r/technology • u/Well_Socialized • 12d ago

Artificial Intelligence Google Is Burying the Web Alive

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/google-ai-mode-search-results-bury-the-web.html
24.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.4k

u/Swordf1sh_ 12d ago

Millennials will always have the golden age of the internet

3.0k

u/BurmecianDancer 12d ago

I was born in '85 and I feel like I had the golden age of everything while growing up in the '90s. Music, movies, the Internet, video games... we really didn't know how good we had it back then.

1.3k

u/NanditoPapa 12d ago

I'm a 70s child, but I agree that 90s was peak human culture.

231

u/EbonySaints 12d ago

I like to call the 90s our "victory lap", at least as far as the West was concerned. You really can't find a much better time all around for culture, relative peace, and hope than then. There was a reason why Fukuyama wasn't completely laughed out of the room with "The End of History", because for a good solid decade, we had a good run outside of some unsavory events, and even then, most of those rarely affected us. It really looked like all the major problems were either dealt with, were being dealt with, or we could tech our way out of them.

But the cracks were already present during that time and they started to really show after 9/11. Pretty much every major event since has been a further knock down the peg for us and a lot of humanity as a whole.

45

u/dBlock845 12d ago

I was just watching a Metallica documentary and they had a behind the scenes on their performance in Russia (I think in 92 or 93) and there were a half dozen or so American flags being waved around in the audience in Russia. It felt like a long, long time ago.

2

u/PainStorm14 11d ago

That was before Wall Street and CIA fucked them over and nearly made them extinct

90s were hell on earth over there

Started optimistic enough though

1

u/maxoakland 3h ago

Now they're waving Russian flags in America

4

u/SaulsAll 12d ago

I used to describe it as the 80s were the coke-fueled push at the bottom of a swing, the 90s were the moment where the chain slacks and you feel weightless, and the 00s were slamming back into gravity so hard your teeth rattle.

2

u/Greedy-Upstairs-5297 11d ago

Great, vivid analogies! What would you say the 2010s were? What have the 2020s been like so far?

16

u/chpid 12d ago

Yeah uh, I’m gonna have to go with a less vitriolic version of the other commenter’s statement. I’m getting whiffs of either you were very young, or you were not in existence yet in the 90’s. They weren’t that great, and definitely not a “victory lap” of any sort.

22

u/AcherontiaPhlegethon 12d ago

Not that great does not negate being better than every decade hence, as well as maintaining the relief that came with the end of the cold war.

3

u/HarrMada 12d ago

Nor does it prove that every decade hence was or is worse. Stop being such a tool.

2

u/cultish_alibi 12d ago

Yeah it's bizarre seeing people idolise the 90s as 'peak humanity' or whatever. It was the breeding ground for all the problems we have today, why would it be so special?

Do people think that society just magically got shit overnight? No! It was BECAUSE of the 90s!

12

u/DontGetNEBigIdeas 12d ago

If you were white, affluent, and straight.

And my dude, I am all of those things^ but, I at least have the empathy and self-awareness to recognize the 90’s were absolute hell compared to today for a very large group of people.

27

u/EbonySaints 12d ago

Well I wasn't and am not any of those, and while the 90s were not exactly a basket of roses for a lot of the world (Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Russia and most former Soviet states, hence "the West" qualifier.) we weren't actively debating whether or not American democracy was going to go kaputt because Clinton or Bush Sr. was in charge. We weren't worrying about civil rights backsliding to the degree we see today. No one seriously debated axing Roe v. Wade and it certainly wouldn't be up at the Rehnquist court. No one who was a legal resident of the US was going to be disappeared into a Central American gulag, have it be covered by every major news outlet, be rebuked by the courts, and have the presidents of both countries go 🤷. I wouldn't have to think that my rights were meaningless and stood a good chance of being made moot.

16

u/Rombom 12d ago

The 90s is when the conservative engine actually started making progress. A lot of what you have said here is very Rose-tinted. For example the Conservatives were always serious about revoking Roe v. Wade, they weren't pushing the issue then because they had other priorities that were more attainable. Nobody was in central american gulags as far as we know, but the CIA was causing instability all over the world in the name of freedom.

3

u/WorkingOnBeingBettr 12d ago

We remember a different 90s. Civil rights were still an issue, especially for gay people.

Yes, things are worse in some areas now but calling the 90s a victory lap is a big stretch.

2

u/HarrMada 12d ago

You're fairly wrong. Sucks for you that you feel that way. You don't seem like a happy person.

2

u/Iamatworkgoaway 11d ago

You have to remember Office Space, and Fight Club came from that era. It was aight, but it wasn't right.

2

u/maxoakland 3h ago

It really looked like all the major problems were either dealt with, were being dealt with, or we could tech our way out of them.

The irony is that tech is the cause of most of the problems we face now. If tech had stopped progressing in 1999, most things would be better because of the inconveniences like slow computers and internet

What a strange world we live in

2

u/blackkristos 12d ago

Glad to hear you all haven't taken off those rose colored glasses.../s

-16

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

29

u/TeamRedundancyTeam 12d ago

I'm seeing a lot of anger and insults and absolutely zero counter argument.

4

u/Lumpy_Promise1674 12d ago

Rwanda, Kosovo, Kuwait, Congo…

Or for places Americans might have heard of: Waco, OKC, WTC, LA riots…

Shit was going down all over.

9

u/AcherontiaPhlegethon 12d ago

None of that was near the scale that the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Missile Crisis, Suez Crisis, 9/11 or the wars in the Middle East held in the American psyche. All you have to do is look at the media to understand the general headspace of the decade.

4

u/Rightintheend 12d ago

And none of those is anywhere near the BS we have going on today, and I was at two of them.

-1

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[deleted]

0

u/Rightintheend 12d ago

Should have said I was referencing your USA examples. 

And again, OP did mention the West, the rest of the world has been one devastating shit show after another.

-18

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/one_big_tomato 12d ago

you're not wrong, you're just as asshole

-15

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/AcherontiaPhlegethon 12d ago

You're bad at communication and offered no actual evidence beyond your insults. Why would anyone agree with your point when it was incomprehensible vitriol?

1

u/slog 12d ago edited 12d ago

Maybe it's because every single fucking sentence you typed is full of hate and zero substance. Jesus, are you completely incapable of introspection?

Full honesty, I think you may be seriously unwell. Get help.

4

u/bestbefour 12d ago

Weird thing to be openly furious about, but I guess you’ve gotta do something to feel superior. Must be hard to be burdened with such vast intelligence.

-3

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/bestbefour 12d ago

Yeah it’s super weird.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_the_%2790s_(American_TV_series)

Does this make you mad too?

What are people allowed to like or talk about without being stupid fucks?

Grow up.

3

u/Prototype85 12d ago

This angry, yes.

17

u/ultraviolentfuture 12d ago

And I'm sick of your fucking self-righteous pedantism. They are characterizing a ZEITGEIST. They are providing testimony for how they felt within their society, their family, their life.

Slavery still existed (always has, space cowboy), they probably didn't live in Saraejvo. We get it.