Assuming that the only thing that changes is that the Internet doesn’t exist; yeah. I would still have the same ideals. I didn’t learn history from the internet, I learned it from books. I didn’t learn empathy from the internet; it’s inherent to being human. I didn’t learn how to share or be kind from the internet; I learned that by being around people, having empathy, and from wholesome media like Sesame Street.
No. I think I would be several years less wise.
I think my beliefs would be similar but far less mainstream
Simply because I wouldn’t have met my wife, I suppose I wouldn’t have. Also, being on the more “conversational” parts of the chans as a late teen made me (perhaps surprisingly) very empathetic and more merciful with my judgement and actions, and helped create a bigger “barrier” of human understanding between the words I hear/read and my reaction to them (very helpful as a hyperactive, sensitive guy!). But most of my ideology’s “building blocks” come from very old and popular books, so maybe I would’ve developed into it/found my way to it, just a bit later. How could I know? 😅
Definitely. I only got easy internet in my pocket after school. Before that, I was raised by Sonic the Hedgehog and Captain Planet in my childhood years, and punk rock in my teenage years. And it was never a phase, mom.
I think I’d need to be born before 1755 to have a significant change to my religious or some political beliefs.
Im an Anarcho-Syndicalist but without the internet I would probrally be a hardcore ML/Stalinist. Additionally IRL I have seen nothing but hate and the worst of humanity, without the internet I would not even know that humanity is capable of good and I would not have any regard for human life. So I would probrally join a radical ML militia group and shoot up some government building.
Wow, thanks for sharing. I’m glad the internet allows us to hear things from others experiences!
No, I think I probably would have the same. All the internet did was make it easier to be exposed to more ideas, but I had been doing that in libraries from the time I was a teenager anyway.
I was on the left before I started reading / watching anything online. My positions didn’t change but it feels like all of politics shifted right. So I guess im further left now by comparison than I used to be.
I think the main difference for me is that the internet wrecked my trust in the mainstream media and people in power. I question things more now than I used to. Then again that could have happened naturally just by growing up too.
In middle school, before my family has access to the internet, I was taught about how other nations agreed to use the American dollar as a standard and the benefits of leaving the good standard for a fiat currency. I asked if they wasn’t a bad idea because it means if that one country had economic problems everyone would and was promptly told that that’s a dumb question because America can’t have economic problems.
I was raised agnostic and abused through school for not being Christian by people who worship a man that condemned that exact action.
I think I was always destined to feel the way I do.
If the internet didn’t exist we wouldn’t be in the same political situation we find ourselves. So it’s hard to say.
That being said, I’m old enough that the internet wasn’t quite a household, in-your-face thing until I was already legally an adult, and I was already leaning left by then thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh who made me realize how selfish, racist, and uneducated conservatives are and I didn’t want anything to do with that. Life’s too short to waste time being a self-serving piece of ignorant shit.
As far as religion I knew that was all bullshit well before I reached adulthood. Internet wouldn’t have affected that at all for me.
if internet didn’t exist, I’d probably be a religious person, who wouldn’t read any religious books but would have followed the customs. But with internet, and by interacting with different people, I became atheist.
If the internet didn’t exist I very likely wouldn’t be alive today, so I guess not
You mean like you wouldn’t have the job you have and thus can’t survive, or do you mean like… mental health peer support groups on the internet?
Online friends helped me get through puberty tbh. Irl my classmates were mostly bullies.
I’m still trying to figure where these mythical online friends are.
The secret ingredient is spending too much time online as an escape from reality
I’m ashamed to admit it, but even though I was a very empathetic kid, I would probably be a terrible person as an adult were it not for the internet. I lucked out by having a best friend who wasn’t scared to have a blunt, honest conversation with me about some of my shitty views, but it was like planting a…not even a seed bc it was such a drastic slap in the face, but like a tree. And it was the internet that helped me learn more and explore ideas and metaphorically care for and nurture and protect that tree and keep it growing. Without the internet, the tree would have died. I had people actively trying to cut the tree down and poison the roots at every turn.
Today, it’s a good tree. I’ve done a lot of growing as a person for the better, and the internet had a big hand in that.
Probably not. The internet and interacting with overseas individuals helped me rethink my opinions. But at this point it seems American tech oligarchs are dead set on making little bubbles of content algorithms where that benefit may disappear.
