Being Raised by the Internet

i can't speak for everyone, but as one of the people writing tutorials and faqs and helping people learn to do things with free software during the period miller is talking about, that is absolutely what i intended to do. and, from the number of people i knew who were excited to work on olpc, conectar igualdad, and huayra linux, i think it was actually a pretty common motivation

as a kid on bbses, fidonet, and the internet, i benefited to an unimaginable degree from other people's generosity in sharing their learning and their inventions (which is what software is). how could i not want to do the same?

underwritten by the nsf, the internet was a gift economy, like burning man: people giving away things of value to all comers because if you don't do that maybe it's because you can't. the good parts of it still are

The thing about pulling yourself up out of a bad situation is that you learn to be usually very deliberate in how you talk about it and what you talk about. People who've never really known anything but stability in their lives tend to make a lot of assumptions they're not equipped to recognize, so it's usually just better not to create the opportunity.

If you feel you've noticed an odd ellipticality in accounts like these, the vague sense of something going unsaid, it's this. If that's all you've noticed, better not to pry.

When someone says "I was raised by the internet", I immediately think: social media addiction, 4chan and other online obscenities. But this is completely based on my own personal experience.

My point here is not related to this lovely post at all, it's just that I always have associated "raised by the internet" with negative connotation.

So I'd like to add my gratitude to that of the OP to the wonderful mentors I've had over the years. I don't see eye-to-eye with all of them in 2024, but that in no way diminishes the tremendous debt of gratitude.

This is the kind of debt that's paid forward: when and where I can I try to pass some of this treasure along to younger hackers.

Thank you for a moving personal story @jimmyhmiller.

I hope "kids these days" have the same opportunity with their phones.

It's easier than ever to get started understanding and building software... but at the same time it seems easier than ever to get distracted by the modern internet.

20 years later, I recently tried to install Ubuntu on an old Intel MacBook Pro that I got somehow, and I realized that in 2024 you still can't install Linux on a laptop (at least, on laptop of a certain popular make) without jumping through hoops, due to, IIRC, lack of support for the particular Wifi chipset this computer uses.

Also, no project it's pointless. A Gopher/Gemini client in JimTCL with a basic cli interface a la cgo/gplaces? Go for it. A simple IRC client with a simple thread in the backgroup looking up for PING messages from the server ? The same. It wont be a killer application, but it wll be fun and you will learn a lot.

> But sometimes the employees there would give me the employee discount, I guess they realized I needed it.

that is such a heart-warming thing.

i would maybe argue the following point in the article:

> People whose work was not aimed at me in the slightest.

idk. i think that part of the point of being open is being open to possibilities. obviously no one can see the far-reaching consequences of their work when they set out to do it. but sometimes, people have hopes, i think, that their openness will create possibilities just like this article is describing.

> resources like w3schools,

i remember a long time back - maybe 15 years ago - i would occasionally read w3schools, and i had a coworker who would kind of turn up their nose at that site, they were kind of a snob about it. i knew enough then to realize it wasn't the best site for everything but out of insecurity after that person said that, i stopped reading it too. but it helped me, too. and i'm glad it helped you. i am starting to re-revise my opinion of that site.

I have loving parents, but grew up poor in a developing country, surrounded by people that only care about football and soap opera.

If it wasn’t the internet and forums like slashdot or Hackers News, I would probably fall to conformity and the nerd in me would had died out.

Instead, my computer hobby became a really profitable job and now I’m living in a first world country and working on some really interesting things.

The number one thing you can do for a youth is convince them that they are capable. Believe in them, and give them challenges that you know they can achieve. Give them time, empathy and encouragement.

The worst thing you can do for them is pity them, discourage them, explain that because they are black / women / poor / etc they are destined to a life of being in second place.

Glad you made it.

I can't help but feel like I lost something through doing that, though. It certainly didn't help my ADHD to teach my brain that it's possible to live life through only instant gratification. And it certainly didn't help to always be connected to so many people that now I can't seem to do anything alone.

I LOVE this story. Thank you for sharing it. It's stuff like this that makes me crave the Web 1.0 (and early 2.0) days. This makes me want to support Mastodon, and Vivaldi, and other federated and open systems. I'm as guilty as anyone, allowing social apps like twitter & Facebook to take me away from writing on my hand-rolled blog. I need to get that puppy back up and running. I need to share more. Be the change I want to see in the Internet & Web.

Information wants to be free. Hack the planet!

I can’t say that I did. I’d blame “being raised on the internet” as a consistent contributor to a lot of negatives in my life. Certainly, I picked up a lot of the rage from people in the IRC circles I ran with, and like a parrot exhibited it in my personal life. Beyond that, the general degradation of IRL social skills.

I can say my life took a significant upturn once I extricated myself from that community.

I’d say the thing is that the internet is filled with a lot of negative places, filled with people who literally can’t operate IRL. If as a kid you’re sucked into them, it can be detrimental.

So much has changed:

I read a post on a forum the other day, some kid asking questions about PyTorch. Rather than getting help, the poor soul was berated for not using “they/them”…

We moved away from building our communities on shared interests, towards building them based on shared sentiment, which has to be proven by behavior.

Unfortunately joining such a community is much more difficult.

"The twenty-first century baby is destined to be rocked and cradled by electricty, warmed and coddled by electricity, perhaps fathered and mothered by electricity. Probably the only thing he will left to do unaidad will be to make love."

Mrs. John Lane, The fortnightly 1905

At one point, I decided to monetize one of my open-source projects by creating a commercial fork. That’s when a group of people, none of whom had contributed to the project in any way, started a witch hunt over a few super trivial lines of code they accused me of “stealing” from contributors. Despite having the full support of all actual contributors, the backlash from these outsiders left me drained and disillusioned. So I stopped sharing my work and contributing to open source altogether—and honestly, I’m happier for it.

To all the Jimmy Millers who genuinely appreciate the goodwill of creators: be aware that there are people who will leech off it or even destroy it.