Everything You Needed To Know About the Internet In May, 1994

harrymcc writes "On Saturday, I picked up a copy of a book called How To Use the Internet at a flea market. It was published in May, 1994, and is a fascinating snapshot of the state of the Net at that time — when you had to explain to people that it wasn't a good idea to say 'thank you' when issuing commands to a machine, and the World Wide Web was an alternative to Gopher that warranted only four pages of coverage towards the end of the book. I selected some choice excerpts and wrote about them over at TIME.com."

Comments

Re:Poignant

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I think it better that freedom must entail being free to own stuff. That also means you are free to do what you want with said things, including commercial ventures.

A wise man once said that communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff. When you analyze an economy along its spectrum of communism on one end to socialism in the middle to capitalism (free markets) on the other end, the countries at the end of capitalism tend to be the wealthiest. Socialist countries with strong production potential (that is, being strong in one or more areas of the five factors of production) end up becoming wealthier when they break or end socialist policies.

Socialists like to believe that socialism results in everybody being middle class, but in reality it does not. It just results in everybody being poorer overall. The term "everybody equally miserable" applies. This is why most of the world experiences a brain drain, while the US experiences a brain gain (and yes, it still very much goes on to this day, that isn't just a post-WWII phenomenon.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

Try for example looking at a policy like that of Venezuela where it's illegal to fire people. You literally have the inalienable right to a job there - a Democrat's dream come true (at least, if FDR had a say in it.) Yet that country can't retain production worth shit because it's so risky to start a business there that you almost may as well not even try - better emigrate to some place that is less hostile. As soon as their oil runs out...they're royally screwed. (Though admittedly the same is true of the US government once it realizes that its pockets really aren't bottomless after all - but the private economy will continue to function at least.)