Motion to change it to "before Wikipedia", since that's not evil
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Wikipedia is way better for learning shit than google anyway.
Especially lately
Or just "the internet"
I seemed to have no issue back in the day finding what I needed. Just not as easy.
Honestly though, you could never be certain how accurate it was. You could be certain it was probably several years out of date.
Same as the internet then.
Well, lately
My parents got my sisters and ~~I~~me the digital Encyclopedia Britannica and purchased any available updates. Pretty fucking sweet, looking back on it.
Far more trustworthy than today. For books to be published they had to be reviewed and accepted by a publisher and then they were copy-edited for accuracy and consistency. Not like now where you can write any pile of crap you want (or have an AI generate it) and self-publish it to Amazon or whatever.
Yeah, this has nothing to do with the internet. It is just about lazy vs. not lazy. The exact same scenario happens today, despite the internet.
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Meanwhile in 2025:
- User: ChatGPT, tell me about $OBSCURE_TOPIC.
- ChatGPT: Sure, I will explain. You see, $CONFIDENT_EXPOSITION.
- User: Hmmm. That doesn’t feel quite right, but I’m too lazy too fact check it. That’ll do.
We're back to the confident misinformation that someone gave when asked about something they didn't know about. Only with more racism and less critical thinking/questioning
I think you mean
-User: Okay repeats this as if it's now fact because the computer said so
Most people don't seem to be even capable of questioning the shit answer the AI gives them
I remember they used to have door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. Thinking back on it, we had book stores back then, so people could have gotten encyclopedias from there, so how did encyclopedia salesmen make any sales??
At any rate, at some point, my parents had purchased a short set of encyclopedias. They weren't as good as the ones at the school or library, but it was something like 4-5 large books.
And despite what people think today, I don't think those encyclopedias were as good or as accurate as Wikipedia is today. Wikipedia is so nice. If you want to know more about a part that's not covered well in the article, you can just go look at the source.
My parents recently got rid of a set of encyclopedias that they'd had in the house since at least the '90s. I don't actually remember where they came from or exactly when they were suddenly there, but recently they got rid of them (donated to charity) and I was a little offended - not that I said as much - that they didn't offer them to me.
They weren't even recent. They were printed in the early '50s, but in my parents' (still) no-Internet house, those encyclopedias were a good pastime.
There are usually several sets of the same available on eBay, but 1) the good sets are a bit out of my price range, 2) I have internet here and 3) I'm already hoarding far too much stuff.
life in 2025 💥😵💫😵💀👻🔁
I definitely notice that wonder has died with a lot of people. Luckily I try to be a luddite and enjoy life without tech as well as with. Still have tons of books. Shut the internet off every so often.
I was watching an old movie last night and there were short references to odd things like one was a book from the 1890s.
When I saw the movie for the first time back in the 1980s I probably had no idea why the book was referenced and would have assumed it was made up as filler.
Now, armed with the internet, I can look it up and immediately understand that the script was still trash.
I know too many people who do the same thing despite having smartphones.