago

> Why should I take the moral high ground and listen to an argument I dislike if I'm not offered the same courtesy. I mean not using the Dutch translation of the n-word as part of your username and thinking you're clever for hiding it in a plausibly deniable way would certainly help with me believing you're arguing in good faith.

ramon156 3mo ago

I'm sure I'm not the first to say this, but interesting username. This would fly in my language, haha! I'm sure it has a different meaning, though

crote 3mo ago

Ah yes, the internet where we had polite conversations on the merits of Vim vs Emacs, and women wanting to participate were warmly welcomed with a friendly "tits or gtfo"... Shitposting, trolling, and harassment has been around since the very beginning of the public internet. If you didn't see it, it has to have been because you were (unconsciously or not) looking away. The "ideologues and political commissars" didn't ruin your "friendly technical discussions", they merely pointed out how toxic a lot of those communities had always truly been. If anything, if you really want to focus on the technical details, you should welcome their attempts to make it a friendlier and more professional space!

hollerith 3mo ago
I didn't see any shitposting on the internet in the 1990s or the decade after that, nor anything remotely like "tits or gtfo" before I saw it on 4chan (which started in 2003). I did see a lot of trolling and a little harassment (not of women or other disadvantaged groups).

locknitpicker 3mo ago

> Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up I think you're seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. In some FLOSS circles the discussions were dominated by ideologues, to the point some discussions seemed like Monty Python skits. I mean, your choice of window manager, let alone Linux distro, was something you'd be judged by.

Ekaros 3mo ago
At least those were on technical merits. However imaginary or arbitrary those merits were... Which I think was more healthy place.
- locknitpicker 3mo ago
  [dead]
sire-vc 3mo ago
'Were'? There are still people claiming that fronted isn't real coding. It is deeply embedded in human nature to define an us v them, and if skin colour is off the table substitutes must be found.

rando77 3mo ago

Why didn't they build a nerd oasis somewhere? And HN isn't it...

globular-toast 3mo ago
Most of them had quarter/midlife crises and got partners/children/mortgages etc. and no longer care. The next generation know nothing else other than the current internet.
- a34729t 3mo ago
  Yeah sadly that's it. The great forums all died off when it was no longer doing ridiculous stuff to entertain internet friends, and instead having super lame adult responsibilities. Speaking for myself, kids even with a hands off parenting approach are a ridiculous amount of work.
a96 3mo ago
The first rule of nerd oases is you don't talk about nerd oases. If you belong, you'll find them and know how to get past the gates.
- dooglius 3mo ago
  I'm skeptical of your second claim; being able to find such places ex nihilo would seem to require precisely the skills nerds lack
- rando77 3mo ago
  if there were nerd oases I would expect more second order impacts. More nerd organisations springing up as if from nowhere.
aranelsurion 3mo ago
HN is one of the closest to it IMO. I sometimes think the very Web1.0-ness of its interface and its hostility to mobile browsers are purposefully made speed bumps before becoming fully mainstream. Also time passes and people change. Many of the people on HN today were once dialup users. They are the same people but also different.

kstenerud 3mo ago

> Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. I don't remember this internet. Ever since I got my first modem, I remember the kinds of vitriolic posts that led to the publication of IEN 137 (On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace). Whether it was endianness or RISC vs CISC or ZModem vs Kermit or Microsoft or Kirk vs Picard or Kimagure Orange Road, flame wars erupted everywhere. The smaller the stakes, the bigger the war.

KaiserPro 3mo ago

> you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Old man here, No this was never the case. Nerds were always hysterical and used the ban hammer frequently. the difference between then and now is that there were more distinct islands of nerdary you could escape to, and they wouldn't blend together. also they generally had a "no outside opinions" rule that meant that forums were single subject. This allowed you to socialise with degenerates like emacs users in different contexts without descending into flame wars (mostly...)

nyeah 3mo ago
Exactly. I'm glad someone else remembers the pre-eternal-September internet. (For me mid to late 1980s.)
Mezzie 3mo ago
God, I miss off-topic rules and their enforcement...
- KaiserPro 3mo ago
  Off topic rule discussion are banned, you will be shadowbanned for 1 week.
bad_username 3mo ago
Old man here, it has never been perfect, but it used to be vastly better than today.
supertroop 3mo ago
Even early BBS message boards and usenet were foul. Where does OP think the original internet archetypes came from, Mr Beast?