So true

thoughtpod · 6 months

One day, I will explain encyclopaedias to my kids. They will be genuinely confused.

ubna · 6 months

Remember back in the day before the google, you'd talk with your friends and bring up a topic of discussion and they would feed you a ton of bullshit.

But you had no idea they were incorrect, and no way to validate it, so you just accepted what they said because they were your friends and you trusted them.

And then years later you may repeat the information and find out your whole base of knowledge you walked around with in your head was skewed with common myths, misconceptions or flat out wrong information.

I'm mostly talking about pop-culture, interesting facts or figures and general blather you'd yap about at the pub.

Before google I had no idea Alanis Morissette went down on Joey Gladstone in a movie theatre which was referenced in her song "You Oughta Know".

sigaven · 6 months

Life before wikipedia*

SirSandGoblin · 6 months

incorrect. before google you would discuss you various opinions on what you thought might be the case. now you just look it up and instead have to think of something else to talk about.

Captain_English · 6 months

I prefer the penny arcade take

theknot_caligrl · 6 months

Source: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2010/02/27/life-before-google-comic/

JesterAzazel · 6 months

And in the early states of Google:

Dog: "I just thought of something I'd like to know more about."

Google: "Meh.. Just look at some porn.."

headzoo · 6 months

I have an ex-girlfriend that would call me Mr. Google, because I would of course hop on Google if I had a question about something, or was wondering about something. I never understood the negative connotation of the title (And she did mean it in a slightly negative way). I guess some people are perfectly fine thinking, "Hey, I wonder about ...? Eh, I guess the feeling will pass."

terari · 6 months

Life before Wikipedia

FTFY

jamfest · 6 months

TO THE LIBRARY!

Galactus52 · 6 months

This is why I feel like every decade before the internet was invented was cave man times.

mrsully1981 · 6 months

i know I'm totally addicted to goggling thing

RickRussellTX · 6 months

TO THE LIBRARY!

L7566 · 6 months

TO THE ENCYCLOPEDIAS!

adrianmonk · 6 months

While true, there was one thing that was nice about the pre-internet days: getting access to information was more social.

If you had a question about who starred in what movie, you'd think, "Oh, my friend Bob loves movies. I wonder if he knows." And you might call him up on the phone or make a point to ask him next time you saw him. Maybe he'd end up joining the discussion you were having with your other friend that led to the question in the first place. It was a good way to get to know people and learn about what they were interested in.

Nowadays, that conversation just won't happen, and instead you'll just be vaguely aware that Bob likes movies and not really sure of the details beyond that. Or not as much.

PeeSherman · 6 months

Not true at all. People would go to the fucking library and read these things called books if they were interested in something. These book things were generally written by people called "scholars" and are reputed to be a proficient base of knowledge on whatever subject they wrote that book on.

Nowadays, people read a title and maybe the first paragraph of some article on some website, validated only by the vox populi, and think that they are suddenly an expert on the subject.

McThick · 6 months

Jesus Christ I saw this on Digg waaaayyyyyy back in the day. I even saved the image on my super old itouch and probably still have it somewhere around here.

dont_press_ctrl-W · 6 months

My parents taught me how to use library cards and the Dewey system.

Tier4 · 6 months

Yeah because altavista didn't exist

Gathan · 6 months

This is completely untrue, if you wanted to know more about something you went to the library and read a book about it.

Old-Ben-Kenobi · 6 months

Sorry dude, this one has been around.

watership · 6 months

I wish this said "The internet". The idea that we associated a corporation with free knowledge bothers me.

PhreshWater · 6 months

Better go make your own internet then!

And kids, that's how the internet got started.

TheFavorite · 6 months

At least they had better focus back then :/

bigsaucybob · 6 months

Despite the fact that this has been around for a long time, this is hand down one of my favorite images on the internet.

When I try to explain to people why I am so infatuated with the power of the internet, this is the first thing I show them. We have the ability to learn about anything our minds can possibly think of, and I think a lot of people take this for granted.

The world is truly an amazing place.

eduardog3000 · 6 months

Dog: I just thought of something I'd like to know more about.

Rabbit: Ok then, let's go to the library.

Dog: Nah, I'd rather stay home and keep watching TV.

FTFY

MrTurkle · 6 months

Google + smart phone = never another bar room debate.

Grug16 · 6 months

Apparently we were all animals back then. I feel so civilized now.

yogirljojo · 6 months

Repost.

mvw2 · 6 months

Pre-internet, that's pretty much true. That's when you went to college and the library, but even then knowledge was slow and arduous, not to mention highly constrained in the sense that you learned a small scope of things. The internet created instant access for everything. The breadth and speed is simply ridiculous. The pace of learning and comprehension is almost unfathomable versus 20 years ago just because you can collect and piece together the data so rapidly.

bricardo · 6 months

On the other hand, discussions were much shorter.

I know all this facts on the subject, what say you?

Meh, you win. I never did care much for the nasal decoration of the apatani people.

sd42 · 6 months

Penny Arcade did this a while back: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/03/09

GreenSpleen6 · 6 months

pretty sure ive seen this same comic before, with normal people

Boomtowner · 6 months

Boomtown.

creamies · 6 months

Yahoo.

Or am I that old?

scientificcertainity · 6 months

Life after Google http://imgur.com/Dliih

thepiratecode · 6 months

Life before Google http://imgur.com/o9tRk

SvenHudson · 6 months

AskJeeves

Yahoo

that one with the dog

starlilyth · 6 months

so endlessly reposted.

pliskie · 6 months

What this was like is so hard to convey today.

But it's also hard to convey how before the internet it was possible to think about shit for a long, long time. Like a really long time, like years where a single idea would simmer in your mind and build up strange little concretions from your everyday experience and you'd never come across anything even remotely related to it because even vaguely similar ideas were trapped in books you didn't happen to read, and so the idea was yours alone and it grew in glorious, weird uniquitude like a tumor you kept as a pet, and which nobody else would understand or care about but which gave you some special distance from the rest of the world.

These days, you get an idea like that and google it and find that it was on somebody's tumblr and linked to reddit in 2008 and you sigh and refresh the home page.

Boobsnbutt · 6 months

who the hell keeps upvoting this repost?

77bc · 6 months

Oh, for fuck's sake... The library had people in it pre-internet. It wasnt like a prehistoric shit-era.

kono_hito_wa · 6 months

Altavista. Dejanews. Gopher. Archie.

lukeyspesh · 6 months

This is image is so old, it makes the old woman in Titanic's vagina look like a newly ripened tomato.

jeffha3 · 6 months

This is a repost.

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